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Architecture of Sub-Saharan Africa

Archilogy — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:13:15 +0000

Unlike many other parts of the world, Africa has comparatively little surviving historical architecture. There are exceptions, like the extraordinary Coptic churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia, which were hewn out of the living rock by 13th-century African Christians. Early travellers from Europe gave accounts of African cities, including a 16th-century description of the splendid palace of Benin (Nigeria) with bronze birds on its steep roofs and plaques decorating its entrance. But a number of towns were destroyed by Europeans during the “struggle for Africa” in the late 19th century. One remarkable ruin is the walled “acropolis” of Great Zimbabwe, built in the 15th century. In plan it is not dissimilar to a large, traditional mud-walled compound but it owes its survival to the use of stone in its construction. Generally there is little stone building on the African continent, and the use of less permanent materials means that most examples of African traditional architecture have been built in this century.

It is evident that traditional African architecture is shaped by many inter-related factors: the climate, the physical environment, the material resources available, and the social systems and economies of its 5000 peoples. So, for example, the nomads who live in the desert, with its occasional oases and thin vegetation, have to move frequently with their flocks or camels. As permanent dwellings are inappropriate, many nomads live in tents, varying in profile, size and structure. The membranes are made of woven cloths, grass mats or skins, sewn together and stretched over pole frames, like the tents of the Tuareg tribes of the central Sahara. When the group moves to fresh, if sparse, grazing, the tents are dismantled and carried by the animals.

Not all nomads use tents: in the southern desert of the Kalahari, the San (Bushmen) live by hunting animals and gathering berries and roots, their dwellings being temporary brush shelters. There are hunter-gatherer peoples in the forests, like the Mbuti (pygmies) of Zaire, whose leaf-covered domes last for several months. Semi- sedentary cattle-herding peoples like the Maasai of Kenya build manyattas ? circular settlements of dung-plastered huts. Some of the peoples of the African grasslands build large, hooded Council houses, covered with trimmed thatch. Others build with grass: the Zulu indlu is a domed dwelling like a finely made inverted basket.

Forest-dwelling farmers in Central and West Africa have the timber to make more substantial houses. Timber-framed roofs have rafters and purlins lashed in place with bark strips and then thatched; side walls of poles are packed with mud, their surfaces mud-plastered. Rectangular in plan, many have pitched or hipped roofs; so do the houses built by the Asante (Ghana) with layers of packed red earth. These dry rock-hard, though the walls are subject to erosion in the tropical rains. The extremes of climate often cause deterioration, but although many of the structures are impermanent, the building traditions endure, meeting the needs of their occupants.

Decoration and meaning in African indigenous architecture

Archilogy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:33:28 +0000

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.