Jardin Majorelle

Jardin Majorelle is a small but enchanting botanical garden tucked into Marrakech's Ville Nouvelle, instantly recognisable for the vivid cobalt blue (now known as "Majorelle Blue") that washes its art-deco villa, planters, and fountains. French Orientalist painter Jacques Majorelle began creating the garden in the 1920s, treating the landscape itself as a living canvas of bamboo groves, towering cacti, banana trees, bougainvillea, and reflecting pools.

After decades of neglect, the garden was rescued in 1980 by fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé, who restored it and made it their Marrakech home. Their stewardship turned a fading artist's project into one of the city's defining attractions. The villa now houses the Berber Museum, displaying jewellery, textiles, and artefacts from Morocco's Amazigh communities.

The garden is compact and can feel crowded at peak times, but its intimate paths reward slow wandering. Stands of bamboo filter the light, water trickles through tiled channels, and the painted structures pop against the greenery. It is as much an exercise in colour and composition as it is in horticulture.

Adjacent to the garden sits the Yves Saint Laurent Museum, a separate ticketed institution dedicated to the designer's work, making the surrounding block a natural half-day cultural stop away from the medina's intensity.

Jacques Majorelle, son of the celebrated Nancy furniture designer Louis Majorelle, settled in Marrakech in the early 1920s and bought the plot that would become his garden. Over nearly forty years he assembled plants from across the world and built the Cubist-influenced villa, patenting the bold blue that bears his name. He opened the garden to the public in 1947 to help fund its upkeep.

Following Majorelle's death in 1962, the garden changed hands and gradually deteriorated, at one point threatened by hotel development. Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, who had first visited Marrakech in 1966, purchased the property in 1980 and undertook a careful restoration, preserving Majorelle's vision while reviving the planting.

When Yves Saint Laurent died in 2008, his ashes were scattered in the garden, and a memorial stands among the roses. The Fondation Jardin Majorelle continues to manage the site, the Berber Museum, and the neighbouring Musée Yves Saint Laurent, channelling proceeds into cultural and educational work.