(“Text as taken from the website”)
Abdelouahed Mountassir
An artist. Before becoming a DPLG architect in 1983, Abdelouahed Mountassir was a painter and participated in numerous exhibitions in Morocco and abroad. His meeting with Ricardo Porro, at the Lille School of Architecture, architect and architectural theoretician whose voice persisted in reminding us that the architect is a poet of space and that architecture, like any experience creative, requires the adventure of the imagination; will develop his feelings about the social and poetic character of the city. Mountassir seems to owe to this master, the conviction that on each architectural act, he must decline a personal bias, which will later give this unitary and united aspect to his achievements.
Back to Casablanca, he will occupy the functions of director and teacher at the training center for technical staff of the Ministry of the Interior. Three years later, he set up on his own. Through his firm and through the two others of which he was a member, namely Fusion and Confluences, major projects parade: Koréa, Nassim, Omar Ibn El Khattab, Greater Bay of Casablanca, Bouregreg Valley, Al Kora, National Library of Kingdom, etc.
Mountassir has won several architectural competitions: the one for the construction of the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco in 2001, the Mediterranean Pavilion for the 2010 universal exhibition, the CNSS for the visual identity of the company in 2000, the party for the overall development of the Bouregreg valley in 2002; from the Régie des Tabacs with Rachid Andaloussi, Mohammed Berrada and Raouf Arabani in 2002; Bank al Maghrib Tangier in 2005; the Tertiary Intermodal Center (CTI Tanger Med) with Confluences and the Jean Nouvel workshop in 2006; the national architectural competition for the Bab Al Bahr sequence with Confluences in 2007 and the competition for the construction of the premises of the RAM Academy, Casa Aero in 2008.
He participated in the development of the Master Plan of the Marina of Casablanca with Abdelmoula Imadeddine and the French firms Yves Lion and François Leclerc in 2007 and carried out the Technopolis project in Rabat with the firm Omar Alaoui in 2007.
With Abdelmoula Imadeddine, Rachid and Ibrahim-Réda Kerrakchou, Abdelouahed Mountassir created the “Altlantis” group which works on the development project of the Rabat cornice “Saphira” (2008). In 2008, Mountassir was elected architect of the year at the Congress of the Order of Architects in Marrakech on June 28, 2008. Currently, Mountassir has several projects on his table, in particular the Bab Al Bahr project in Rabat, which he is carrying out in collaboration with the English firm Norman Foster. He is also working on the development of the “Urba Pôle Gare d’Oujda” project and has just won the competition for the Central Headquarters of the Istiqlal Party and the second prize for the competition launched by Al Omrane Casablanca relating to the “Promotion of urban and architectural quality in social housing” (2010).
Practice Ideology
The Abdelouahed Mountassir firm is now one of the most important architectural firms in Morocco, with 30 years of experience, both in Morocco and abroad. The firm has the necessary resources to be actively involved in the various fields of intervention in architectural and urban planning practice. Aware that the role of architecture must expand and progress in today’s society, its activities today go far beyond the traditional practice of architecture by bringing together a multidisciplinary team capable of meeting the requirements of a constantly changing environment. The firm is headed by Abdelouahed Mountassir, the architect-urban planner. Each member of the team works in a specific sector and leads its projects from design to construction, leveraging.
The firm, therefore, stands out for its combination of experience and desire to innovate and is actively involved in architectural projects, urban studies, programming, feasibility studies, analysis and control. costs, interior architecture and landscaping. Abdelouahed Mountassir is distinguished by the versatile nature of his activities, having to his credit several achievements in the hotel, commercial, tourist, institutional, cultural, sports, and industrial sectors as well as in the housing and land development sectors. Abdelouahed Mountassir has often been called upon to work in consortium with other consultants on major projects, by assuming responsibility for carrying out the work as well as the leadership necessary for the effective coordination of the many consultants, specialists and other professionals involved. The nature of the missions carried out, combined with the role of a person in charge of the realization requires a perfect collaboration between the individuals, the stages of design merging with the production of the documents of construction or development.
