Military Architecture in Tiznit–Morocco: Walls as a model

Abstract

Cities in the countries of the Maghreb and Andalusia preserved a huge heritage of forts, kasbahs, castles and walls that truly indicate the great role they played. Military fortifications were not just buildings that were called for by war events at that time only, but rather these facilities represented a lifestyle that affected the lives of societies and their facilities and in the formation of the city in general. Rulers sought to fortify cities to keep the entity of the country and establishing its authority and to protect the city and its urban development, hence various fortifications and military architecture like forts, castles, walls, towers and many others were built, so every city or village, whether in Morocco or Andalusia, almost had a wall surrounding its buildings to protect it, as well as a Kasbah, castle or fort that acted as a second line of defense for it. Which was applied to the city of Tiznit which had a great importance in the Alawite Age; so Sultan Hassan had fortified it and built its walls to be turned from a mere tiny village into a city and a center of the authority in the Souss region, in the south of Morocco. In this context, this article aims to highlight the city walls by checking out the date of building the walls, the reasons for their building, the used building materials. This article also aims for description and analysis of the walls and making plans and projections, horizontal and vertical sections and extracting its architectural elements to highlight its historical, architectural and cultural significances. Bearing in mind the culture of the era in which those walls were built, from political, social and economic conditions, also climatic and topographical conditions. The paper concludes with a recommendation to protect and to invest it as well, especially as they are the last walls built in Morocco.