Fayçal Tiaïba – Photographer & Architect

Photographer and architect, Fayçal Tiaïba explores the relationships between space, memory, and society through images. Born in Chambéry, with a degree in architecture and a DEA in Heritage and Urban Mutations from the Sorbonne, he develops a practice where photography becomes a tool for exploration and narration.

After his beginnings in Paris and his collaboration with Shigeru Ban on the Centre Pompidou-Metz, he moved to Marrakech in 2012 to join Studio KO, where he directed several major projects, including the Yves Saint Laurent Museum. This experience grounds his vision in a fine understanding of materials, volumes, and the relationship between architecture and emotion.

A curious traveler, Fayçal journeys through many cities in Asia, where the permanent transformation of urban spaces and the inhabitants’ adaptation strategies become a major source of inspiration for him. From these observations comes Homo Urbanicus, a photographic series that questions the human capacity to inhabit chaos and invent new forms of cohabitation with the built environment. His passion for labyrinths, figures of wandering and quest, guides his work: he approaches cities as mazes to traverse, to decipher, where each detour reveals a fragment of memory. His images invite one to get lost, to pause on the traces left by time, gestures, and inhabitants.

In 2022, he founded Laberinto (labyrinth in Spanish), a multidisciplinary studio that blends architecture, scenography, and visual research. He publishes catalogs and collaborates with cultural institutions (Yves Saint Laurent Museum, Venice Biennale, Institut Français de Marrakech), creating spaces and images as narratives where the spectator himself becomes a traveler. His recent projects such as Es Saadi: a Moroccan icon (2024), Guéliz Manifesto (2025), and Unbuilding (2025)  explore the memory of modern Moroccan heritage and the tensions between legacy and mutation.

A photographer of wandering and traces, Fayçal Tiaïba composes visual narratives that reveal the invisible layers of cities and question our relationship with time. His images do not provide answers: they open paths, invite one to enter the labyrinth and accept its complexity, in a dialogue between past, present, and future.