On the edge of nothingness. Types and forms of Berber villages from the High Atlas to the Sahara

The paper is a deepening on the mud architecture in the South of Morocco. According to William J. R. Curtis, all the settlements, the kelaa, the agadir, the tighremt, the kasba and the ksar, have in common the fact of being part of a system of types that is closely interrelated in terms of their formal, functional and symbolic profile. The ksar, a rectangular agricultural village built in proximity of an oasis, is the privileged object of his attention. The intrinsic characteristics of the mud are at the base of their cyclical abandonment, in a continuous rebirth from the earth. This fragility does not present a problem as long as the building and typological tradition continues to fuel the “life of forms”, always different in their eternal identity to some types which we can define as original. Something, however, has been interrupted in this efficient and virtuous mechanism, ‘sustainable’, as we would say today, as a result of the epochal transformations which have affected Moroccan society, or rather societies, over the past two centuries. The loss of the perimeter walls marks a point of no return regarding the evolution of the ksar type, which perhaps signals the possibility of an ‘end’. In view of all of this, what can be done? Should we attempt to preserve this world of architectures/villages which seems almost ephemeral when compared to the long-time of history? Or should we accept their present condition, as well as their future, which in some respects seems to be sealed? Can their value (economic/tourism-related) coincide with their mere presence? Is it a material heritage that must be preserved, or rather an intangible heritage of knowledge and know-how?