CULTURAL SURVEY

• Leach, 2010: '"Those who invested in the documentation of ancient buildings and cities were not without motives, be they agents in the expansion of imperial territories or promoters of a higher culture whose model lay somewhere under Egyptian sands or Roman clay"'
• Course Learning Outcomes


  • Explain the traditional architectural practices/developments along the West African sub-region over the past years till today
  • Discuss the factors that have influenced the architectural development in West Africa (missionary/Economic/Political activities and influences on Architecture)
  • Understand and explain the various types of traditional architecture existing in West Africa, as well as monumental architecture of West Africa (e.g. Fort and Castles)
  • Connect the role of Arts and Crafts in the Traditional Architecture of West Africa and how they have been applied in contemporary/modern architecture in Ghana
• Course Content Units


  • Introduction to Cultural Survey of West Africa
  • West Africa in Focus
  • Architecture in Mali with focus on Dogon
  • Traditional Architecture (Middle/ Northern Regions of Ghana)
  • European Influence And Contemporary Practice
  • Group Work Presentations
  • Art And Craft Activity in West Africa
  • Revision for End of Semester Examination
• Culture


  A way/ manner of life of a particular people/place
• Survey


  Investigations/interrogations in a field (theoretical/ practical)
• Why Survey

  • Architecture is sometimes studied in its own terms, but is just as often tabled as evidence for problems that are not architectural in nature
  • A Survey can inform us about houses and settlements regarding socio-cultural and domestic arrangements, the structuring of class and gender roles, geographical differences, technology and its repercussions for domestic life, patterns of consumption and standards of taste
  • A Survey is vital to the study of architecture because it leads to questions such as is a house exemplary, or symptomatic? Is it important architecturally, or historically?
• Countries of West Africa

  • Benin
  • Burkina Faso
  • Cape Verde
  • The Gambia
  • Ghana
  • Guinea
  • Guinea-Bissau
  • Ivory Coast
  • Liberia
  • Mali
  • Mauritania
  • Niger
  • Nigeria
  • Senegal
  • Sierra Leone
  • Togo
• Geography of West Africa

  • West Africa is west of an imagined north-south axis lying close to 10° east longitude
  • The Atlantic Ocean forms the western and the southern borders of the West African region
  • The northern border is the Sahara Desert
  • Modern boundaries and geographical boundaries reflect Colonial hegemony -cutting across ethnic and cultural lines, single ethnic groups are often shared between two or more countries
  • West Africa, extends to include the western portion of the Maghreb (Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia)
  • Occupies an area in excess of 6,140,000 km2, or approximately one-fifth of Africa
  • The vast majority of this land is plains lying less than 300 meters above sea level, though isolated high points exist in numerous countries along the southern shore of the region
• Climate of West Africa

  • The Kӧppen Climate Classification of West Africa
• Kingdoms in western Africa began to flourish about 1000 years ago largely because of the growth of trade across the Sahara
• Traders brought gold and kola nuts from western Africa to northern kingdoms of Africa such as those of the Hafsid [Tunisia], Marinid [Morocco], and Ziyanid [Algeria] rulers
• Traders exchanged the gold and kola nuts for salt and copper from Saharan mines, and dried fruits from the northern Africa, textiles from Europe, and finely crafted objects from the Middle East
• Kingdoms at the southern edge of the Sahara gained power and wealth through the control of the Saharan trade
• Cities such as Gao and Timbuktu became busy commercial centres
• With the expansion of the trade further south, kingdoms such as Ashanti [Ghana], Benin [Benin], Mossi [Mali], Oyo [Nigeria] and the Hausa city-states also became powerful
• Kingdoms in western Africa began to flourish largely because of the growth of trade across the Sahara


  1000 years ago
• Goods traded across the Sahara

  • Gold
  • Kola nuts
  • Salt
  • Copper
  • Dried fruits
  • Textiles
  • Finely crafted objects
• With the expansion of the trade further south, kingdoms such as Ashanti [Ghana], Benin [Benin], Mossi [Mali], Oyo [Nigeria] and the Hausa city-states also became trader centres
• Ghana, one of the first great kingdoms of western Africa, had been found


  Circa 300's
• Ghana Empire reached its peak

  About the year 1000
• The Mali Empire replaced Ghana as the most powerful state in the west of Africa


  During the 1200's
• Most of Mali came under the control of the Songhai Empire


  By 1500
• Islam was the official religion of the Songhai Empire (c. 1000)
• The Songhai Empire reached its greatest territorial extent in the late 15th and early 16th centuries and was destroyed (1591) by the Almohades – a Muslim dynasty established in Spain and N.W. Africa
• There are wide variety of cultures across the breadth of West Africa, from Nigeria through to Senegal
• There are general semblances in culture expressed through dressing, music, architecture etc. not shared extensively with groups outside the West Africa region
• The long history of culture exchange predates colonisation and can be approximately placed at the time of the Ghana Empire, Mali Empire or perhaps before such empires
• Colonisation played important role and shaped many cultures of West Africa
• West African regions


  • Francophone West Africa
  • Anglophone West Africa
• Islam gained momentum during the 10th century in West Africa with the start of the Almoravids movement on the Senegal River
• Traditional Muslim areas in West Africa

  • Parts of Senegal
  • The Gambia
  • Mali
  • Guinea
  • Niger
  • Inland areas of Sierra Leone and Liberia
  • The western, northern and far-eastern regions of Burkina Faso
  • The northern halves of the coastal nations of Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire
• Christianity relatively came later and was embraced in the central and southern part of Nigeria, and the coastal regions stretching from southern Ghana to coastal parts of Sierra Leone
• Christianity was brought to the region by European missionaries during the colonial era
• Most West African practice syncretism – fusion of elements of Traditional African religion are mixed with Christianity
• Some Historic Architectural Icons

  • The 13th century Great Mosque of Djenné (Mali)
  • Dogon Village in South-eastern Mali and Burkina Faso
  • Traditional iconic buildings in Mali and Burkina Faso
• Areas to be concentrated on further in this course

  • Ghana and Nigeria representing Anglophone West Africa
  • Mali and Benin representing the Hausa city-states and Francophone West Africa
• Direct contact between West Africans and Europeans did not begin until the 15th Century
• Portugal


  Small state of farmers and fishermen, one of the 1st in Europe to enjoy national unity and was little involved in major political conflict that absorbed the energies of other European countries
• The Portuguese were strategically placed than most European countries for direct contact with the western shores of Africa
• Her hardy fishermen had long experience of sailing the Atlantic Ocean and politically was in contact with the Muslim North African states that marked the exportation of valuable goods from west