Marrakech: Queen Of The Desert

The ancient city, with its luxurious riads and colourful gardens, paves the way for Africa’s design future

- Cosmo Samuel Brockway

Yves Saint Laurent famously said, “Marrakech introduced me to colour”. The fourth-largest city in Morocco, Marrakech sits as an ochre-red oasis deep in the Maghreb desert. History hums here like a hypnotic drumbeat in every stone. I first encountered the city during a hedonistic hen weekend, which is, perhaps, the perfect introduction. It was a whirl of kohl-eyed belly dancers with candle-covered headgear, moonlit courtyard dinners, and mornings spent recovering next to rooftop pools with the throb of the Medina below. Party note: The best mint in the world is grown here so the mojitos are scrumptious.

The last few years have seen an influx of creative minds and lotus-eating travellers chasing the scent of nowness that Marrakech holds with effortless style. This is a place, as long-time resident Vanessa Branson muses, with “a cultural future not just a medieval past”. In part thanks to the highly successful Marrakech Biennale, the city has positioned itself as a design hub to rival its southern continental sister, Cape Town. It is no surprise that the city has been crowned the very first African Capital of Culture for 2020.