Cylindrical dwellings with conical thatched roofs are widely spread in Africa, grouped round cattle kraals in the south or scattered in farms in the east. Beautiful examples of mud architecture can be found in the West African savannah. The Kassena of Burkino Faso hand-mould their huts like pottery, linking them with curving walls. Such compounds are clusters of similar one-roomed sleeping huts for the extended families, each wife having her own kitchen and granaries. Smooth-plastered houses may be boldly decorated in earth colours. Among many societies the decorations have religious significance, depicting deities or symbolizing values, as in the sacred Mbari shrines of the lbo, resplendent with sculptured figures. Further north in Nigeria, the Hausa display their status, wealth or devotion by enriching the facades of their houses with moulded and painted motifs that are part-Islamic, part-popular art in style.

The full significance of many mouldings and paintings is not evident: a crocodile could represent, say, a lineage or a mythical clan ancestor. Often there is no decoration to symbolize such beliefs, but they may be expressed instead in the arrangement of the compound. Numerous cultures are hierarchical: stratified by age, with male peer groups moving to eventual authority as elders and living together in communal houses. Kings like the Kabaka of Buganda had royal residences; the great palaces of the Yoruba chiefs were one-storeyed and situated close to the housing of the commoners, symbolic both of power and of their relation to their people.

Symbol systems are frequently expressed in architecture: few are more profound than that of the Dogon, the cliff-dwelling desert farmers of Mali. Although apparently random, the plan of their settlements is anthropomorphic, the men’s Council house symbolizing the head, the Clan houses representing the chest, and the altars signifying the genitals. Dwellings of other tribes, like those of the Fali of northern Cameroon, are no less symbolic of their beliefs.

The conversion of some African peoples to Islam led to the adoption of square plans under North African influence, and the building of mosques. Many of these mosques are of a type particular to sub-Saharan Africa, with moulded forms and bristling pinnacles. Conversion to Christianity meant the suppression of many animist beliefs and the building of churches, some made of corrugated iron despatched from Britain. There have been many pressures for change ? urban, industrial and commercial development have had their impact on African cities. But in spite of the noise, the pollution and the congestion, a lively popular art thrives on many buildings.

Traditional building exists in rural areas throughout Africa. The architecture is seldom monumental or deliberately imposing, but instead offers a valuable alternative: responsive to climate, built of local materials, appropriate to local economies, modest in scale, often beautiful in form and decoration, expressive of the values, and symbolic of the many and diverse cultures that create it.