Dar El Bacha

Feast your eyes on the intricacies and divine geometry of Islamic architecture with its starry polygons, zelliges (Arabic tiles that adorn the flooring and walls), friezes with diamond-shaped florets, “lion claws,” throughout the interior of this palace-turned-museum. The cedar wood doors are engraved with a symbolic star of Morocco showing a dignified sense of pride for Moroccan royalty and culture having been the palace of the Pasha of Marrakech during the French protectorate colonial regime in the early 20th century.

The museum opened officially to the public in 2017 and has become a sacred space for showcasing the history of Islamic art and the international collection of archaeologist, Patty Cadby Birch, a true lover and philanthropist to Marrakech in the 1980s. Her contribution included 3000 antique objects, treasures from Mayan, Cretan, and Chinese civilizations from 5000 BC to present day.

In view is the entranceway to one of Dar El Bachata’s exquisite garden courtyards within. Nestled around the corner you’ll find the renowned Bacha Coffee Shop, which although established in 1910 during the palace’s construction, was closed for 6 decades and re-opened last year.

The columns of the shop are covered in canisters of the world’s finest varieties of Arabica coffee beans from the most prestigious coffee-producing countries around the globe. From the sheik décor of gold trimmings to its overall arabesque motifs, the coffee shop as well as the museum in its entirety, are the some of the finest architectural spectacles Morocco has to offer.