Today I spent in the New City, full of cafes, cars, new construction..."are you interested in a condo in Marrakesh, monsieur?"...and people and tourists going about their lives. Among the visual icons of the city are the gardens bought, restored, and then donated to it by Yves St. Laurant, the French designer and his partner Pierre Berge. The gardens were first begun by Jacques Majorelle, a French artist who lived for many years in Marrakesh in the last century.
The gardens represent a kind of high concept French and Moroccan design interaction in the choice and placement of trees, plants, walkways, gezebos, fountains. The plants are rare and spectacular examples of palms, cactus, bougainvillea, bamboo, water lillies, the plants of palace gardens. But it is really in the design and interaction with cobalt blue pavilions that the experience of walking through the garden comes together. And imposes its own high toned tranquility. Whose pleasure was increased by the hour or two I spent in the cafe within the gardens, talking with some young German tourists escaping from winter and wet spring in Dusseldorf.
So there is this whole high end design scene, in gardens, in home decor, in architecture, in Marrakesh that seems far from the mountain village I stayed in last week but which is connected in the designs of pottery and simple house types. And perhaps in some way connected to the rush of traffic in the streets just beyond the high garden walls. But I did not see the connections as I tried to stay out of the way of careening taxis and wayward mopeds.
