Musée Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdallah

The museum is closed, and no reopening date has been published

We read the official sources again on 17 October 2026. The National Museums Foundation lists 22 museums in 11 Moroccan towns and cities, and none in Essaouira. The culture ministry’s ticket portal offers one site for the town, La Skala du Port. No official statement announces the closure, and none announces a reopening.

The first official trace of the project dates from October 2025. The national portal maroc.ma then described the museum’s restoration as “envisaged”, with no date and no budget. The date of the closure is published nowhere. Our advice: keep this museum out of your plans until a reopening is announced. The front on rue Laâlouj takes two minutes to look at, if you are passing.

The hours and prices still circulating online date from before the closure, and they differ from one site to the next. Neither the ministry nor the National Museums Foundation publishes any. Do not rely on them: no ticket is on sale today. A reopening will show first on the ministry’s website, mjcc.gov.ma, which published the agreement.

What has been decided: the agreement of 13 April 2026

A partnership agreement on the museum’s refit, equipment and management was signed in Rabat on 13 April 2026. It brings together Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid, Minister of Youth, Culture and Communication, and André Azoulay, founding president of the Association Essaouira-Mogador. The two other signatories are Tarik Ottmani, president of the Essaouira municipal council, and Mehdi Qotbi, president of the National Museums Foundation.

The ministry’s statement gives no budget, no schedule and no reopening date. It describes a museum meant to link the town’s historical memory with contemporary creation. The agreement also serves a wider aim, protecting Essaouira’s tangible and intangible heritage. It says nothing about the galleries or the works on show. Our advice: until an official schedule is published, no reopening date holds.

What sits behind the walls

The museum bears the name of the Alaouite sultan Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdallah, who reigned from 1757 to 1790. He founded Essaouira in the mid-18th century and meant it to be the kingdom’s main trading port.

No official source publishes an inventory of the collections or a history of the building. Nobody says where the objects are kept during the closure either. The lists of objects in circulation come from online encyclopaedias and travel guides, and they describe the museum as it was before the works. We will describe the galleries once the ministry or the National Museums Foundation presents them.

The museum stands on rue Laâlouj, in the medina, a minute’s walk from Bayt Dakira by our calculation. Neither the ministry nor the Foundation publishes a phone number for it. Official documents spell the name “Musée Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah”, the spelling to use when searching for ministry announcements.