Natural Disaster, Cultural Heritage, and Transformation: The 2023 Al-Haouz Earthquake in Morocco

Abstract

From 14 to 26 October 2025, I participated in an International Cooperation Research (ICR) trip organized by the Japan Consortium for International Cooperation in Cultural Heritage (JCIC-H). The mission investigated the areas affected by the 2023 Al-Haouz Earthquake in Morocco, two years after the disaster. While ICR activities are held annually, the 2025 program introduced two new challenges: initiating collaborative research with scholars based outside Japan from the outset, and expanding the scope to include intangible cultural heritage. Because intangible heritage is often invisible and embedded in everyday life, it is difficult to observe during a short field visit. However, the post-disaster context made visible how daily practices are transformed, reinterpreted, and sometimes newly recognized as “heritage.” The earthquake thus offered an opportunity to examine how destruction accelerates both the decay and the reactivation of cultural practices.One example concerns housing reconstruction. OBLIK Architectes, a private-construction firm, has supported government-led restoration projects while preserving traditional building techniques as much as possible. Their approach strengthens seismic resistance while minimizing external intervention and drawing upon local residents’ knowledge and skills. Here, traditional techniques are not simply preserved as remnants of the past; they are mobilized as practical resources for rebuilding safer and more sustainable living environments. Intangible heritage, in this case, continues to function directly in everyday life. A second example emerged during our journey to Tinmel, a historic town of the Almohad period. Along the way, we encountered severe road damage caused by landslides. Although part of a modern engineering project, the structure incorporated manual stone-cutting and stone-laying techniques carried out by local stonemasons.  This scene demonstrated that traditional skills can reappear in unexpected contexts, integrated into contemporary infrastructure projects. Even within large-scale modern reconstruction, intangible heritage remains active and adaptive. In contrast, other forms of intangible heritage may lose their original functions and take on symbolic roles. Near Jemaa el-Fna Square in Marrakesh, whose cultural space is inscribed on the UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List, I encountered a man dressed as a traditional water carrier. Historically, such figures sold drinking water in the city and were easily recognized by their distinctive red costumes. Today, however, the water carrier survives mainly as a visual symbol for visitors. When I asked to take his photograph, offering a small tip in return, the interaction highlighted how certain practices shift from everyday necessity to staged representation. What was once functional has become communicative and touristic. These examples suggest that natural disasters do not simply destroy cultural heritage. Rather, they accelerate processes already inherent in culture: decay, adaptation, and transformation. Some practices regain practical value in reconstruction efforts, while others become symbols detached from their original contexts. The 2023 Al-Haouz Earthquake thus reveals cultural heritage not as a static legacy of the past, but as a dynamic field in which loss, creativity, and redefinition coexist.