page_title: United Nations Square (Casablanca)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: United Nations Square (Casablanca) / History
caption_attribution_description: العربية: ساحة فرنسا (ساحة الأمم المتحدة الآن) الدار البيضاء 1917، صورة نشرت في مجلة فرنسا المغرب الشهرية بتاريخ 15 أغسطس 1917 English: Place de France (now United Nations Square) in Casablanca in 1917, image published in the monthly illustrated magazine France-Maroc, dated August 15, 1917
context_page_description: United Nations Square is a public square in the center of Casablanca, Morocco. It has been central in the history of Casablanca.
context_section_description: The area outside the walls of the old medina that is now United Nations Square, used to be the location of the Souq Kbir (سوق كبير), also referred to as le Grand Socco, before French colonization. In 1908, after the French bombardment and invasion of Casablanca, the French commander Charles Martial Joseph Dessigny ordered the construction of a clock tower in the area, which then took the name, Place de l'Horloge, "Square of the Clock". The square was then named Place de France, "Square of France," and the surrounding area was developed by a team of French architects and urban planners chosen by the French Résident général Hubert Lyautey and led by Henri Prost.
  The Magasins Paris-Maroc building (1914), constructed by Hippolyte Delaporte and Auguste Perret, was located at the southern end of Place de France. The Neo-Mauresque Hotel Excelsior, which remains today, was built in 1916.
  As the European ville nouvelle, or "new city," expended eastward of the square, the square evolved from a marketplace to a contact point between the European city and the Casablanca medina, which French colonists described as the "ville indigène."
  The clock tower was demolished in 1948, and the square became a bus station for a period of time in the midcentury. A clock tower imitating the original's design was constructed a short distance closer to the medina in 1993.
  The architect Jean-François Zevaco designed the Kora Ardia (كرة أرضية), "Globe," in 1975.
  The Casablanca Tramway transformed the square. Work started in 2009, and the first line was inaugurated December 12, 2012.
caption: Place de France around 1917, five years after the signing of the Treaty of Fes.
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