Mausoleum of Mohammed V
Interesting facts
- About 400 Moroccan craftsmen worked for a decade to decorate the mausoleum, which covers roughly 1,500 square metres.
- The interior dome combines gilded Atlas cedar and painted mahogany, set with coloured glass above the tomb chamber.
- The white onyx used for the cenotaph of Mohammed V was brought from Pakistan.
- The exterior is clad in Italian white marble and crowned by a pyramidal roof of green tiles.
- The mausoleum stands on the site of an Almohad mosque planned at about 183 by 139 metres.
- The neighbouring Hassan Tower rises 44 metres but was meant to reach perhaps 80; ramps instead of stairs lead up inside it.
- The unfinished medieval mosque beside the tomb was damaged by the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755, which toppled much of its colonnade.
- Restoration of the Hassan Tower and its esplanade was carried out in the 1960s alongside the construction of the mausoleum.
- Since 2012 the mausoleum and the Hassan Tower have formed part of Rabat's UNESCO World Heritage site.
Why it is worth it
On a broad esplanade above the Bou Regreg river in Rabat, two very different monuments face each other across eight centuries. On one side rises the Hassan Tower, the stump of a colossal minaret begun in 1195 under the Almohad sultan Yaqub al-Mansur for a mosque that was never finished, with ranks of truncated columns still marking out its prayer hall. On the other stands the Mausoleum of Mohammed V, the king who led Morocco to independence, a gleaming white pavilion completed in 1971. The pairing is deliberate: the modern dynasty placed its founding shrine beside the most ambitious building project of Morocco's medieval past.
The mausoleum was designed by the Vietnamese architect Vo Toan and built between 1961, the year Mohammed V died, and 1971, when his remains were transferred here. Its structure is reinforced concrete, but the skin is white marble, and the forms are those of classical Moroccan architecture: horseshoe and polylobed arches, bands of carved sebka lattice. The building is a showcase of traditional crafts executed at royal scale, and the effect is of a jewel casket set on a plinth.
Inside, visitors look down from a gallery onto the tomb chamber. Walls are sheathed in zellij, the geometric tile mosaic of Morocco, rising to a dome of worked wood and coloured glass; below lies the king's cenotaph, carved from a single block of white onyx. Two more royal tombs share the chamber: that of his son, King Hassan II, who died in 1999, and of Prince Moulay Abdallah, buried here in 1983. A small mosque and a museum pavilion complete the complex. At the gates, royal guards in ceremonial uniform, some mounted on horseback, stand watch, adding a note of living ceremony to a place that is both a family tomb and a national shrine.
Getting there
The mausoleum stands about 1.4 km from central Rabat, on the esplanade of the Hassan Tower overlooking the river toward Salé. The nearest airport is Rabat-Salé Airport (RBA), about 7 km away. The complex is open to visitors of all faiths; modest dress is expected.
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From the encyclopaedia
The Mausoleum of Mohammed V is a mausoleum located across from the Hassan Tower in Rabat, Morocco. It contains the tombs of the Moroccan king Mohammed V and his two sons, late King Hassan II and Prince Abdallah.
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