It was established in 1916 at the beginning of the French protectorate in Morocco under Resident-general Hubert Lyautey, on a design by architects Henri Prost and Joseph Marrast [fr].

Resident-general Hubert Lyautey, who was from Nancy, France, had that city's 18th-century Place Stanislas serve as inspiration for Prost's urban design.

[5] Buildings were erected around the square in the 1920s and 1930s, generally in the Moorish Revival architecture style championed by Henri Prost and his contemporaries.

During the colonial era, the square was punctuated by two major works of public sculpture: on the eastern end, the Monument aux Morts, officially named monument à la victoire et à la paix, sculpted by Paul Landowski and inaugurated by Resident-general Lyautey on 20 July 1924;[5] and further west in front of the courthouse, the equestrian statue of Hubert Lyautey by François Cogné, inaugurated in 1938.

In 2020 with the construction of the Grand Theater on the square's western end, the much-liked fountain was relocated to the other side of the avenue, close to the original position of the Lyautey statue.