Tangier is back in vogue among artists and the jet set. And Morocco's King invested in the port city - a bridge to Europe
Alfred Hackensberger
TANGER. Discerning guests have always been more expensive. For 12.5 million euros as the "Villa Mabrouka," the "house of happiness" for sale in the old city of Tangier. 8500 square meters of luxury, close to the Kasbah, the medieval castle, with terraced gardens, swimming pool, bath house and waterfall and a breathtaking 180-degree panoramic view over the Straits of Gibraltar.
It is the former estate of Yves Saint Laurent, French fashion designer who died in 2008. Immediately, he had twelve years ago during a short visit to the Moroccan port city on a rainy Winter afternoon purchased for 1.4 million €. A villa that can only afford the least, but one of the last of the homes had been few objects in this residential area of Tangier is still available.
The Stones smokes pot in the Café Hafa
"The good houses, which command a view of the Straits and the English peninsula, are difficult to find and if so, very, very expensive," says Francisco Corcuera, a Chilean painters, from the roof terrace overlooking the old city of Tangier. "Here in front, the house is a German photographer, and the back there is a French writer," says Francisco, pointing to the white sea of houses. "In recent years, more and more Europeans bought their dream property and prices increased immeasurably.
One of these foreigners are also Bernard-Henry Levy, the French best-selling philosopher. He allowed himself a little further on the cliffs of the Mediterranean, an extravagant villa for several million. Even from the toilet of one should have a look at the coast of Spain, says the waiter at the Café Hafa, in which even the Rolling Stones were smoking hashish and its adjacent to the Levy's house.
Tangier is back in fashion, what many would have thought possible. Travelers in the 80's and 90's, visited the port city of recall on neglected facades, the smell of garbage in the streets and harassed to an army of self-appointed guides who are strangers at every turn. Finding out about the legendary flair of the "International Zone" of the 40s and 50s, was looking for was disappointed.
the cinema was to see better. With the movie "Casablanca" (1942) Hollywood had already taken early in the city of Tangier, a monument. The port city was indeed a paradise for millionaires, smugglers, secret agents and bankers. "Every day was celebrated a big party somewhere," the American writer Paul Bowles liked to tell who was already living in the 40's in Tangiers and Morocco are the novel "The Sheltering Sky" international fame. In addition to Paul Bowles were also other artists such as Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Francis Bacon, Jean Genet and William S. Burroughs. Many of them were gay. For Tangier was not only an entertainment center for heterosexuals. In the entertainment district around the Socco Chico, there were plenty of establishments with male and female prostitutes of all ages and for any sexual preference. Moral purists Tanger was back then as sin.
After Moroccan independence in 1956 it went with the debauchery soon over, and Tangier was not until the late 60s, a jet-set. Like the splendor of this ancient Tage ausgesehen haben mag, wurde 1989 von Malcom Forbes noch einmal zelebriert. Zu seinem 70. Geburtstag ließ der millionenschwere Verleger 800 der reichsten und berühmtesten Persönlichkeiten der Welt nach Tanger einfliegen, um in seinem "Palais Mendoub" zu feiern. Es war ein letzter schillernder Farbtupfer für eine Stadt, die schon längst in die kulturelle und politische Bedeutungslosigkeit versunken war.
Hassan II., der ehemalige König von Marokko, hatte für Tanger wenig übrig. In den 37 Jahren seiner Regentschaft besuchte er die Stadt ein einziges Mal und ließ sie administrativ wie finanziell vernachlässigen. Das änderte sich erst mit seinem Tod 1999. Der neue Monarch, Mohammed VI., erkannte den Wert the geopolitical location as a gateway to Africa and bridge to Europe. With it began the transformation of Tangier and the restructuring of the North of Morocco.
Who knows Tangier earlier, will be surprised today. The drive from the new airport terminal in the town will no longer pass fallow fields, but for new homes, office towers and apartment complexes in the shell, all of which, as it says on large billboards, out-standing "and" deluxe "are.
who arrive by ferry from Spain, received the white gleaming facades of the Avenida Espana, also a newly created pedestrian zone. All over the city courts were reformed, Parks newly planted and established as rest areas. In the Bay of Tangier hotels and beach resorts emerge. At the periphery of the city housing complexes are being built, often for tens of thousands of residents. "You try the mismanagement of the past decades between center and periphery, to compensate," says Khalid Amine of the University of Tetouan. "They want to take the stress out of the center in which to build new urban centers around the city."
critique of the reshaping of public space is just the Europeans who live in Tangier. "The city lost its charm, its originality," complained a German couple has been living for four years in the port city. "Everything will be modernized," add both shaking their heads at. Khalid Amine, a professor of postcolonial studies, such an attitude is just an excuse to smile. "The West Europeans have their consumer culture behind to immerse themselves in Morocco in the most natural environment and emotional intensity," he says. "The Moroccans are going to modernity, as is exemplified by the West." There are attitudes that could not be more, but complementary in the choice of the living room very well. Europeans refer the houses of the old town, which the Moroccans are too old-fashioned and prefer to exchange it for an apartment in one of the new apartment building.
"Tangier is the interface to Europe, "said Khalid Amine." Whether you like it or not, the Modern is unstoppable. "However, we must be careful that in Morocco nothing out of balance, such as in Dubai or Kuwait. There was a hymn to the architecture Modernism or postmodernism and let the tradition completely ignored.
a new economic "interface" to Europe in July 2007, commissioned in the Mediterranean port TangerMed and the adjoining 500 square kilometer industrial zone. The automaker Renault there will a year from 2013 200 000 new car production -. if it allows the global crisis because Renaults original partner Nissan's participation in the new plant in the face of declining sales figures already withdrawn. The major project intended to become TangerMed total of 140 000 people given a new job.
planned tunnel under Gibraltar
Another interface, which is about much greater proportions, is the planned Gibraltar tunnel. He will link Europe with Africa and the Mediterranean through a railway line and a car shuttle. The shortest distance between the continents is 14 miles. "But the sea between Tangier and Tarifa is a thousand meters deep, which makes a tunnel there, completely impossible," said Giovanni Lombardi, a Swiss architect, whose office has prepared the feasibility study for the project. Why should a detour of 40 km below the Strait of Gibraltar to be dug. "First, an exploratory tunnel excavated," explains the architect, "and will hardly be ready before 2030". The cost of the mega project is estimated today at more than twelve billion €, with a date for the commissioning is still in the stars.
For the city of Tangier would mean the Gibraltar tunnel a leap into a brand new era. Whether then to a balance between modernity and tradition are taken into consideration as issues identified in Professor Khalid Amine? "Tangier is reinventing itself again and again," said Amine hopeful. And have demonstrated the city in its eventful history
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