Architecture of Africa
[7] Based on these furnished floors purposed for the collection of spring water, the Kel Essuf rock art, which are cultural facies, may date at least as early as 12,000 BP amid the late period of the Pleistocene.
[9] In the collective memory of Early Pastoral peoples, rockshelters (e.g., Fozzigiaren, Imenennaden, Takarkori) in the Tadrart Acacus region may have served as monumental areas for women and children, as these were where their burial sites were primarily found.
[13] At Takarkori rockshelter, Final Pastoral peoples created burial sites for several hundred individuals that contained non-local, luxury goods and drum-type architecture in 3000 BP, which made way for the development of the Garamantian civilization.
[14] Thus, by this time, cattle religion (e.g., myths, rituals) and cultural distinctions between genders (e.g., men associated with bulls, violence, hunting, and dogs as well as burials at monumental funerary sites; women associated with cows, birth, nursing, and possibly the afterlife) had developed.
[15] Probably the most famous class of structure in all Africa, the Pyramids of Egypt remain one of the world's greatest early architectural achievements, regardless of practicality and origins in a funerary context.
[31] In addition to farming undomesticated crops and maintaining domesticated animals, the people of Mouhoun Bend engaged in hunting and fishing as well as iron, salt, and pottery production.
[31] The funerary culture of the Mouhoun Bend people included ceremonial placement of food and material goods in pits and concave surfaces as well as the development of earth structures.
[48] At Dhar Tagant, there are also various geometric (e.g., rectilinear, circular) constructions, and a possible late period, involving a funerary tomb with a chapel at Foum el Hadjar from 1st millennium CE and wadis with evidence of crocodiles.
[16] In the Sidamo Province, the megalithic monoliths of the stelae-building cultural tradition were utilized as tombstones in cemeteries (e.g., Arussi, Konso, Sedene, Tiya, Tuto Felo), and have engraved anthropomorphic features (e.g., swords, masks), phallic form, and some of that served as markers of territory.
[57] In the western part of North Africa, known as the Maghreb, the "Moorish" style of architecture developed over time, with strong cultural connections to Al-Andalus, the Islamic society of the Iberian Peninsula.
[61] Ifriqiya (roughly present-day Tunisia) was an important province of Islamic North Africa, with Kairouan serving as a major cultural and political center for much of its history.
[59] The Almohads in Ifriqiya were soon succeeded by the Hafsids, under whose long dominion the center of power and patronage shifted to Tunis and the region's architecture increasingly deviated from that of the western Maghreb and al-Andalus.
[16] At the Inner Niger Delta, in the Mali Lakes Region, there are two monumental tumuli constructed in the time period of the Trans-Saharan trade for the Sahelian kingdoms of West Africa.
HM Stanely, quoted in Asomani-Boateng, Raymond (2011-11-01), described the roads as "...fenced with tall [water cane] neatly set very close together in uniform rows..." possibly for privacy.
[91] By the beginning of the 16th century, Katsina had become a very important commercial and academic center in Hausaland, and Gobarau Mosque had grown into a famed Islamic institution of higher learning.
Archaeologist and Ethiopisant David Phillipson postulates that Bete Gebriel-Rufa'el was actually built in the very early medieval period, some time between 600 and 800 AD, originally as a fortress but later turned into a church.
[96] Somali architecture has a rich and diverse tradition of designing and engineering different types of construction, such as masonry, castles, citadels, fortresses, mosques, temples, aqueducts, lighthouses, towers and tombs, during the ancient, medieval, and early modern periods in Somalia.
In ancient Somalia, pyramidical structures known in Somali as taalo were a popular burial style, with hundreds of these dry stone monuments scattered around the country today.
[98] In the official Dervish-written letter's description of the 1920 air, sea and land campaign and the fall of Taleh in February 1920, in an April 1920 letter transcribed from the original Arabic script into Italian by the incumbent Governatori della Somalia, the British are described taking twenty-seven garesas or 27 houses from the Dhulbahante clan:[99][a] Ai primi di aprile giungeva, a mezzo di corrieri dervisc di Belet Uen, una lettera diretta dal Mulla "Agli Italiani" con la quale, in sostanza, giustificando la sua rapida sconfitta coll'attriburla a defezione dei suoi seguaci Dulbohanta, chiedeva la nostra mediazione presso gli Inglesi ... Gl'Inglesi che sapevano questo ci son piombati addosso con tutta la gente e con sei volatili (aeroplani) ... i Dulbohanta nella maggior parte si sono arresi agli inglesi e han loro consegnato ventisette garese (case) ricolme di fucili, munizioni e danaro.
In early April there came, by way of dervish couriers of Beledweyne, a letter sent by the Mullah "To The Italians" in which, in substance, he justified his rapid defeat by attributing it to the defection of his Dhulbahante followers and asked for our mediation with the English.
A complex structure of stone channels along the mountain's base was used to dike, dam, and level surrounding river waters for irrigation of individual plots of land.
[109] The Southeast Asian origins of the first settlers of Madagascar are reflected in the island's architecture, typified by rectangular dwellings topped with peaked roofs and often built on short stilts.
[122] In the coastal rainforest belt of Africa, where temperatures are regularly torrid and humid regardless of daytime or nighttime, rural dwellings require interior cross-ventilation to ensure maximum bodily comfort.
Another church that can illustrate the architecture style and design in Ethiopia in the modern era is the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa which contains the tombs of Emperor Haile Salassie, his wife, and those who were executed during the Italian regime's occupation.
[135] In the early modern period, Ethiopia's absorption of diverse new influences—such as Baroque, Arab, Turkish and Gujarati Indian styles—began with the arrival of Portuguese Jesuit missionaries in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Some Turkish influence may have entered the country during the late 16th century during Ethiopia's war with the Ottoman Empire (see Habesh), which resulted in an increased building of fortresses and castles.
This European tradition continued well into the 20th century, with the construction of European-style manor houses, such as Shiwa Ng'andu in what is now Zambia, or the Boer homesteads in South Africa, and with many town buildings.
[138][139] The Groupe des Architectes Modernes Marocains—at first led by Michel Écochard, director of urban planning under the French Protectorate—was active building public housing in the Hay Mohammedi neighborhood of Casablanca that provided a "culturally specific living tissue" for laborers and migrants from the countryside.
[141] At the 1953 Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM), Écochard presented, along with Georges Candilis, the work of ATBAT-Afrique—the Africa branch of Atelier des Bâtisseurs, founded in 1947 by figures including Le Corbusier, Vladimir Bodiansky, and André Wogenscky.
This had spread to Algiers and Morocco by the early 20th century, from which time colonial buildings across the continent began to consist of recreations of traditional African architecture, the Jamia Mosque in Nairobi being a typical example.
