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The Sudano-Sahelian (also Sudanese and the French style-Soudanais) covers an umbrella of similar architectural styles common to the dry Sahel and Sudanian (geographical) regions of West Africa, south of (and within) the Sahara. This style is characterized by the use of mudbricks and an adobe plaster, with large wooden-log support beams that jut out from the wall face for large buildings such as mosques or palaces. These beams also act as scaffolding for reworking, which is done at regular intervals, and involves the local community.
The earthen architecture in the Sahel zone region is noticeably different to the building style in the neighboring savannah. The "old Sudanese" cultivators of the savannah built their compounds out of several cone-roofed houses. Here on the other hand cubic buildings with terraced roofs comprise the typical style. They lend a characteristic appearance to the close-built villages and cities. Large buildings such as mosques, representative residential and youth houses stand out in the distance. They are landmarks in a flat landscape that point to a complex society of farmers, craftsmen and merchants with a religious and political upper class.
The Sudano-Sahelian architectural style itself can be broken down in to smaller sub-styles that are typical of different ethnic groups in the region. These include the Malian style of the various ethnolinguistic groups of Mali, the Hausa-Fulani or Fortress style of the Hausa and Fulani peoples of northern Nigeria and Niger, and the Volta basin style of the Gur and Manden groups of Burkina Faso and northern Ghana.
The highlights of Sudano-Sahelian mosque architecture are without doubt to be found in the mid-Niger region between Ségou and Gao with the inner delta as the center. They outdo all other west Sudanese regions in terms of the number and quality of sacred buildings.[1] They have been extensively inventorised by Archnet. The Great Mosque of Djenné and Sankoré Mosque with its accompanying university buildings in Timbuktu are the most famous examples of this style.
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Further reading
- Aradeon, Suzan B. (1989), "Al-Sahili: the historian's myth of architectural technology transfer from North Africa", Journal des Africanistes, 59: 99–131.
- Bourgeois, Jean-Louis; Pelos, Carollee (photographer); Davidson, Basil (historical essay) (1989), Spectacular vernacular : the adobe tradition, New York: Aperture Foundation, ISBN 0893813915. Second edition published in 1996.
- Prussin, Labelle (1986), Hatumere: Islamic design in West Africa, Berkeley: University of California Press, ISBN 0520030044.
- Schutyser, S. (photographer); Dethier, J.; Gruner, D. (2003), Banco, Adobe Mosques of the Inner Niger Delta, Milan: 5 Continents Editions, ISBN 88-7439-051-3.