Musée de Marrakech

The Musée de Marrakech occupies the Dar Menebhi Palace — a 19th-century palace on Place Ben Youssef that was restored by the Omar Benjelloun Foundation and opened as a museum in 1997. The palace itself is the primary exhibit — a central courtyard of breathtaking proportions with a massive brass lantern hanging from the ceiling, surrounded by rooms decorated with carved stucco, zellige, and painted wood that demonstrate the full vocabulary of Moroccan decorative arts.

The museum's art collection is secondary to the architecture — rotating exhibitions of Moroccan and international contemporary art, Berber craft, and historical displays share the palace's rooms without dominating them. The hammam in the palace's basement has been restored and is open for viewing, providing a rare opportunity to see the interior of a traditional palace hammam with its vaulted ceilings, star-shaped light openings, and the warming systems that heated the water and floors.

The museum's location on Place Ben Youssef, adjacent to the Medersa Ben Youssef and the Koubba Almoravid (the only surviving Almoravid building in Marrakech, an 11th-century ablution pavilion with an ornate dome), creates a triangle of historical architecture that covers 900 years of Marrakech's building tradition in a single square. The combined ticket for the museum, medersa, and Koubba is the best-value heritage experience in the medina.