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Above: Friday Mosque, Djenn, Mali biggest mud building in the world and defining image of West
African architecture. Foundations are more than 500 years old, though building has often been rebuilt.
Right: mosque, Yebe, Mali. Stick-studded mosques of Niger delta region define the unique aesthetic of
Western Sudan. Though wooden posts have practical functions as scaffold for re-rendering, structural
support, and assisting in expelling moisture from heart of the wall the most striking impact is visual.

GLORIOUS MUD

place

Building with mud is one of the oldest architectural traditions and is still practised with remarkable results in parts of West Africa, though there are fears that
such skills will eventually be lost for ever. Here, James Morris presents a photographic survey of some astonishing examples of religious and domestic buildings.

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Too often, when people in the West think of

traditional African architecture, they perceive
nothing more than a mud hut; a primitive vernacular half remembered from a Tarzan film.
But why this ignorance of half a continents
heritage? Possibly because the great dynastic
civilizations of the region were already in
decline when European colonizers first
exposed these cultures to a wider audience.
Being made of perishable mud, many older
buildings have been lost, unlike the stone or
brick structures of other ancient cultures. Or
possibly this lack of awareness is because the
buildings are just too strange, too foreign to
have been easily appreciated by outsiders.
Often they are more like huge monolithic
sculptures or ceramic pots than architecture
as we might conventionally think of it. But the
surviving buildings are neither historic monuments in the classic sense, nor are they as culturally remote as they may initially appear.
They share many of the qualities now valued
in Western architectural thinking such as sustainability, sculptural form and community
participation in their conception and making.
Though part of long held traditions and
ancient cultures, they are also contemporary
structures, serving a current purpose. If they
lost their relevance and were neglected, they
would collapse. In the West, mud is effectively regarded as dirt, yet in rural Africa (as
in so much of the world) it is the most common of building materials with which everybody has direct contact. Maintaining and
resurfacing of buildings is part of the rhythm
of life, and there is an ongoing and active
participation in their continuing existence.
This is not a museum culture.
Superbly formed and highly expressive,
these extraordinary buildings emerge from
the most basic of materials, earth and water,
and in the harshest of conditions. They are
vibrant works of art with their own distinct
and striking aesthetic, skilfully responding to
the qualities of African light and the inherent properties of mud to emphasize shadow,
texture, silhouette, profile and form. During
the course of a year the mud render dries,
the surface is covered in a web of cracks and
then it slowly starts to peel off before being
re-rendered. With each re-rendering, the
shape of a building is subtly altered, so

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Top: Nando Mosque, Mali. Supposedly built by a giant

in one night, this highly sculptural mosque is a unique
structure that borders the magical and fantastical.
Middle: womens quarters, Tangasoko, Burkina Faso.
Among the Kassena people, each married woman has
her own quarters in the family compound. Built by
men and decorated by women, they contain living
room and adjoining kitchen. On her death they are
allowed to disintegrate, the land and crumbled earth
to be reused by a future generation.
Bottom: house of the chief of Djenn, Mali. Moroccan
influenced wooden windows are a recent development.
Right: Hogon House, Sanga, Mali. The most distinct
architectural form of the Dogon people, the Hogon
House is the home of the traditional spiritual leader.

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change and movement are ever present. The

material is tactile, warm and vulnerable,
demanding and receiving an engaged relationship with its users. Often people attempt
to cement render the buildings, but not only
does this destroy them physically, as they rot
from within, but it also destroys their character. Their uniqueness is their muddiness.
The future of these buildings is hard to
predict. Mud is such a vulnerable material
and there is an enthusiasm for building in
concrete. Given the means, many would tear
down their mud houses and build cement
block and tin roofed replacements, common
practice in those countries that can afford to
do so. So what will happen when rural
Africans are lifted out of their desperate
poverty? Will there be an understandable
rush to rid themselves of the physical manifestations of that harrowing past? It can
already be seen in wealthier countries such
as Ghana and Nigeria where there is virtually nothing left for future generations to
repair and preserve. Not only the buildings
have gone but also the skills to build them.
It is a gradual process of extinction.
Already the extraordinary upturned jelly
mould houses of the Mousgoum people of
Cameroon are gone, soon those of the
Kassena and Gurensi in Ghana will disappear. The Sakho houses of the Boso in Mali
are all abandoned and in ruins. It is quite
possible that when west Africa emerges from
below the poverty line there will be little of
its built heritage remaining to be appreciated. The saving grace is probably Islam,
ever expanding and building more mosques,
but even then only in rural parts. In cities,
the mosques funded by Wahabi Saudi funds
are atrocious concrete imitations of a bastardized Middle Eastern style.
In the sparsely populated Sahal plains of
the Western Sudan, traditional built forms
in mud are the most striking representations
of human creativity and a unique part of our
world culture they should not be forgotten.
JAMES MORRIS
These photographs are taken from Butabu adobe architecture of West
Africa, James Morris and Suzanne Preston Blier, New York,
Princeton Architectural Press, 2003.

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Top: house, Djenn, Mali. Mud rendered walls have to

be resurfaced regularly. As the mud dries it cracks,
forming a delicate textured surface. The gently
moulded structure behind the wall is a covered
staircase opening onto the flat roof. The shape will
subtly alter each time it is re-rendered.
Bottom: house, Djenn, Mali. The blank facade with
tiny openings for windows is a traditional style for the
Djenn house. Domestic activity is concentrated in
the open courtyard to the rear.
Right: Sanam Mosque, Niger, designed in 1998 by
Abou Moussa who travelled hundreds of miles from
Yaamaa to this inaccessible region in the north of the
country. It was built in 45 days by the whole village
and appears to be the largest and most striking recent
mud building in Niger.

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