All activities / Craft Skills (Bladesmithing, Pottery, Glass) / Fes
Craft Skills (Bladesmithing, Pottery, Glass) in FesMA
One of the world's great medieval cities — an ancient imperial capital whose 9th-century medina is a UNESCO World Heritage site and the largest urban car-free zone on earth. Fes is Morocco's spiritual and craft capital: zellige tilemakers, brass workers, leather tanners, and ceramicists still work in neighbourhood workshops using techniques unchanged for centuries.
Why here
The Fes medina is the world's largest urban car-free zone and the most intact medieval Islamic city on earth. Its craft quarter — the Ain Nokbi pottery cooperative, the zellige workshops, the brass souk — is not a heritage tourism construct; these are functioning industries employing thousands of artisans whose techniques are unchanged over centuries. Zellige, the mathematical mosaic tilework that covers every important building in Morocco, is made here by hand: individual chips cut from glazed terracotta and assembled into geometric patterns that take months to complete. The hands-on workshops at Fes Pottery Art are immersive and genuinely instructive — not souvenir-making.
Best months
The best season is September through May — Fes summers reach 38°C and the medina's narrow alleys retain heat. Spring and autumn are ideal: mild temperatures, low rainfall, and full workshop availability. Workshops run year-round but scale back slightly in the summer heat.
Getting there & around
Fes-Saïss Airport (FEZ) is 15km from the medina. Frequent direct flights from European hubs. The Ain Nokbi pottery village is 2km from Bab Bou Jeloud (the main medina gate); most workshops are within or just outside the medina walls. Riad accommodation inside the medina is the best base — it puts you within walking distance of every craft quarter.
Skill levels: beginner, intermediate
Schools & guides (2)
Ain Nokbi Pottery Cooperative
SchoolThe Ain Nokbi pottery village is a cooperative of Fassi ceramicists relocated outside the medina walls in the 1960s, now a free-admission cluster of workshops, apprentice training centres, and showrooms representing the full production chain of Fes traditional pottery. Visitors can observe and participate in wheel-throwing, raw clay preparation, painting with cobalt oxide, and the distinctive Fassi glaze firing process. Individual workshops within the cooperative accept visitors for hands-on sessions; guides can arrange specific artisan introductions.
Fes Pottery Art
SchoolA workshop and school based in Fes specialising in pottery and zellige mosaic tilework — the two defining craft traditions of the medina. Fes Pottery Art runs guided half-day and multi-day workshops where participants learn both disciplines: hand-building and decorating Fassi blue-and-white pottery, and cutting and assembling zellige tile fragments into geometric patterns. The instructors are local artisans trained within the medina tradition; sessions are conducted in English, French, and Arabic.