El Jadida
— — the cistern that holds a square of sky.
Not only on a wall.
“El Jadida sits on the Atlantic coast about 90 kilometres south of Casablanca, behind walls the Portuguese built in 1514 and called Mazagan. Inside the ramparts there is a small underground room, the cistern, with twenty-five stone pillars holding a vaulted ceiling and a few centimetres of water that mirror the whole structure top to bottom. A single oculus lets one beam of light fall, and the room holds it. The fishing port outside the walls is loud and full of paint and ice. The cistern is quiet. — from the studio
El Jadida, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
El Jadida is a port city of about 195,000 people on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, in the Casablanca-Settat region, roughly 90 kilometres southwest of Casablanca. The walled Portuguese-built citadel inside the modern town was inscribed by UNESCO in 2004 as the Portuguese City of Mazagan, recognised as one of the earliest surviving examples of a Renaissance-style military fortification carried by Portuguese expansion to the Atlantic coast of North Africa. The Portuguese held the town from 1502 until they withdrew in 1769.
The Cistern of Mazagan is a square underground chamber of about 34 by 34 metres, built around 1514, originally used as an armoury and later converted to a rainwater cistern. Twenty-five stone columns in a five-by-five grid support Gothic ribbed vaults overhead. A single circular oculus in the centre of the roof admits one beam of daylight, which reflects off a permanent thin film of water and doubles the architecture onto its own ceiling. Orson Welles filmed the riot scene of his 1952 Othello in this room, and the cistern has since drawn a steady current of film and photography.
El Jadida is reached by ONCF train or shared taxi from Casablanca in about an hour and a half. The Cité Portugaise lies on the seaward side of the modern town; the cistern entrance is a short walk inside the main gate, near the Church of the Assumption. The cistern is open daily, with a modest entrance fee. The reflection on the water is strongest near midday, when the oculus sits closest to vertical. The walled ramparts above carry a continuous walk with a clear view of the working fishing harbour to the north.