Le Jardin Secret

Overview

Le Jardin Secret sits behind high walls in the Mouassine district of the medina: two riads, each built around a large garden, now open to visitors. Its story starts in the second half of the sixteenth century, when the Saadian sultan Moulay Abd-Allah began urbanising the quarter. The palace that stood here was destroyed toward the end of the seventeenth century, and around the middle of the nineteenth a new one was built on the old Saadian plan. The gardens, designed by the landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith, come in two kinds. The exotic garden gathers plants from all over the world, in the experimental spirit of Marrakech's great gardens. The Islamic garden follows its likely nineteenth century layout, in four parts, a plan made for irrigation that recalls the Quran's description of paradise. The house had its own water from a khettara, a rare privilege and a sign of wealth, and the original pipes, reservoirs and canals are still visible. Porticoes with pointed arches lead into the pavilions. The decoration: tadelakt over brick and rammed earth, zellij from Fez, inlaid cedar and hand carved stucco. The tower rises as high as some of the city's minarets and looks over the medina to the Atlas.