Hassan Mosque and Mohammed V Mausoleum

Located in the North East of the city, on a small hill overlooking the estuary and the Bouregreg Valley, this site is the work of the Almohad caliph Yacoub El Mansour who launched, in 1184, the construction of what was to be the most vast mosque of the Mediterranean West, a project which was abandoned shortly before his death in 1199.The unfinished minaret and the succession of superimposed cylindrical stone pillars impose their presence and have been, for centuries, a powerful urban landmark, symbol of the city. Overlooking the Bouregreg estuary, the minaret provides the visual junction between the twin cities of Rabat and Salé. Since 1969, the Mohammed V mausoleum has added its magnificence to this site. This funeral dome directly inspired by the Marinid and Saadian dynastic necropolises is surmounted by a sumptuously decorated vault and capped on the outside by a pyramidal roof in green tiles. Through a gallery-balcony, visitors can access the funeral room and meditate on the tombs of King Mohammed V as well as his sons, Moulay Abdellah and King Hassan. This architectural masterpiece offers a brilliant synthesis of Moroccan decorative arts which draw their roots from a know-how developed and transmitted for centuries.