The language used to describe it is no less flowery: think of it as "almost like a Noah's Ark, a place for all nature and animals to come together", said Tarik Oualalou, head of Paris architecture firm Oualalou + Choi, one of five teams in the design consortium.
Then there is the size. Once finished, the 115,000-capacity Grand Stade Hassan II near Casablanca could be the world's largest football stadium - and location for the final of the 2030 World Cup Morocco is co-hosting with Spain and Portugal.
But like all grand stadium projects, there are questions over its cost, funding and how it will be built.
It's unclear if private backing will supplement the funding from state coffers. There is also speculation about the possible involvement of China. For Morocco, still basking in the euphoria of being the first Arab or African team to be World Cup semi-finalists in 2022, hosting the final of the biggest sporting showpiece boosts its long-held dream of joining football's greats.
This story is from the October 04, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the October 04, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Catharsis Journalist and novelist Omar El Akkad castigates complacent liberal responses and western hypocrisy over the war in Gaza
'Where's the Palestinian Martin Luther King?\" Journalist and novelist Omar El Akkad has heard this question a lot lately, \"the implicit accusation [being] that certain people are incapable of responding to their mistreatment with grace, with patience, with love, and that this incapacity, not any external injustice, is responsible for the misery inflicted upon them\".
The US's former friends need to realise the old global order is over
A resonant phrase during Donald Trump's first administration was the advice to take him \"seriously, but not literally\".
Healthcare workers are protected under international law yet hundreds were detained during the war. Here, some of Gaza's most senior doctors speak out 'No rules': tortured, beaten and humiliated in Israeli detention
Dr Issam Abu Ajwa was in the middle of an emergency procedure at al-Ahli Arab hospital in central Gaza when soldiers came for him.
'Why aren't there Oscars or Baftas for what we do?'
From Matilda to Dear England, choreographer Ellen Kane's work has lit up show after show. It's time this art received proper recognition, she says
Print, clone, repeat
How do you follow an Oscar winner like Parasite? In Bong Joon-ho's latest film, a screwball sci-fi, Robert Pattinson keeps dying and being 'reborn'
Star chamber Pharoah's tomb is find of the century
It was when British archaeologist Dr Piers Litherland saw that the ceiling of the burial chamber was painted blue with yellow stars that he realised he had just discovered the first tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh to be found in more than a century.
Can an extinct tree be brought to life?
Abotanical discovery gives hope for resurrecting Rapa Nui's toromiro tree with 'experimental saplings'
a In London, potent mix of religion and rightwingers
The splendours of the Parthenon, Colosseum and Great Pyramid of Giza were in stark contrast to the utilitarian conference centre in London's docklands, but they were there to make a point.
Inflection point Bolsonaro faces 40 years in jail but holds out for Trump lifeline
At the height of Jair Bolsonaro's haywire presidency, Brazilian activists projected their deepest desire on to the Tower of London, where Guy Fawkes once languished after plotting to blow up parliament and assassinate the king.
Shaking off inertia, civic opposition to Trump's cuts gathers pace
On a bright winter's day last week, a group of protesters fanned out along a palm-tree-lined thoroughfare in the picturesque city of Palm Desert to demand that their Republican congressman stand up to Donald Trump and Elon Musk's slash-and-burn effort to reshape the US government.
