Hôtel Lincoln

This guide to Hotel Lincoln in Casablanca opens with a puzzle: how do you save a building by gutting almost everything inside it? It traces the hotel back to 1916, when French architect Hubert Bride raised it on Boulevard Mohammed V as Casablanca's protectorate-era planners remade the city with wide boulevards and Art Deco-meets-Moorish facades. You'll hear how decades of neglect and a 2009 storm brought down the right wing, and how the city's planning agency stepped in once the facade earned protected status. Look up at the carved balconies and geometric stonework overhead before you step inside.