Riad Jardin Secret

Riad Jardin Secret occupies seven bedrooms in the Dar el Bacha district, the building organized around the philosophy of its name: a garden, a secret, and the particular quality of found things. The furnishings come from local flea markets and Moroccan craftspeople rather than from interiors suppliers, an approach that produces rooms whose objects have prior lives and whose aesthetic values imperfection as texture rather than as a problem to be solved. There is no air conditioning and no television, absences that are intentional, creating a quality of silence within the rooms that the building's courtyard architecture deepens and that the pink rooftop terrace continues in a different register. An art residency programme active since 2016 brings artists from multiple disciplines to work within the building, often alongside local artisans; the works produced remain in the riad's spaces, giving the property a cultural dimension that accumulates over time. The programme connects to RIGOTANG, the gallery the owners founded in the Sidi Ghanem creative district, where work produced through the residencies is exhibited. Riad Jardin Secret is a house for people who want the experience of being inside an old city while remaining available for the kind of thought and conversation that the city's activity makes otherwise difficult, a combination that its residency programme and hospitality functions serve without contradiction.