Marrakech’s Berber Museum Renamed to Honor Founder Pierre Bergé

The decision to have the name of its founder on the Berber Museum is based on his commitment to culture. "Since my arrival in Marrakech in 1966, I have been fascinated by Berber culture and art. Over the years, I have collected, admired this art that extends across several countries," Pierre Bergé had testified, whose love for culture in general and this rich heritage is no longer to be proven.

Nurtured by various influences, including African, Mediterranean, Eastern, and European, Berber culture represents, according to a press release, a "Common heritage to all Moroccans. It constitutes a fundamental component of the national identity as His Majesty King Mohammed VI has enshrined it in the Constitution in 2011."

It was in this same year that Pierre Bergé founded the Berber Museum by bequeathing his entire collection of over 600 objects. A donation that presents an overview of the creativity of Berber arts - textiles, jewelry, carpets, pottery, etc. - and testifies to the diversity of this living culture. The success was immediate. Indeed, since its opening, the museum has been visited by more than two million people, including Moroccans who seize this opportunity to deepen their knowledge of Amazigh culture, and for foreigners, to discover this rich heritage.

In 2016, Pierre Bergé was decorated by the King with the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Alaouite Wissam for his eminent services rendered to Morocco. The change of the museum’s name to "Pierre Bergé Museum of Berber Arts" also comes to pay tribute to this patron and lover of culture who died on September 8, 2017 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.