In Morocco . arcaded courtwith a fountain, on one side the long narrow pray-ing-chapel with the mihrab, on the other a class-room with the same ground-plan; and on the nextstory a series of cell-like rooms for the students,opening on carved cedar-wood balconies. Thiscloistered plan, where all the effect is reserved forthe interior fagades about the court, lends itself toa deUcacy of detail that would be inappropriate ona street-front; and the medersas of Fez are end-lessly varied in their fanciful but never exuberantdecoration. M. Tranchant de Lunel has pointed out (inFrance-Maroc) with what a
In Morocco . arcaded courtwith a fountain, on one side the long narrow pray-ing-chapel with the mihrab, on the other a class-room with the same ground-plan; and on the nextstory a series of cell-like rooms for the students,opening on carved cedar-wood balconies. Thiscloistered plan, where all the effect is reserved forthe interior fagades about the court, lends itself toa deUcacy of detail that would be inappropriate ona street-front; and the medersas of Fez are end-lessly varied in their fanciful but never exuberantdecoration. M. Tranchant de Lunel has pointed out (inFrance-Maroc) with what a sure sense of suit-ability the Merinid architects adapted this decora-tion to the uses of the buildings. On the lowerfloor, under the cloister, is a revetement of marble(often alabaster) or of the almost indestructibleceramic mosaic* On the floor above, massivecedar-wood corbels ending in monsters of almostGothic inspiration support the fretted balconies; * These Moroccan mosaics are called zelUjes. [ 274 ]. J-raiii (J iilKiiugrtiiih Jrom Uir >irrirf lieaux-Arts an ilarnr Sale—interior court of tlif Mcdcrsa NOTE ON MOROCCAN ARCHITECTURE and above rise stucco interlacings, placed too highup to be injured by man, and guarded from theweather by projecting eaves. The private house, whether merchants dwelHngor chieftains palace, is laid out on the same lines,with the addition of the reserved quarters forwomen; and what remains in Spain and Sicily ofMoorish secular architecture shows that, in theMerinid period, the play of ornament must havebeen—as was natural—even greater than in themedersas. The Arab chroniclers paint pictures of Merinidpalaces, such as the House of the Favourite atCordova, which the soberer modern imaginationrefused to accept until the medersas of Fez wererevealed, and the old decorative tradition wasshown in the eighteenth century Moroccan descriptions given of the palaces of Fez and ofMarrakech in the preceding articles, which make it
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookpublishernewyo, bookyear1920
