Indigenous African Architecture [antikvár]

Indigenous African ArchitectureThe many-gabled labyrinths of a mountain peasant home, the castles of the Somba and Dogon, the two-storied mud houses of the citizenry of Sudanese towns, the minarets of their mosques - high as towers but built without cement or reinforced concrete - are just as much a reality in West Africa as are the skyscrapers, bank palaces, warehouses, and factories in large cities on the north Atlantic. On the last page of my book on African crafts is a sentence that reads: "This book contains a number of photographs that it will no longer be possible to take in a few years. Despite the steadfastness and obstinacy of many craftsmen, and their resistance to innovation, one day tradition will succumb to technology." This is, of course, also true for traditional building, though I am of the opinion that old and new will co-exist much longer there than with the crafts. Since poverty forces many to build for themselves, and because tribal thinking and living together in the old patriarchal modes of the expanded family is, in many areas, hardly changed, the dissolution is proceeding very slowly. The transition from a self-sufficient, purely agrarian economy into a commercial one with a monetary basis, the transformation of peasants into wage-earners, the resulting flight from the land and increasing industrialization - modest though it still may be in West Africa - naturally changes living patterns and thus building forms as well.But this book will report on traditional building and traditional life. Housing is shaped by life-styles, by needs, and, of course, by possibilities. Having bedrooms under a roof is important, but so are all those things that mean comfortable living to a West African-the yard in front of the house, the interior courtyards, little walls to sit against, roof terraces and open verandas under an awning, and resting places for the ^. old people under a nearby tree.Ceiling beams are supportedL ,by forked posts.Each house IS a portrait of its owner. The architectural forms are as