Madrasa Ben Youssef

A sixteenth-century Quranic college whose courtyard remains one of the finest examples of Moroccan decorative craft anywhere in the country.

Geometric zellige tilework rises from the floor, giving way to screens of carved stucco and then to cedarwood panels worked with an intricacy that rewards slow looking. The central pool reflects it all back in still water. Students once lived and studied in the small chambers above; today the building stands as a measure of how seriously Marrakech once took the art of learning.