African architecture ebcid:com.britannica.oec2.identifier.ArticleIdentifier?tocId=9384737&ar...

African architecture
Encyclopdia Britannica Article

Introduction
the architecture of Africa, particularly of sub-Saharan Africa. In North Africa, where
Islam and Christianity had a significant influence, architecture predominates among
the visual arts. Included here are the magnificent mosques built of mud in Djenn and
Mopti in Mali, the rock-hewn churches of Ethiopia, and the Islamic monuments of
coastal eastern Africa. Discussions of architecture in sub-Saharan Africa focus chiefly
on housing in villages, rural mosques, and the mlange of colonial and modern
influences that characterize urban areas.

This article addresses the range of architectural styles in sub-Saharan Africa. For a
technical exploration of architecture as an art and as a technique, see architecture.
For a discussion of the visual art of Africa, see African art. For a discussion of ancient
Egyptian architecture, see Egyptian art and architecture. For a treatment of the later
architecture of Egypt and other parts of North Africa, which were heavily influenced
by Islam, see Islamic arts: Visual arts.

Of the buildings of the continent south of the Sahara, the ruins of

Great Zimbabwe are perhaps the best known. This complex of
stone enclosures, particularly those popularly termed the
elliptical building and the acropolis, was built on sites established
as early as the 3rd century CE. The first Shona phase of building
A portion of the was probably begun six centuries later and continued until the
Great Zimbabwe
complex, near 15th century, when, under the Mwene Matapa, or Ravager of the
Masvingo, Lands, Zimbabwe reached its peak.
south-central
Zimbabwe.

The architectural forms of Great Zimbabwe, however, are

atypical of many African architectural styles. The site has a
massive defensive wall and, included in the elliptical building, a
conical tower of unknown purpose. It is also monumental in scale,
having functioned as a royal citadel, and it has become a national
Aerial view of the symbol. While some of these features can be found in other
ruins of Great
Zimbabwe. examples of African building, they are rare, and the emphasis on
Zimbabwe has overshadowed the great diversity of materials,
forms, purposes, and uses characteristic of architecture
elsewhere in Africa.

The Arab and Amazigh (Berber) architecture of Egypt and North Africa has had an
impact on African architecture south of the Sahara. Similarly, the states of the
Persian Gulf and the Red Sea have influenced architectural types in Sudan, the Horn
of Africa, and the coasts of Kenya and Tanzania, where the Muslim presence has also
been strong. These influences are discussed below (see below Influences of Islam and
Christianity).

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General characteristics
African architecture reflects the interaction of environmental factorssuch as natural
resources, climate, and vegetationwith the economies and population densities of
the continent's various regions. As stone is the most durable of building materials,
some ancient stone structures survive, while other materials have succumbed to rain,
rot, or termites. Stone-walled kraals from early Sotho and Tswana settlements (South
Africa and Botswana) and stone-lined pit circles with sunken kraals for pygmy cattle
(Zimbabwe) have been the subject of archaeological study. Stone-corbeled shelters
and circular huts with thatched roofs were also recorded in the 20th century among
the southern Sotho. Rectangular and circular stone farmhouses, unusual in being two
stories, have been built by the Tigre of Eritrea and Sudan for centuries, while in Niger
some Tuareg build square houses in stone.

Such exceptions apart, the overwhelming majority of Africa's thousands of peoples in

rural areas build in grasses, wood, and clay. Because of the impermanence of many of
these materials, existing buildings, though based on forms many centuries old, are of
relatively recent date. Where vegetation is largely confined to thin grazing cover,
peoples are often nomadic, using tents of animal skins and woven hair for shelter. In
the veld and less-forested areas, grasses are used as building material as well, being
employed widely for thatch and mat roof coverings. Hardwoods in forest regions are
used for building, as are bamboo and raffia palm. Earth and clay are also major
building resources. Characteristic soils of Africa include semidesert chestnut earths
and laterites (reddish residuals of rock decay), which are often low in fertility but
easily compacted. Earth-sheltered houses are made by the Iraqw of Tanzania, and a
number of peoples in Mali and Burkina Faso have partly sunken dwellings.

Ecological and demographic factors play an important part in building design. Soil
erosion and overgrazing, as well as pressure on land as a result of population growth,
have also contributed to migratory movements. The growth of urban centres led to
wide-scale migration in the 20th and 21st centuries, and these migrations have had a
profound effect on the dispersal of house types.

Geographic influences

Nomads and pastoralists

As a consequence of their hunting and gathering economy, the San of the Kalahari
move frequently. Some San scherms (shelters) are little more than depressions in
the ground, but groups such as the !Kung build light-framed shelters of sticks and
saplings covered with grass. Other hunter-gatherers, such as the Hadza of Tanzania,
live in dry savanna territory, which contains a wide range of game animals. Their
domed dwellings of tied branches are given a thick thatch in winter. Some forest
dwellers, such as the Bambuti of the Ituri Forest in eastern Democratic Republic of
the Congo, are also hunter-gatherers. Their similarly constructed temporary shelters
are interlaced with crossed sticks, over which mongongo leaves are layered.

Pastoral nomads follow defined routes, reducing the risk of overgrazing and enabling
them to contact other nomadic groups. Camel-herding nomads such as the Kabbsh
of central Sudan use the traditional Bedouin tent, which consists of a rectangular
membrane of strips of woven camel hair that are attached to webbing straps and

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secured with guys over rectangles of poles. A central row of four poles supporting
curved ridge pieces reduces the possibility of damage to the tent. In Niger the
Tuareg use a tent of superficially similar form, though the strips are made of goat
skins sewn together. As many as 40 skins are required to complete each tent
membrane. Farther south, Tuareg subgroups employ a structure similar to that used
by many camel-herding nomads from as far away as Djibouti. Common to these
people is the use of the pole frame in the form of a humped dome over which woven
mats of grass or palm fronds are secured. Palm leaves are split by the Oromo of
Somalia; Oromo women then weave strips of coloured cloth into the mat, with the
patterned side laid over the frame in order to be visible within the tent, while on
the outside the shaggy, rough fibres are exposed.

The cattle-herding pastoralists of Southern and East Africa settle for some years in
one location. The Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania construct an oblong, or sometimes
square, low-domed hut some 20 feet (6 metres) long and at shoulder height from
closely woven frames of thin leleshwa sticks and saplings. Arranged in a circle
around the cattle enclosure, or manyatta, the frames are packed with leaves and
plastered over with cattle dung, which acts as a deterrent to termites. The huts are
aerodynamically designed to resist high winds, and the manyatta thicket boundary
acts as a defensive barrier. A number of other tribes use a similar structure; the
Barabaig of Tanzania, for example, build thornbush enclosures in the form of a
figure eight, with one loop used as a kraal for the cattle and the other lined with
huts with flat-roof frames.

In Southern Africa, the Zulu, the Swazi, and, in KwaZulu-Natal province, South
Africa, the Nguni construct frame domes, using concentric hoops. Others make a
ring of poles inserted into the ground and brought together in a crest, either as a
continuous curve (early Xhosa) or to a point (Sotho). These structures are expertly
thatched; the Zulu domes, or indlu, have finely detailed entrances. Some Nguni
types have layers of mats beneath for insulation, the covering thatch being brought
to a decorative finial and the whole held down with a grass rope net to withstand
strong winds.

Savanna kraals and compounds

Later houses of the Xhosa tend toward a consistent formthe rondavel, or

cylindrical, single-cell house with a conical thatched roof. This type is prevalent
throughout Southern Africa. Variants in the region include a low plinth or curb
supporting a domed roof (some Swazi and Zulu), flattened domes or low-pitched
cones on head-height cylinders, and high, conical roofs. Methods of construction
also vary, though a common method is a wall with a ring of posts and infilling of
wattles or basket weave packed and plastered with mud. Rings of posts may have
packed earth infilling, and in more wooded regions walls may consist mainly of
timber posts. Some southern peoples, including the Venda of northeastern South
Africa and the Tswana of Botswana, build veranda houses with deep, thatched eaves
supported by an outer ring of posts. The units are traditionally single-cell,
undivided, and illuminated only from the doorway. Additional living space may be
claimed from the exterior, with a semipublic space in the front and a private space,
with hard-packed earthen floor, at the rear of the dwelling being used for food
preparation, cooking, and other domestic occupations. Both spaces are bounded by
a low wall. In many areas houses are dispersed; in others the kraal, with huts ranged
around the perimeter of a large cattle enclosure (as among the Ila of Zambia),

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serves a defensive function against raiders and predators. In Namibia the kraal of
the Ambo (Ovambo) people had an outer concentric ring leading to cattle pens, an
inner fenced meeting place, and subdivisions for wives', visitors', and headman's
quarters.

Similar houses are constructed in the East African lakes region, where the form
probably originated. Houses of considerable size are built by some Luo (near Lake
Victoria) and Kuria (Tanzania) people, the former making extensive use of papyrus
reeds from lake borders, using the thicker stems structurally and the leaves for
thatching material. Luo homesteads are frequently ringed with hedges within which
cattle are penned; fields extend beyond for the growing of cereals. Most of these
Central African peoples construct granaries, often basket-shaped and basket-woven,
raised on stilts to keep rodents away and placed beneath a thatched roof to keep
them dry. Veranda houses are also built, and secondary thatched roof crests, which
permit ventilation, are not uncommon.

Cylindrical houses are built by the majority of peoples in the

savanna and semidesert regions of Sudan and western Africa.
With less wood available, these are often constructed of mud in
a coil pottery technique. It is customary to lay the mud spirally
in lifts of approximately half a metre, allowing each lift to dry
before adding the next. The Musgum of northern Cameroon once
created spectacular homes from compressed sun-dried mud,
Thatch-covered although their tall conical dwellings with geometric raised
conical roofs of
cylindrical houses patterns are no longer made today. The Batammaliba of Togo
in a Matakam and Benin build elaborate two-story dwellings that are integrally
compound,
Cameroon. connected with Batammaliba cosmogony and social order.

The characteristic settlement form in western Africa is the

compound, a cluster of units linked by walls. Many compounds are circular in plan,
but others, conditioned sometimes by the uneven terrain, are more complex.
Earthen wall and floor surfaces are plastered smooth and dried to a rocklike
hardness. These surfaces are often decorated with coloured clays (as are the homes
of the Bobo in Burkina Faso and the Nankani in Ghana) and, in some instances,
sculpted with ancestral motifs (such as the Kassena do in Burkina Faso). Flat roofs
with parapets are also built, sometimes in the same compound, supported either
independently by a log frame of forked posts and cross members or by joists
inserted into the clay walls; hollowed half-log gargoyles throw off water during
seasonal rains. Dwelling huts, granaries and other stores, and pens for goats and
fowl are built within the same compound.

Dwellings of approximately rectangular plan, though often with curved and molded
corners, are also found among the cylindrical units, and some peoples, such as the
Lobi of Cte d'Ivoire, build compounds with straight walls. Throughout the western
savanna region the trend has been toward rectangular-plan houses, largely because
of Islamic influence from the north (see below Influences of Islam and Christianity)
and contact with rainforest peoples from the south.

Forest dwellings

To the south of the savanna is a thinly populated strip, possibly depleted by the
slave trade, beyond which lie the rainforests. These regions, especially in Nigeria,

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are among the most densely populated parts of sub-Saharan Africa, and they have
had contact with European traders since the 16th century. The rectangular-plan
houses of the Akan peoples, including those of the Asante in Ghana, date to a period
before the 16th century, but they may have replaced an earlier savanna form. Until
the 20th century, Asante houses were constructed primarily of pole frames with mud
infilling. Such houses were finely decorated, in mud molded over grass armature,
with fluid motifs. In the early 21st century, rural Asante houses were often
constructed of swish, or pis de terre (earth rammed into a wooden formwork),
raised in lifts. The pitched or hipped roof is covered in thatch or, more frequently,
with corrugated iron. Though the materials have changed, the basic form remains in
the village compounds: four independently constructed rectangular-plan structures
forming the sides of a courtyard. Yoruba compounds in Nigeria are somewhat
similar, but the four sides are often under one continuous roof. Rain is collected
from the roofs, and the plan is therefore often compared to the Roman impluvium,
or cistern, house plan. Farther south in Nigeria the Igbo and related peoples
traditionally built rectangular houses, often with open fronts facing a courtyard and
surrounded by enclosing mud walls. Similar rectangular buildings with thatched
hipped roofs are used by other rainforest peoples, including some groups of the Fon
in Benin and the Baule and Dan of Cte d'Ivoire. But in regions where widely
dispersed peoples, such as the Senufo of Cte d'Ivoire, border the savanna,
cylinder-and-cone houses with deep thatched eaves are common.

Closer to the coast of western Africa, some peoples build houses

raised on stilts. Most notable are those built in the lakeside
village of Ganvi in Benin. The buildings are constructed of
mangrove poles, a material also used by coastal
Swahili-speaking people in Kenya. In some coastal regions, such
as that occupied by the Duala in Cameroon, houses are
constructed of bamboo, though they are mud-plastered.
Ancestor figures,
carved door frame, Bamboowhich grows to heights of more than 49 feet (15
and veranda posts metres) in Angola, the Republic of the Congo, and parts of
on a Bafussam
chieftain's house, Central Africais used by many peoples as a building material.
Bamileke Its straight stalks, used as screen walls, are lashed with thin
wood strips to produce crisp rectangular houses with peaked
thatched roofs, as among the Nyakyusa of Tanzania. Bamboo
construction reached its apogee in the tall houses of the Bamileke and other peoples
of western Cameroon, who constructed steep prefabricated pyramidal roofs raised
on platforms with verandas; the whole structure frequently reached 33 feet (10
metres) or more, with male and female ancestor figures often flanking the doors.
Tall conical houses, made of bamboo poles joined at the crest and then
leaf-thatched, were built by the Ngelima and the Panga of the Democratic Republic
of the Congo.

Raffia palm is also used by the Bamileke and the neighbouring Bafut and is an
important material among the Kongo of Angola and the Bushongo of the Democratic
Republic of the Congo. The most impressive of these structures are the rectangular,
pitched-roofed meeting halls of the Mangbetu of Congo; their houses are of the
cylinder-and-cone type, mud-plastered and geometrically decorated. Large meeting
houses are found in Nigeria among the Yak and other peoples. On special occasions
pole-frame shelters are constructed with monopitch roofs loosely covered with grass
or palm fronds. Awnings are also used, and among the Asante immense umbrellas
shade dignitaries and members of royal families.

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Palaces and shrines

In the 19th century the earth-and-stone palace of the Asantehene (king) of the Asante
empire at the capital city of Kumasi covered some five acres (two hectares). It had
many courtyards with verandas and open screens and more than 60 rooms with steep
thatched roofs. The exterior walls of the palace were covered with rich
embellishments in raised clay, patterns that may be related to Islamic calligraphy.
Shrine houses were also constructed. Little of the palace survived the Asante wars
and a punitive expedition by the British in 1874.

More extensive was the great palace of the oba of Benin City, Nigeria. In the 16th and
17th centuries it was as large as a European town, with many courts surrounded by
galleried buildings, their pillars encased in bronze plaques. Roofs were shingled, and
there were numerous high towers topped with bronze birds. Benin City was burned by
the British in 1897. The Yoruba of western Nigeria are also an urban people. Their
towns traditionally have as their centre the afin (palace) of the oba, from which
radiate broad roads dividing the town into quarters, each with its compound of a
subordinate chief. Some afins in the precolonial era were of great size, encompassing
much of the surrounding bush; the afin of Oyo, the capital of the Oyo empire (17th
and 18th centuries), was reported to cover 640 acres (260 hectares). The palace
buildings were substantially built, and the open verandas were supported by carved
caryatid pillars. Yoruba towns still have palaces; though the architecture is often
Westernized, traditional courtyards, recreation grounds, and high surrounding walls
persist.

The zimbabwes (stone houses) built in the 17th and 18th centuries by the Rozwi
kings of southern Central Africa were royal kraals, an example being the citadel of
Chief Changamire at Khami, Zimbabwe. Ruins at Regina, Nalatali, and Dhlodhlo (also
in Zimbabwe) all display fine mortarless stonemasonry worked with chevron patterns
and banded colours. Many African palaces were larger and often better-crafted
versions of the traditional dwelling type, raised on hillocks or plinths. Such were the
palaces of the kabaka (king) of the kingdom of Buganda, including the great barnlike
thatched dome with an open reception veranda at Mengo, near present-day Kampala,
Uganda. Other palaces were royal compounds, such as that of the fon (chief) of Bafut,
Cameroon, which within a high fenced enclosure contained separate quarters for the
older and younger wives, dormitories for the adolescent sons, houses for retainers,
stores, meeting places, a shrine house and a medicine house, burial structures for
former chiefs, and structures for secret societies.

While many African peoples have or have had kings, not all have
resided in palaces, and not all have been divine. Some peoples
have no recognized chiefs or leaders at all. Religion, however,
plays an essential part in the life of all African societies. Among
some, such as the Fali of Cameroon or the Nankani of Burkina
Dogon cliff village
on the Bandiagara Faso, spiritual symbolism informs every part of their dwelling
escarpment, Mali. types. Among the most-studied peoples in this respect are the
Dogon who live on the rockfall of the Bandiagara escarpment in
Mali. It has long been believed that the Dogon perceive each
dwelling compound anthropomorphically as a man on his side in
the act of procreation. The man's head is associated with the
hearth, the stores with his arms, the stables with his legs, the

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central workroom with his belly, and the grinding stones with his
genitalia. From the individual parts of the house to the entire
Dogon sacred site village plan, each element has a religiously symbolic association,
streaked with and totemic sanctuaries with markedly zoomorphic form are built
millet-porridge
offerings. and dedicated to the ancestors of the living. It should be noted,
however, that the scholarship of Marcel Griaule and his followers,
who documented the complex cosmogony expressed in such plans,
has been open to debate and revision. Among the structures significant to the Dogon
are the rounded sanctuaries dedicated to the ancestors, covered with rectilinear
checkerboard designs; granaries with wooden doors and locks carved with multiple
human figures; and the men's meeting house, or togu na, a low structure with a
stacked millet roof and structural posts.

Monumental temple architecture is rare in Africa, for in animist religions spirits may
reside in trees, carved figures, or small, simple shrines. Shrine rooms containing
votive objects and dedicated to spirits or ancestors are common, however; like the
shrine house of the Asante, with its rooms for an orchestra and the officiating priest,
many such houses are similar to the dwelling compound. A more notable structure is
the elaborate mbari house of the Owerri Igbo of Nigeria. A large open-sided shelter,
square in plan, it houses many life-size painted figures sculpted in mud and intended
to placate the figure of Ala, the earth goddess, who is supported by deities of thunder
and water. The remaining sculpturesoften wittyare of craftsmen, officials,
Europeans, animals, and imaginary beasts. Because the process of building is regarded
as a sacred act, mbari houses, which once took years to build, were left to decay, and
new ones were constructed rather than old ones maintained. Contemporary mbari
structures are formed from cement, and the symbolism of decay and renewal has
therefore been lost.

Influences of Islam and Christianity

Early civilizations in the western Sudan region had strong trading links across the
Sahara, and an Islamic presence was established south of the desert 1,000 years ago.
In the 11th century Kumbi, the capital of the kingdom of Ghana (in present-day Mali),
was described as having a dozen mosques. Subsequently the kingdoms of Mali and
Songhai superseded ancient Ghana, with Timbuktu and Gao on the Niger River
becoming major centres of learning and commerce. Excavations have revealed that
these towns were large, prosperous, and well constructed. Muslim builders introduced
a new type of dwelling reflecting their Arab and North African traditions: rectilinear
in plan, flat-roofed, and often two stories or more in height, these dwellings were
built of sun-dried mud brick or of mud and stone. By the 16th century this form had
penetrated the Nigerian savanna with the establishment of the Hausa states. Kano,
Katsina, Sokoto, and Zaria today present an appearance probably comparable to that
of earlier centuries, but the former cylindrical huts have been replaced by those of
square plan, reflecting the changing size of families. New houses are built from
tabali, or pear-shaped mud bricks; some house facades are richly ornamented with
calligraphic or representational shapes and even such emblems of modernity as
weapons, bicycles, and cars. The large palaces of the emirs are often richly decorated
within, with spaces spanned by palm ribs.

Prominent in many western African towns are the mosques, which

frequently display a formal conjunction between Islamic structure

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and indigenous conical ancestral pillars and shrines. The earliest

surviving of these is probably the ziggurat at Gao (Mali), but more
typical of the savanna form are the mosques, bristling with wood
reinforcement, of Agadez (Niger) and Mopti (Mali) and the great
Mosque in Agadez, mosque of Djenn (Mali), which was greatly restored under the
Niger.
French administration.

On the east coast of Africa, Islamic influence began with the establishment of the
dhow trade, which, relying on the trade winds, linked East Africa with the Arabian
and Persian Gulf ports and with India. Kilwa, an island port that flourished between
the 12th and 15th centuries, was built largely of stone, as were Zanzibar (where the
mosque at Kizimkazi has a 12th-century inscription), Dar es Salaam, Malindi,
Mombasa, and other ports and city-states built by Swahili- and Arabic-speaking traders
along the Tanzanian and Kenyan coast. With the coming of the Portuguese at the
close of the 15th century, the east-coast towns were plundered and burned. Only the
northerly island port of Lamu, Kenya, retains the character of the Swahili town. Built
of coral ragstone, roofed with mangrove poles, and covered with rag and lime mortar,
the houses have fine plasterwork, decorative rows of niches, and deeply carved doors.

Until the late 19th century, Christian influence on African architecture was minimal,
with the exception of the remarkable rock churches of Lalbela, Ethiopia. Following
the Islamization of Egypt, the Ethiopian church was isolated for many centuries, but,
during the reign of the ascetic Zagwe king Lalbela in the 13th century, 11 churches
were carved out of the red tufa, including the cruciform church of St. George
excavated out of bedrock. Some of the churches, among them St. Mary and St.
Mercurius, were richly painted with biblical murals. Throughout the Tigray region of
Ethiopia, there are many other rock-carved and cave churches, such as those at
Cherkos, Wik'ro, Abraha Azba, and the great mountain monastery at Debre Damo. In
the 17th and 18th centuries, more Christian churches were erected, some with
splendid interior painting, such as Debre Berhan Selassie in Gonder, Ethiopia.

The 20th century

The subject of contemporary African architecture is as vast as the continent itself.
Each African region and country has experienced colonization, nationalism, and
modernity in a unique way, and generalizations about the continent would have to be
so broad as to be virtually meaningless. Nevertheless, an examination of selected
colonial influences and national architectural identities reveals much about the
diversity and plurality of postcolonial Africa.

As has always been the case in Africa, contemporary architecture reveals the
influence of a rich array of cultures. Colonial explorers and administrators brought
European architectural forms to the coasts and urban areas of Africa, a phenomenon
that is echoed in both nationalist architecture and urban planning. The Portuguese,
for example, brought medieval European fortress architecture to Africa, primarily
along the western and southwestern coastal regions. Characteristic features of
Portuguese colonial architectureprimarily manifested in coastal forts and
castlesinclude high towers, thick masonry walls with gun turrets, large storage
spaces and dungeons for slaves, and living quarters sited within defensive walls. Many
of the European forts and castles in Africa are located along the coast of Ghana
because of the large quantities of gold exported there.

The influence of the British on coastal architecture in Africa was also significant. The

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architectural historian Nnamdi Elleh argued that

[e]xcept for the mansions designed for the governors of their colonial
provinces and the administrative buildings, the English were obsessed
with recreating their country villages abroad. Hence, they stipulated
rigid cardinal rules for the surroundings and layout of houses of their
colonial administrators.

Strict segregation of Africans from colonial administrators and their families also
characterized British architectural plans.

Commercial ambitions motivated the French to establish a presence in a number of

regions. In Fs, Casablanca, Dakar, Cairo, and Abidjan, the home environment of
France was re-created in urban architecture. This shows itself, for example, in the
broad Parisian-style boulevards and their diagonal intersections that can be seen in
many African urban centres.

The influence of the Dutch is most pronounced in the Cape Coast of South Africa,
where Victorian-style structures accompanied Dutch traders and immigrants. German
architectural influence is evident in Cameroon, Togo, Namibia, and Tanzania. The
colonial administration building in Cameroon, for example, has a foundation of
volcanic rock and walls of masonry brick with iron girders. Many houses built in
Cameroon at the turn of the century employed the Cameroonian practice of mounting
buildings on stilts.

Repatriated Africans, released after the abolition of the slave trade, also had an
influence. Freetown in Sierra Leone and Monrovia in Liberia were major centres of
resettlement, as were the coastal cities of Lagos, Ibadan, Abidjan, Banjul, and Dakar.
Repatriated Yoruba in Nigeria built mosques and dwellings that employed the
architectural vocabulary of Portuguese Baroque colonial churches and administrative
buildings in Brazil. The influence of Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Jamaica, and the United
States is particularly evident in wood-framed Victorian-style houses, often with
shuttered windows and verandas, and in the buildings of Fourah Bay, Freetown, Sierra
Leone.

With independence came the need for an architectural infrastructure and an

architecture that expressed national identities. The influence of the International
Styleadvanced by Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Roheis evident in urban
plans and structures commissioned from Europe, Canada, and the United States. The
city of Dodoma, for example, was established as a response to the colonial character
of the former capital of Dar es Salaam, and its plan, executed by the Canadian
architect James Rossant, reveals the influence of the International Style. The
influence of Modernism is evident in the capital cities of Kinshasa (Democratic
Republic of the Congo), Lilongwe (Malawi), Maputo (Mozambique), Lusaka (Zambia),
Dakar (Senegal), Accra (Ghana), Lom (Togo), Abuja (Nigeria)indeed, in many of the
urban centres of Africa.

South African architecture was influenced by European design perhaps more than the
architecture of any other African nation. The South African policy of apartheid led the
Boer and English communities in Pretoria, for example, to exclude the majority of
South African citizens from architectural schemes and to construct Edwardian and
Neoclassical structures merged with the influences of Modernism. Cape Town, the
oldest European town in the Republic of South Africa, contains a fortified castle
constructed by the Portuguese in 1666. The Cecil Rhodes memorial, designed to evoke
images of the Greco-Roman past, contains self-conscious architectural references to

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the Avenue of the Sphinxes and the Luxor Temple in Egypt and to the Avenue of the
Rams in the Temple of Amon at Karnak. Ironically, this monument to pure Egyptian
heritage and civilization borrows from the peoples whose cultures were supposedly
civilized.

Contemporary architecture in Cape Town is epitomized by high-rise buildings and

low-cost housing complexes inspired by the International Style. In Durban, Victorian
and Edwardian buildings were constructed in the 19th century, and at the turn of the
century the city hall was constructed in an early Renaissance style and surrounded by
Corinthian columns. Like Cape Town, Durban has since added high-rise apartment
complexes, as well as Hindu temples. Port Elizabeth's European-style development is
characterized by Victorian terrace architecture. Like Durban, Port Elizabeth has a
Renaissance-style city hall; the highly ornate public library building was designed in
the Flemish style by an English architect, and nearby is a statue of Queen Victoria.
Johannesburg, originally a mining town, was also significantly influenced by the
importation of European architecture, as evidenced by the Neoclassical city hall
designed by Hawke and McKinlay of Cape Town and the shining multinational
headquarters of IBM. Like all other metropolises in South Africa, Johannesburg is
troubled by an architecture segregated by income and race, with black Africans
notably concentrated in shantytowns.

The richly embellished homes of the Ndebele, Sotho, and Pedi, with their decorated
lapa (courtyard) walls and facades and their ziggurat details, have a colourful vitality.
Although these decorations are mistakenly often thought to represent traditional
architecture, such adornment emerged after the resettlement of populations during
the apartheid era. Elsewhere, notably in Maputo, in Mozambique, and in
Johannesburg, owner-built houses and resettlement townships were erected,
extended, or decorated, often with originality, with limited means and in restricted
space.

The phenomenon of urbanization has had significant consequences for the African
continent. Many regions of Africa are in the midst of a transition from rural to urban
areas, and challenges associated with this transitionpopulation growth, illiteracy,
segregation, poverty, lack of sanitation, high unemployment, and the draining away
from rural areas of agricultural labour, as well as a devastating imbalance in
infrastructureabound. While the history of outside influence on African architecture
is centuries old, the impact of 20th-century Western architecture helped create
previously unknown class distinctions, some flowing from the segregated quarters
designed in the 19th century. As Elleh suggested, most African cities are composed of
a new town area developed during or after the colonial period and sometimes
including the central business district; European quarters reserved for Europeans only
during the colonial era; an African immigrant quarter, found mainly in parts of Africa
with strong Islamic influence, such as Kano and Zaria; and the indigenous African
town, in which the chief lived before government or Europeans expanded the city.
The deterioration of African immigrant quarters is noticeable and indicates an urgent
need for invigorated urban planning.

It is important to note that the wholesale adoption of Western designs and materials
also has proved in many cases inappropriate for African urban environments. Open
house plans surrounding a courtyard, as well as traditional building materials such as
earth and thatch, keep houses cool and well-ventilated, while the use of such
materials as brick and aluminum roofing can make houses uninhabitable. The
exorbitant cost of new capital construction has also challenged regional economies:
the basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro, Cte d'Ivoire, is estimated to have

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cost $500900 million, and the King Hassan Mosque in Casablanca, Morocco, was
completed in 1993 at a cost of $1 billion.

In many instances, however, Western and local (indigenous) architects have

demonstrated remarkable facility in wedding Modernist architecture to local climates
and needs. The Finnish architect Aarno Ruusuvuori carefully considered the
environment and local climate as well as financial realities in designing commercial
and private housing, notably a development centre and other buildings in and around
Addis Ababa. In Uganda the architectural designs of Swiss architect Justus Dahinden at
Namugongo National Shrine and Mityana Pilgrims' Shrine, both in Uganda, artfully
combined modern building materials and design elements with the spherical shape of
indigenous architecture. St. Anne's Basilica in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo,
employed the arched design elements of traditional homes from the region, with
neo-Gothic clerestory windows, in a harmonious whole, while the architecture of
Julian Elliott in Zambianotably the Kasama Cathedral (1965)beautifully synthesized
traditional architectural forms with Western styles. The Bulawayo Pentecostal church
in Zimbabwe also represented a successful melding of traditional architecture and
Western design forms. The wholesale adoption of Western architecture too can be
symbolically effective: the Arch of Independence in Accra, Ghana, built like an
imperial Roman triumphal arch to celebrate the freedom of Ghanaians from British
imperialism, represents a rich and ironic play of architectural and national histories.

Paul Oliver
Janet B. Hess

Additional Reading
A general introduction to building in Africa is SUSAN DENYER, African Traditional
Architecture: An Historical and Geographical Perspective (1978). Also useful are PAUL
OLIVER (ed.), Shelter in Africa (1971, reissued 1976), which includes case studies, and
Dwellings: The House Across the World (1987); NNAMDI ELLEH, African Architecture:
Evolution and Transformation (1997); and TOYIN FALOLA and STEVEN J. SALM (eds.),
Globalization and Urbanization in Africa (2004). Early stages of African urbanism are
discussed in BASIL DAVIDSON, The Lost Cities of Africa (also published as Old Africa
Rediscovered, 1959, reissued 1970); and RICHARD W. HULL, African Cities and Towns
Before the European Conquest (1976).

Of the regional studies, the most notable is JAMES WALTON, African Village (1956), which
deals with southern and East Africa; it is brought up-to-date in FRANCO FRESCURA, Rural
Shelter in Southern Africa: A Survey of the Architecture, House Forms, and
Constructional Methods of the Black Rural Peoples of Southern Africa (1981). Visually
impressive, though with less-substantial research, is REN GARDI, Indigenous African
Architecture (1974; originally published in German, 1973), which deals with savanna
forms of West Africa. Other fine examples are to be found in JEAN-LOUIS BOURGEOIS,
Spectacular Vernacular: A New Appreciation of Traditional Desert Architecture
(1983), with photographs by CAROLLEE PELOS; and JEAN DETHIER, Down to Earth: Mud
Architecture (1982; originally published in French, 1981).

Of the local studies, the early and influential one by JEAN-PIERRE BGUIN et al., L'Habitat
au Cameroun: prsentation des principaux type d'habitat: essai d'adaptation aux
problmes actuels (1952), records the styles of former French Cameroun with
immaculate drawings and photography. A noteworthy successor, JEAN-PAUL BOURDIER and
TRINH T. MINH-HA, African Spaces: Designs for Living in Upper Volta (1985), examines

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comparatively a number of compounds in Burkina Faso. Also important is LABELLE PRUSSIN,

Architecture in Northern Ghana (1969), in which the forms and functions of six
compounds are compared. Four villages in eastern Botswana are discussed in ANITA
LARSSON and VIERA LARSSON, Traditional Tswana Housing (1984). Also useful are KAJ BLEGVAD
ANDERSEN, African Traditional Architecture: A Study of the Housing and Settlement
Patterns of Rural Kenya (1977); and SUZANNE PRESTON BLIER, The Anatomy of Architecture:
Ontology and Metaphor in Batammaliba Architectural Expression (1987).

Perhaps the most exhaustive anthropological study is FRIEDRICH W. SCHWERDTFEGER,

Traditional Housing in African Cities (1982), comparing the architecture of Zaria and
Ibadan, Nigeria, with that of Marrakech, Mor. Hausa mosques and palaces are
discussed in J.C. MOUGHTIN, Hausa Architecture (1985). The symbolism of built forms is
movingly described in MARCEL GRIAULE, Conversations with Ogotemmli: An Introduction
to Dogon Religious Ideas (1965, reprinted 1980; originally published in French, 1948).
Cult houses or shrines are the subject of MICHAEL SWITHENBANK, Ashanti Fetish Houses
(1969); while ULLI BEIER, African Mud Sculpture (1963), is largely devoted to Igbo mbari
houses and Yoruba palace reliefs. Studies of palaces include G.J. AFOLABI OJO, Yoruba
Palaces: A Study of the Afins of Yorubaland (1966); JACOB EGHAREVBA, A Short History of
Benin, 4th ed. (1968); and JAMES S. KIRKMAN, Gedi: The Palace (1963), a study of a
number of Arab-Swahili centres. Of these, Lamu survives and is examined in USAM
GHAIDAN, Lamu: A Study of the Swahili Town (1975). A detailed study of the influence
of Islamic forms on sub-Saharan architecture is to be found in LABELLE PRUSSIN,
Hatumere: Islamic Design in West Africa (1986). RUTH PLANT, Architecture of the Tigre,
Ethiopia (1985), surveys the rock-cut Ethiopian Christian cave churches, many dating
from the 13th century. Colonial influence on African town form is discussed especially
with reference to Lagos in AKIN L. MABOGUNJE, Urbanization in Nigeria (1968). Problems
in rapid urban growth are the subject of JOSEF GUGLER and WILLIAM G. FLANAGAN,
Urbanization and Social Change in West Africa (1978); while design by contemporary
African architects is included in UDO KULTERMANN, New Architecture in Africa (1963;
originally published in German, 1963), and New Directions in African Architecture,
trans. from German (1969). In addition, a number of journals, including Tribus
(annual), occasionally publish articles on African architecture.

To cite this page:

MLA Style: "African architecture." Encyclopdia Britannica. Encyclopdia Britannica
Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopdia Britannica, 2014.

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