Moroccan riad been bought by foreigners. This foreign interest has brought new challenges but the investment has helped with the restoration of the UNESCO site and has helped revive many of the handcrafts and artisan trades that were gradually being lost before this trend. Many of the restored riads in the districts of Mouassine and Lakssour offer the finest examples of restoration as historically these areas contained many of the grand palaces from Marrakech's Saadian period. Moroccan riad A riad () is a type of traditional Moroccan house or palace with an interior garden or courtyard. The word riad originates from the
Atrium (architecture) atrium. As the centrepiece of the house, the atrium was the most lavishly-furnished room. Also, it contained the little chapel to the ancestral spirits ("lararium"), the household safe ("arca") and sometimes a bust of the master of the house. The term was also used for a variety of spaces in public and religious buildings, mostly forms of arcaded courtyards, larger versions of the domestic spaces. Byzantine churches were often entered through such a space (as are many mosques, though the term atrium is not usually used to describe Islamic architecture). The 19th century brought the industrial revolution with great advances