Architecture of Sudan
The lifestyles and material culture expressed in human settlements, their architecture and economic activities have been shaped by different regional and environmental conditions.
In its long documented history, Sudan has been a land of changing and diverse forms of human civilization with important influences from foreign cultures.
Cultural relations with Sudan's northern neighbour of Ancient Egypt, with which it shared long historical periods of mutual influence, brought about both Egyptian as well as distinctly Nubian settlements with temples and pyramids that emerged in the Kingdom of Kush and its last capital of Meroë.
[2] From about 1500 CE and up to the early 19th century, the Muslim Sultanates of the Funji and of Darfur established new kingdoms in the southern and western parts of Sudan.
[12][13] In medieval Nubia (c. 500–1500 CE), the inhabitants of the Christian kingdoms Makuria, Nobadia, and Alodia built distinct forms of architecture in their cities, such as the Faras Cathedral with elaborate friezes and wall paintings, the Great Monastery of St Anthony or the Throne Hall of the Makurian kings, a massive defence-like building, in Old Dongola.
[19] Following the defeat of General Gordon's troops in 1885, the Mahdist state (1885–1899) built important architectural monuments in Omdurman, the country's capital during this period.
[22] Traditional homes and other structures of vernacular architecture in large parts of the country have been built using locally available materials, such as cow dung, mudbricks, stones or trees and other plants.
The traditional, rectangular or square box-house (bayt jalus) with a flat roof, made of pure dried clay, sun-dried mud, brick or cow-dung plaster (zibala), continues to be the dominant architectural type in Sudan.
In his book on The Coral Buildings of Suakin, Jean-Pierre Greenlaw, a British art teacher, who had set up the School of Design in Khartoum, documented the former state of the town and gave the following description:[note 3] Built between the 16th and the 20th centuries, Suakin was a jewel-like example of the special sort of architecture which evolved to suit the conditions around the coasts of the Red Sea.
The style consisted of two- or three-storeyed houses with vertical walls pierced by many-shuttered windows and characteristic mashrabiyas, and with roof-terraces (kharjahs) on which to sleep in the welcome coolness of the moon- or star-lit evenings.
Its situation on a flat island in a lagoon provided a setting which gave it a unique beauty.Other buildings bearing witness to Turkish cultural influence in Sudan are the graves of Ottoman rulers with characteristic qubba domes in today's Baladiya Street in Khartoum.
[27] After the British Imperial Army under Lord Kitchener had defeated the Mahdist State with its capital in Omdurman in 1898, the urban district of downtown Khartoum was developed according to colonial rules of space zoning in a series of Union Jack patterns.
The al-Kabir mosque for Friday prayers in Khartoum, built in Egyptian style, was inaugurated, when Khedive Abbas Pasha Helmy visited Sudan on 4 December 1901.
[31] In 1926, the Ohel Shlomo synagogue was built in Sephardic style on former Victoria Avenue, now Al-Qasr Street, for the Jewish community of greater Khartoum.
[34] Even though these changes were made by and for foreigners and excluded most Sudanese inhabitants, the newly independent Republic of Sudan "inherited a fairly efficient system of education, public administration, transportation, recreation and other amenities.
"[35][note 4] Provincial towns and cities like Kassala, El-Gadarif, El-Obeid, Port Sudan, Shendi, Atbara, or Wad Madani also underwent important changes necessary for colonial rule, with modern buildings, long-distance roads and other infrastructure, such as a railway system linking the major economic centres.
[36][note 5] In the first years after independence, new buildings, for example the Examination Hall of the University of Khartoum,[37] were designed by foreign architects, such as Peter Muller,[38] George Stefanidis, Alick Potter and Miles Danbi.
[52] The Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery, designed by an Italian company, was completed in 2010 and won the 2013 Aga Khan Award for Architecture.
