From the Archives

Moroccan Interiors

Words by Deborah Needleman, Lisa Fine and Stephan Janson
Images from Miguel Flores-Vianna and Guido Taroni
image-one

Gordon Watson's home in Tangier, photographed by Miguel Flores-Vianna for Cabana Issue 14. 

The rich colors, textures and local craftsmanship of Morocco - from art and architecture, to tiles and fabrics - have long inspired the Cabana mood, and captured the hearts and minds of creatives from all over the world. This week, we're sharing three of our favorite Moroccan interiors from the pages of Cabana.

 

 
Chez Gordon Watson, Tangier

 

Antique dealer, Gordon Watson, spent several years restoring his airy masterpiece of a house in Tangier, writes Deborah Needleman, artfully managing to leave its historical integrity intact while imbuing its interior architecture with a modern sensibility. The rooms are all bright and open, giving the impression of a light breeze from the nearby sea passing through them.
 
Yet, by his own account, Watson is an obsessive collector. “It’s a mania,” he says. “It’s not natural how much I buy, and how much I need to buy.” And indeed, these large rooms boast thousands of marvelous objects, but remarkably, particularly for a collector, the interiors never seem cluttered or like a catalogued inventory of goods. Each object is carefully offset by a clarity in the space it occupies—what is known in art as negative space.
 
This is an extract from an article by Deborah Needleman, published in Cabana Magazine Issue 14.

 

Image from oltrepò pavese

Gordon Watson's home in Tangier, photographed by Miguel Flores-Vianna for Cabana Issue 14. 

Image from oltrepò pavese

Gordon Watson's home in Tangier, photographed by Miguel Flores-Vianna for Cabana Issue 14. 

Image from oltrepò pavese

Gordon Watson's home in Tangier, photographed by Miguel Flores-Vianna for Cabana Issue 14. 

Image from oltrepò pavese

Gordon Watson's home in Tangier, photographed by Miguel Flores-Vianna for Cabana Issue 14. 

Image from oltrepò pavese

Gordon Watson's home in Tangier, photographed by Miguel Flores-Vianna for Cabana Issue 14. 

 
 
Dar Zero, Tangier
 
 
The first time I went to Dar Zero, I felt like I had entered a setting straight out of the Arabian Nights, writes Lisa Fine in her book, Near & Far, Interiors I love. Crowning its rooftop overlooking Tangier was a Berber tent lined with divans covered in Moroccan rugs and a kaleidoscope of embroidered pillows.
 
Nomadic tribesmen in native costume performed acrobatics with flaming torches, while young Muslim boys danced to the rhythm of crashing cymbals and beating drums. Dar Zero’s owner, the legendary Parisian designer Charles Sevigny and Yves Vidal, the president of Knoll, created a surreal fantasy, blithely mixing’70s furniture with crafts from villages and markets around Morocco. Today’s owners, Jamie Creel and Marco Scarani, have channeled the same sensibility, paying tribute to both North African culture and their European roots.
 
This is an extract from Near & Far, Interiors I love, published in Cabana Magazine Issue 12.

 

image-one

Dar Zero, the home of Jamie Creel and Marco Scarani, photographed by Miguel Flores-Vianna for Vendome Press.

image-one

Dar Zero, the home of Jamie Creel and Marco Scarani, photographed by Miguel Flores-Vianna for Vendome Press. 

Recommended Reading: A Weekend in Martina's Marrakech. Cabana Editor-in-Chief Martina Mondadori shares insider's tips and go-to addresses for a magical weekend in Marrakech.
image-one

Dar Zero, the home of Jamie Creel and Marco Scarani, photographed by Miguel Flores-Vianna for Vendome Press. 

image-one

Dar Zero, the home of Jamie Creel and Marco Scarani, photographed by Miguel Flores-Vianna for Vendome Press. 

image-one

Dar Zero, the home of Jamie Creel and Marco Scarani, photographed by Miguel Flores-Vianna for Vendome Press. 

alternative text

Dar Zero, the home of Jamie Creel and Marco Scarani, photographed by Miguel Flores-Vianna for Vendome Press. 

 
 
Chez Umberto Pasti, Rohuna
 
Twenty years ago, the village of Rohuna was unknown to anyone who did not live there — no road access, not even located on maps — the place was hard to discover. But not for Umberto Pasti, writes Stephan Janson.
 
The Italian gardener and writer had been a resident of Tangier, up north, for a while, and his passion for wild flowers, along with his relentless quest to find rare species, took him around to the most remote corners of northern Morocco. For 10 years, he kept discovering beautiful sites, until one day, after a very long walk, he arrived at the seemingly sleeping village. A few mud houses with typical tin roofs, sheltered under a hill, in a desolated landscape, with hardly a soul to be seen.
 
This is an extract from an article by Stephan Janson, published in Cabana Magazine Issue 12.

 

image-one

Umberto Pasti's home in Rohuna, photographed by Guido Taroni for Cabana Magazine Issue 12. 

image-one

Umberto Pasti's home in Rohuna, photographed by Guido Taroni for Cabana Magazine Issue 12. 

image-one

Umberto Pasti's home in Rohuna, photographed by Guido Taroni for Cabana Magazine Issue 12. 

 

Shop Moroccan Style

Explore More

Discover striking photography and thoughtful prose from the world’s most atmospheric interiors #worldofcabana

×