Agadir Medina Coco Polizzi guide

Useful places

No fake ratings, fake hours or unsupported exact addresses are added. Confirm seasonal timing locally before planning around markets or special openings.

What the Agadir Medina actually is

This is not the old town. Agadir’s original medina was destroyed by the earthquake of 29 February 1960, and what you visit today was built from 1992 on the other side of the city, at Bensergao. It was designed by Coco Polizzi, a master decorator of Sicilian origin who was born in Morocco.

Knowing that changes what you come to see. It is a working craft complex, not a preserved historic quarter, so the interest is in how it was built and what is being made inside it rather than in its age. Visitors who arrive expecting a centuries-old medina leave disappointed; visitors who come for the craft do not.

What you see inside

It was built with the materials and techniques it exists to show: stone, earth, carved wood, zellige tilework and tadelakt plaster. Courtyards, gardens, narrow lanes and an amphitheatre are laid out so the architecture reads as you walk it, which is why the visit is a walk rather than a viewing.

Craft workshops and shops sit alongside exhibition spaces, so you can usually watch a trade being worked rather than only buy the result. Allow one to two hours. From Taghazout it is a 45 to 65 minute drive, which makes it a planned half-day, and it pairs better with one other Agadir stop than it works alone.