Jemaa el-Fnaa
— — a square that becomes a city after dark.
Not only on a wall.
“Jemaa el-Fnaa is the open square at the edge of the Marrakesh medina, the one the city has organised itself around for nine centuries. By day it holds orange-juice carts, water-sellers in red, henna painters under umbrellas. At dusk the food stalls roll in and the square fills with smoke and oud-players and the long benches of strangers eating side by side. The Koutoubia minaret rises just beyond the western edge.
Jemaa el-Fnaa, 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.
Jemaa el-Fnaa is the central public square of the old medina of Marrakesh, in central Morocco, just east of the Koutoubia Mosque whose minaret has marked the city since the late twelfth century. The square has been the social heart of Marrakesh since the founding of the city by the Almoravid dynasty in 1070, serving in turn as marketplace, place of public assembly, and an open-air theatre of storytellers, musicians, and acrobats. The surrounding medina was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1985.
The square's character changes twice a day. In the morning it is broad, sun-flooded, and slow, with water-sellers in red brass-belled robes, snake charmers near the centre, an open scatter of orange-juice carts. By late afternoon the food stalls are wheeled in, numbered one to a hundred or so, and by sunset the square is wood smoke, brochettes, harira soup, and oud-players gathered on the benches. The performers' tradition was inscribed by UNESCO in 2001 as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
The square is free to enter and is open at all hours. The classic vantage is from one of the rooftop café terraces along the western edge, which serve mint tea from late afternoon through the evening. Cash is preferred for street performers, and photographs are expected to be paid for. The walk west across the square reaches the Koutoubia minaret in about ten minutes; the souks of the medina open from the northern edge into the warren of streets behind.