[5][3] Sungbo's Eredo, a series of such fortifications equipped with guard houses and moats, has been considered the largest pre-colonial monument in Africa, larger even than the Pyramid of Khufu in Egypt or Great Zimbabwe.

[9] Traditional Yoruba architectural forms can be seen as hollow squares or circles, and buildings can be viewed as compounds consisting of various sub-units arranged in quadrilateral shapes surrounding an open courtyard.

Animal murals and carved posts beautified palaces and chiefly homes, which also served as prominent shrines for dedications to Orishas.

This population consisted of the indigenous residents of Isale Eko (Lagos Island), Yoruba returnees from Brazil, Trinidad and Cuba, who had crossed the Atlantic twice, European merchants and British colonists, and mixed-race Creoles.

[12] Many African returnees from Brazil had trained in masonry, and they introduced stuccoed bungalows and multi-storey buildings with arched windows and doorways, influenced by Brazilian architecture.

These Brazilian style-houses were built with open spaces for ventilation between the tops of the walls and the roofs and verandahs on the front of back entrances.

Examples include: the residence of Andrew Thomas, a two-story Brazilian-styled house designed with ornate works of plaster; Joaquim Devonde Branco's brickhouse, with wrought-iron windows; and the Caxton House on Marina, which was built with a two-story main building, two showrooms at each side of the main building, horse stables, and a garden.