Immeuble Bessonneau à Casablanca - Hypothèse de restitution de l’état originel

Supervisors: David Lo Buglio & Denis Derycke
Submitted on January 2015

Abstract:
In Casablanca, architectural heritage from the colonial period was long neglected and even destroyed after Morocco gained independence in 1956. At that time, there was a desire to erase the memory of the colonizer and reclaim the Arab-Muslim cultural identity, leading to the destruction of certain monuments. However, a subsequent effort emerged to protect this heritage. The Bessonneau building, commonly known as the Hotel Lincoln, is the first building in Casablanca whose facades were listed in the inventory of historical monuments in the Kingdom of Morocco. The Bessonneau suffered significant alterations due to various incidents (sometimes intentionally caused to accelerate degradation), ultimately resulting in partial collapse of the building in 2009.

In collaboration with the Casamemoire association, the goal of this work is to restore the original state of this architectural heritage through a 3D model, as well as create digital archives and documentation. Leveraging the digitization techniques of the AlICe laboratory, this restoration primarily relies on digital surveys conducted on the building using lasergrammetry and photogrammetry. The resulting model is not a simple reproduction of the surveyed object; rather, it represents an analytical approach based on informational modeling of different states of the structure.