Majorelle Garden… a rare masterpiece

The Majorelle Garden is a rare masterpiece and an essential tourist and cultural space in the city of Marrakech. It is as special as the city’s famous squares and gardens, despite its recent history.

This garden was originally a vast villa operated as a residence by the French painter Jacques Majorelle, who gave it an Islamic and Andalusian style. Falling in love with Marrakech and its medina, he decided to settle there many years ago. In 1931, he paid particular attention to the garden of this villa, which he endowed with all kinds of plants, trees and flowers, brought from different countries during his travels around the world, from Cactus to jasmine, including bamboo and other rare species, to make it a unique painting with its scents and colors, especially after introducing the color blue to the walls, thus creating interesting chromatic nuances that blend wonderfully with nature. This alchemy of scents and colors was described by the French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent who, in turn, fell under the spell of this garden as soon as he discovered it during a stay in Marrakech.

Thus, Yves Saint Laurent will have the merit of encouraging the perpetuation of this garden, which has undergone a period of decay after the death of its owner. And after almost being sold to real estate developers to turn it into grotesque concrete blocks, Yves Saint Laurent bought it and restored it, with his friend Pierre Bergé, another lover of the city. That was in 1980.

The garden, which is visited today by about 600,000 people a year, includes an Amazigh art museum and about 300 species of trees and plants that captivate tourists and visitors.

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