Pise (Or “Come Into My Kasbah”)

 

It often seems when traveling that we must carefully frame photos to capture occasional ancient or traditional architecture or attire. In Morocco, that care is not required. In all towns and villages other than the largest cities, the majority of structures are made of “pise”, reddish-brown mud and straw blocks with a skim coat of pise (sort of like plaster) over the top. Many of the structures, old and new, are in the architectural form of a “ksar” or  “Kasbah”. These Kasbahs are sometimes fortified, walled villages, like Ait BenHaddeau, but most often are the fortified residence of a single, extended family.

One book fairly accurately described this building material as “transitory”, in that water causes it to disintegrate. An important note is that water in the form of rain is a fairly rare occurrence here, and as a result, these structures, with a little ongoing maintenance, can last for hundreds of years. We’ve read that during ancient times people laying siege to a Kasbah would sometimes divert a nearby stream to the base of the Kasbah and literally wash away the foundation, causing the structure to collapse.