Marrakesh
— — the colour the late sun leaves on the wall.
Not only on a wall.
“The red city at the foot of the High Atlas. The medina walls are the colour of the earth they were built from, a warm pisé that turns rose at sunset and ember by the time the call to prayer crosses the rooftops. Jemaa el-Fnaa fills slowly as the heat lifts, smoke from the food stalls catching the last light. Beyond the souks, the snow line of the Atlas shows on clear winter mornings, the two distances of the city in one frame. from the studio
Marrakesh, 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.
Marrakesh sits in central Morocco at about 466 metres elevation, on a plain between the Jbilet hills to the north and the High Atlas Mountains to the south. Founded in 1070 by the Almoravid dynasty, it was one of the imperial capitals and remains the country's fourth-largest city, with a population over a million. The walled medina, ramparts of red pisé stretching some 19 kilometres, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1985. The Koutoubia Mosque, completed in 1199, anchors the western edge of the old city and remains its tallest landmark.
The signature red is not paint. The walls of the medina and most of the older city are built from pisé, a rammed-earth construction using the local iron-rich clay of the Haouz plain. A municipal ordinance has long required that new buildings in the central districts match this colour, so the palette holds even in modern construction. The shade ranges from a dusty rose under midday glare to a deep ember just before sunset, when the western light catches the western walls of Jemaa el-Fnaa and the minaret of the Koutoubia.
The medina is open at all hours; the souks operate roughly from mid-morning through evening, with Jemaa el-Fnaa coming alive after sunset when the food stalls open. The Jardin Majorelle, restored by Yves Saint Laurent, opens daily and is best visited early. The high season runs October through April, when daytime temperatures sit around 20°C; July and August routinely exceed 38°C. Menara Airport, four kilometres southwest, connects directly to most European capitals.