Architecture is the process and the product of planning, designing and establishing or constructing buildings or other structures. There are several purposes of architecture, but the primary purpose of architecture is to establish or create habitat and fulfill society or individual needs for places to live and work. In the material form of buildings, people perceive architectural works as cultural symbols and works of art. People identify historical civilizations with their surviving architectural achievements. People have used the practice, which started in the pre-historic era, to express culture for civilizations in all regions, particularly the African continent. For this reason, many people consider architecture to be a form of art. Several people, such as early travelers, have written texts on architecture since ancient times.
Leo Frobenius, an early traveler, is an example of a person who made great comments and wrote a text concerning African civilization.
He said:
“When they arrived in the Gulf of Guinea and arrived at Vaida. The captains got astonished to find the streets well cared for, bordered for several leagues in length by 2 rows of trees. For several days they passed through a country of magnificent fields. A country in which men clad in brilliant costumes inhabited the stuff they had woven themselves. More to the South in the Kongo Kingdom, a swarming crowd dressed in velvet and silk; great states well-ordered and even to the tiniest details, mighty sovereigns, wealthy industries, civilized to the bone marrow. And the countries’ condition on the Eastern coasts- Mozambique, for example- was quite the same.”
Architecture started as rural, oral vernacular architecture that developed from trial and error to successful duplication or replication. The ancient urban architecture was filled with constructing religious buildings and structures symbolizing rulers’ political might or power until Roman and Greek architecture shifted focus to civic virtues.
Present-day architecture started after WW 1 (World War 1) as an avant-garde movement that sought to develop a new style appropriate for a new post-war economic and social order focused on meeting the middle and working classes’ needs.
Over the years, the architectural construction field has branched out to incorporate everything from ship design to interior decorating.
African Architecture
Many people tend to focus on African Architecture, mostly in the East African region, and discuss ancient Egypt’s wonders. They seldom talk about other architecture, which we will discuss because popular culture tends to ignore them.
During the 1st century, Christian and Muslim conquerors, traders, and settlers heavily influenced African art and architecture. Throughout the northern part of the African region as far West as Morocco, Islamic architectural design influenced the traditional African structures or buildings.
The African architecture is diverse, just like other aspects of African culture. Throughout African history, Africans have developed their local architectural traditions. A common theme in traditional African architecture is the employment of fractal scaling. African architecture employs or uses a wide range of materials, including thatch, wood, mud, mudbrick, stone, and rammed earth. These material preferences differ or vary by region. For example, the Northern part of the continent is for rammed earth and stone, the Horn of Africa for mortar and stone, the Western region of Africa is for mud, the Central African region is for thatch or wood, SE and the Southern part of Africa is for thatch and stone.
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Early African Architecture
The most well-known or famous class of structure in all of Africa, the Pyramids of Egypt and one of ancient Egypt’s wonders, remain one of the globe’s most outstanding early architectural achievements, regardless of origins and practicality in a funerary context. Egyptian architectural traditions also favored the construction of large temple complexes. Apart from the early African architecture in Central, West, and Southern Africa, which we will discuss shortly, there was also the early African architecture in North Africa and the Horn of Africa.
In North Africa, we find Egypt whereby its achievements in architecture included the pyramids and temples, great cities, canals, and dams. We also see the Amazigh architecture, whereby the Berbers left several pre-Christian tombs whose architecture was distinct to NW Africa. The most popular was the Tomb of the Christian Woman in W. Algeria. The structure comprises columns, a dome, and spiral pathways that lead to a single chamber. Massive Amazigh pise mudbrick structures date from 110 BC. A typical Amazigh architecture figure is the Agadir or fortified granary.
Still, in North Africa, we find Nubian architecture, one of the world’s oldest. The earliest Nubian architecture style included the speos. The A-Group culture led to the C-Group culture, which started building using light, supple materials with larger mudbrick structures. The C-Group culture was related to that of Kerma city. It was a walled city containing religious structures, big circular dwellings, a palace, and well-laid-out roads. On the East side of the city, there was a funerary temple and chapel. One of the most enduring structures of the city was the Deffufa, a mudbrick temple.
In the Horn of Africa region, Aksumite architecture prospered in the Ethiopian area, where stelae and churches got carved out of single rock blocks. Other monumental structures include big underground tombs located below stelae. Other famous structures employing monolithic construction include the Tomb of the False Door and Gebre Mesgel and Kaleb’s tombs. Most structures such as palaces, villas, churches, and monasteries were built of alternating wood and stone layers.
West African Architecture (Sudano-Sahelian Architecture)
In west Africa, we find the Tichitt Walata, the oldest surviving collection of settlements in Africa’s western region and the most ancient stone-based territory South of the Sahara. The Soninke people are the ones who are responsible for its establishment and are thought to be the precursor of the Ghana Kingdom. In it, one finds well-established streets and fortified compounds made out of skilled stone masonry.
Sudano-Sahelian architecture refers to a range of similar native architectural styles common to the peoples of the Sahel and Sudanian grassland areas of W. Africa. This style is characterized by adobe plaster and mudbricks’ employment with big wooden-log support beams that jut out from the wall face for large structures such as palaces or mosques. The earliest example of Sudano-Sahelian style came from Jenne-Jeno around 250 BC, where the 1st proof or evidence of permanent mudbrick architecture in the area is found.
The Sudano-Sahelian architectural style can be broken down into more than two sub-styles of different tribes in the region. These styles include Malian, which is of several Manden groups of Central and Southern Mali. It is characterized by the Kani-Kombole Mosque of Mali and the Great Mosque of Djenne. The fortress sub-style, which the Zarma people of Northern Nigeria and Niger, Hausa-Fulani, Tuareg, Arab communities in Agadez, the Kanuri people of Lk Chad and Songhai of NE Mali use has a military aspect to construction of high protective compound walls established around a central courtyard. It is characterized by the Sankore Mosque of Timbuktu, the Agadez mosque of Northern Niger, and the tomb of Askia in Gao Mali.
The Tubali is the other sub-style. The characteristic Hausa architectural style majorly in NW and North Nigeria, Niger, Eastern Burkina Fao, Northern Benin, and Hausa-predominant Zango districts and neighborhoods throughout W. Africa. It is characterized by its attention of stucco detail and use of parapets. The Volta basin sub-style is of the Manden and Gur groups of Burkina Faso, Northern Ghana, and Northern Ivory Coast. In the Volta basin sub-style, a single courtyard is characterized by high black and white painted walls, inward curved turrets supporting an exterior wall, and a bigger turret near the center.
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The Senegambian Stone Circles
Another tremendous architectural art form in the Western region of Africa is the Senegambian stone circles. The Senegambian stone circles lie in The Gambia, North of Janjanbureh, and in Central Senegal. According to UNESCO, the stone circles are the biggest concentration of stone circles in the world. The sites of Wassu and Kerbatch in the Gambia and Sine Ngayene and Wanar in Senegal represent a unique concentration of over 1000 stone circles and related tumuli spread around.
South African Architecture (Shona Architecture)
People consider Mapungubwe the most socially complex society in Southern Africa and the 1st Southern African culture to show or display economic differentiation. It was the precursor to Great Zimbabwe.
Great Zimbabwe was the biggest medieval city in Sub-Saharan Africa. People constructed and expanded it for over 3 centuries in a native style that eschewed rectilinearity for flowing curves. Great Zimbabwe is set apart by the large scale of its structures. Its most impressive or formidable tower, commonly called the Great Enclosure, has dressed high stone walls. Houses within the Enclosure were circular and constructed of daub and wattle with conical thatched roofs.
According to some research, the architecture in the African continent’s western and southern regions tend to exhibit rounded and broad features. This tells us that these people might be copying or mimicking their facial phenotypical characteristics and that they might be subconsciously sculpting their facial features in their architecture.
