African aesthetics and Western papradigm`s

Dr. Ir. Pierre Maas
[email protected]
THE RESTORATION OF DJENNE, MALI
African aesthetics and western paradigm's
The city of Djenné is one of the oldest known cities in West Africa. Traces of
early settlement, dating back to the third century BC, were demonstrated
both in the region and in the town itself by archaeological research by the
McIntosh (McIntosh & McIntosh 1980a and b, 1984; McIntosh 1995). It was
demonstrated that urbanisation was well developed by the tenth century and
that also the region must have been densely inhabited. Some 79 sites within a
radius of 4 km. around Djenné appear to have been inhabited at the time.
One of the largest mounds in the region, the site of Djenné-Djeno, even
measures some 33 ha.
Since archaeological research so far only consisted in digging test-pits for
stratigraphic investigation, any insight into the structure of the sites
themselves and their eventual interrelation is still wanting. It seems likely,
however, that the reason for this peculiar type of dispersed urbanization
should have to be sought in ethnic diversity, possibly also linked with
economic/trade specialization.
Taking advantage of its location in the fertile Inner-Niger Delta, which
ensured rich pastures, fertile soils, and with fish and game in abundance,
Djenné soon developed into a flourishing commercial centre, initially mostly
interregional, later also becoming a post on the long-distance trade across the
Sahara. Cola-nuts, gold, ivory and slaves from the South were traded for salt,
books and textiles from the North. And though Tombouctou was to become
better-known to most Europeans - thanks to the stories of North-African
merchants who did not travel any farther - Djenné, in fact, took a
considerably more important position, both commercially and as a centre for
West-African Islam.
Djenné owed its importance to its strategic location by the Bani River, one of
the affluents of the Niger and at the border of a vast plain of over 30.000
square kilometres: the Inner-Niger Delta. Annually, the Niger flooded a
considerable part of this plain. The region played a major role in the history of
West Africa and was closely related to the development of such medieval
empires as Ghana/Wagadu, Mali, and Songay.
Naturally, many people were attracted to this fertile region bordering on the
Sahara, the Marka/Songay (urban merchants), Bozo (fishermen and masons),
Fulani (herdsmen) and Bamanan (agriculturists) making out the majority. Their
descendants can still be seen in Djenné and, together with the merchants
from the North and the South determined its real cosmopolitan character. To
date, the town has a population of some 12.000 inhabitants.
When the French conquered Djenné in 1893, they chose the more easily
accessible city of Mopti as their administrative centre. In this way, they only
accelerated the decline of Djenné, which had already been set in motion from
1818, with its conquest by Sékou Ahmadou, the founder of the Fulani Empire
of Macina. Sékou then made the newly established city of Hamdallahii the
capital of his empire. Due to decades of droughts and the circumstance that
many young people leave the city, presently, the economic situation is rather
critical.
Nowadays, only the widely known monumental mud architecture reminds us
of Djenné’s former grandeur. This also made the UNESCO, in 1988, accept
both the city itself and the archaeological sites around, as a World Monument.
The architecture of the monumental two-storied mud buildings with their
decorated façades is universally admired. The mosque, for example, measuring
75 by 75 m., is the world’s largest mud construction. The present building
dates from 1906-1907 and has at least two predecessors. Oral tradition has it
that the first mosque was built in the thirteenth century, by Chief Kon
Konboro. Its ruins can still be seen in old photographs from 1893 (Rousseau),
1904 (Danel) and 1906 (Fortier). Sékou Ahmadou, the earlier mentioned
founder of the Macina Empire, constructed the second mosque in 1834. Only
one photograph, dating from 1893 (Rousseau), bears witness of this austere
and plain building.
Archaeological excavations yielded evidence of the use of mud bricks as early
as the eighth to ninth centuries on the one hand, and of rectangular houses
plans dating back to the eleventh and twelfth centuries on the other
(McIntosh 1995: 64-65). However, exactly what the age of the existing houses
is, is hard to ascertain. What we know for sure is that some of them figure in
photographs from as early as 1893 onwards. Since these houses then already
show signs of a certain age, it may be estimated that they could at least be
some 200 years old. In addition to old photographs, also the shape of the mud
bricks can be used to assess the age of houses. Until about 1940, the typical
cylindrical Djenné mud bricks, the djenné ferey, were used. More recent
houses are usually built employing rectangular, moulded, mud bricks, the socalled toubabou ferey, or, the 'white man’s brick'.
Ever since the 1970s, the wide possibilities of research in this city attracted
Dutch researchers of various backgrounds, such as Cultural anthropologists,
Human biologists, Archaeologists, Physical and Social geographers as well as
Architects. The results of their research led to numerous articles and even to
several doctoral dissertations (for a complete bibliography see Bedaux 1993).
An exhibition on Djenné, based on this research, and complemented with a
catalogue, first opened at Leiden, in 1994, and was later, in 1996, also shown
at Bamako and Djenné itself. Presenting a vivid image of this multi-ethnic city,
a wide audience became aware of the disastrous situation of its architecture.
Consequently, in 1995, the Dutch Embassy at Bamako took the initiative and
asked the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde to draw up a plan for the
restoration of the city (Bedaux et alii 1996). A joint Malian and Dutch mission
went to Djenné to make an assessment of the actual situation. It then
appeared that more than 30 % of the monumental buildings that had still been
visited by Dutch researchers in 1984, had disappeared by then and that those
houses still extant were in a real poor state of conservation. This situation
could in part be ascribed to the ongoing economic deterioration as a result of
years of drought and out-migration.
A plan for the restoration of the city, submitted to the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs (Den Haag), met with the favourable decision to subsidise the project
for the period of 1996 to 2003.
The project concentrates on the restoration of some 168 monumental
buildings in the city of Djenné (out of a total of some 1.850 houses) and on
setting up an organisation which may assure a safe management of the cultural
heritage. Presently, this project is being carried out by the Rijksmuseum voor
Volkenkunde, in close co-operation with: the Eindhoven University of
Technology (dr.ir. P. Maas), Leiden University (prof.dr. R.M.A. Bedaux), the
Musée National du Mali at Bamako (dr. S. Sidibe), the Mission Culturelle de
Djenné (dr. B. Diaby), and the Malian architect …. at Djenné.
The formal organisation of the project is rather simple. The Rijksmuseum
voor Volkenkunde responds to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in regard
to the execution of the project. The museum, in turn, made a formal
agreement with the Malian Ministry of Culture and Tourism and established
an executive office in Djenné, comprised of four persons: a director, in fact
this is, qualitate qua, the Director of the Mission Culturelle de Djenné, a
Malian architect, a Djenné mason and a chauffeur. This office is responsible for
the execution of the annual restoration programme. Students from Paris,
Eindhoven and Amsterdam assist the architect in drawing plans of the houses
to be restored. A Scientific Committee comprised of representatives of the
Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, of the Dutch Embassy in Bamako, of the
Malian ministries involved and UNESCO-representative, meets once a year to
advise the executive office and to determine the final yearly programme.
Moreover, a Committee of local authorities and chief-masons assists the office
in regard to every-day matters.
Because Djenné has been registered as a World Monument, the project has
adopted certain principles of restoration, based on the International Charter
for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites (Venice 1966).
These principles have then been adapted conform to local circumstances.
Even for World Monuments, there are no absolute and universally accepted
restoration principles (Warren 1996).
Two aspects are essential for the restoration concept of the project.
First, the circumstance that the whole city is listed as a UNESCO World
Monument and the Malinian law protecting all classified monuments, means
that no alterations can be made to any of the some 1.850 houses in Djenné
(1982). This creates a situation in which the social structure of a traditional
architectural culture comes into conflict with an inflexible and very rigid set of
rules. Djenné, as a living city, is caught in its own armour of architectural
tradition. Its therefore that the project proposes not to classify all of Djenné's
buildings, but only those who are significant for its architectural image. They
form a frame of reference for the urban structure around those selected
monuments and will hopefully serve as a source of inspiration for future
developments. In other words, the project tries to retain the atmosphere of
the city based on its location, with its typical structure of narrow streets and
small squares and, especially, the monumental mud-brick houses with
decorated façades, plastered by hand. This ensemble must survive. Protecting
this well-defined cultural heritage (9 %) will not hamper any future
development of the city. It will be crucial however to declare the rest of the
city a protected townscape in which mud should be used as the building
material.
For this reason, a number of 168, mostly monumental houses, were selected
for restoration, sometimes bordering onto a street or square, sometimes
standing by themselves, spread all over the city and in various states of
deterioration. This selection is primarily based on architectural criteria. The
list of the houses selected by the office and the representatives of the
Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, and approved of by the Scientific
Committee, is made public a year prior to the actual restoration. This
procedure assures that internal politics cannot play a role in the selection.
Second, the role of the local masons - often of Bozo ethnic origin - in the
project is essential. In Djenné, masons are organised in some kind of guild,
which is unique in Africa: the barey-ton. This form of organisation of masons
probably exists already for some centuries. At least, it is mentioned as early as
in a 15th century local chronicle, the Ta’rikh el-Fettach, written in
Tombouctou in Arabic. Each family has a long-established relationship with a
specific mason’s family, in which also magic plays an important role. This
traditional structure is well respected in the project. Therefore, the office
hires local masons, selected by the owner, for the restoration work to be
done. This also implicates that traditional construction techniques and
materials are to be used to execute the work. We will come to that in a
moment.
Before any intervention, careful recording and research is necessary. The
documentation consists in three parts: the eventually already existing plans
and photographs (Maas & Mommersteeg 1992; Gardi et alii 1995; Dubois
1896); drawings and photographs of the actual condition; plans for the
restoration with a detailed description of the work to be carried out, a
calculation of the quantity and quality of the required materials, and a tender.
The restoration plans are made by the architect and submitted to the office
and the representative of the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde. The principle
to retain as much of the original parts of any monument as possible is of
paramount importance in the decision making. The elaborate documentation
ensures that all restoration work is more or less reversible. The
documentation of these houses will permit a reasonable control, something,
which is now virtually impossible.
It goes without saying that the restoration of a living, classified mud town, in
one of the world’s poorest nations, in the way described above, does pose
some problems.
As we said, the project executes the work in close collaboration with the
barey-ton.This means that existing masonry techniques and traditional
materials are used.
The construction method employing cylindrical mud bricks does, however,
pose some problems. These bricks are laid vertically in mud mortar, resulting
in a rather weak bond in the walls. Especially when exposed to heavy pressure
of second storeys and roofs, the lower parts of the walls tend to bulge. The
traditional solution to this problem consists in supporting the walls with
buttresses, or to rebuild the walls. The first solution only has a temporary
effect and the bulging will continue. The second solution is rather rigorous,
especially since it is generally impossible to only reconstruct the defective part
of the wall, with staying methods not being known. Therefore, all of the wall
and the roof above the defective wall will have to be torn down and then
rebuilt completely employing rectangular mud bricks. This kind of restoration
is more or less visible: straight walls and right angles are the result. The
technique of temporarily supporting the good parts is not known and will not
work, since the new mud wall will shrink when the heavy load of the good
parts above is put upon it. As a result of this traditional restoration method,
only few real old walls are left in the city. In the project this solution is
nevertheless maintained, but every effort is made to restrict the damage to
the minimum. Furthermore, a layer of plaster applied by hand and renewed
every two or three years, will soon cover the rectangular aspect of the new
parts. Only in exceptional cases, for example in old façades with only small
defective parts, the old masonry technique with cylindrical bricks is
reintroduced. Some of the old masons can still instruct others and pass on
this technique.
Old floor-plans are reconstructed when possible, that is, if such plans exist, or
when the old plan can be deduced from the present situation or,
exceptionally, when a clear oral tradition on the plan still survives. Doors of
corrugated iron are replaced by solid wooden ones, decorated with iron
studs and wooden locks. Old doors are reused and restored if their condition
permits. Corrugated iron windows are replaced by wooden lattice ones.
Carpenters and smiths still master these techniques. In small windows,
earthenware screens are placed. Those surviving exceptionally serve as
models for the potters.
They also make the earthenware tiles, formerly used on the floors, nowadays
also used as a protection of the outside walls against the rain. This, an
experiment, does not work. Water creeps in cracks resulting from the
difference in coefficients of expansion of dry mud and earthenware and whole
blocks of tiles are falling down.
The same technical difficulties occur even to a larger degree when mud walls
are covered with cement plaster. Even without any rain, whole plaques are
coming down.
The best plaster is made of a mixture of mud, chaff, urine, and excrements,
which has been left to rotten for some time in a hole. When plaster of this
mixture is put by hand onto the walls every two or three years, walls will be
resistant to any damage by rain. The mosque, being plastered every year by
the whole of Djenné population, offers a good example of the effectiveness of
this traditional Djenné technique. Its walls remain in a perfectly good
condition. Moreover, cement has to be brought in at high prices whereas mud
is cheap, to be found anywhere around Djenné, and has superior insulation
capacities over cement.
Another problem occurs when the architectural starting-point for the
restoration comes into conflict with the local sense of housing and living. In
the project, the architecture and the city’s atmosphere of around the turn of
the century are taken as an arbitrary model for the restoration. It is from this
period that the oldest written records and illustrations survive and it was then
that French colonisation started (1893). It is also this image of the city that is
most famous and forms the basis of the so-called 'style soudanais'. In the
western academic field, this 'style soudanais' is regarded as of Djenné origin
and has served as a paradigm for other architectural developments in the
region.
Nowadays, this 'style soudanais' is part of a sense of national identity. The
construction of a sense of national identity goes hand in hand with the
development of heritage sites. Cultural heritage sites even have become
important technologies in producing a national identity. However, if we
assume that an official discourse on identity is being established through
material forms (architecture), its is obvious that there will be a conflictuous
connection between this and the way people construct their own identities
and ways of living on a personal and daily basis. This conflict comes to surface
on several levels in the project.
At the moment, owners are responsible for keeping their houses in a decent
state of repair. Yet, even though this is now well-known to a fair number of
the inhabitants, and though the Mission Culturelle de Djenné - directly under
the Minister of Culture and Tourism supervising and controlling the
Monument - has done its best to make the population aware of all this, still
everybody does as he likes. It is certainly not a common notion that it should
be regarded an honour to figure on the list and that this offers possibilities for
financing restoration, but that one, on the other hand, also has to accept
certain restrictions. It is sometimes difficult to explain why, for example,
restoration involves the retaining of intricate house-plans since these are
interesting, or also typical low ceilings and inconveniences such as small
doorways and windows.
Djenné also has no adequate and official registration of the land. Therefore,
the authorities will not give any official construction permit, since this might
be used to claim ownership of a house or some plot of land. Marabouts and
chefs usually deal with litigation procedures. As a result, asserting any control
is not feasible at the moment.
Most inhabitants are proud of their architecture. However, some people
associate the use of cement and corrugated iron with development. The use
of mud and wood is considered as a sign of backwardness and conservatism.
Especially in the case of the mosque and the school, the advocates of so-called
development sometimes provoke heated debates.
Many different ethnic groups (e.g. Marka/Songay, Bozo, Fulani and Bamanan)
live together in Djenné. This ethnic diversity is, however, not reflected in the
town’s architecture. Influenced by North-African architecture, Djenné masons
have realised their own style, especially in the mosques, which subsequently
spread to a large part of West Africa. In their home regions, these different
groups each have their own typical style of architecture, quite different from
that of Djenné. When people of these ethnic groups move to Djenné, they all
adopt the unique Djenné style (Van Gijn 1993). Ethnic identity in Djenné thus
finds no expression in architectural style. The architectural style is used by the
people of Djenné as a symbol of their town and of their identity as town
dwellers.
The reconstruction of the first, thirteenth century mosque presents an
interesting case of the manipulation of authenticity and identity. The
reconstruction started in 1906 and was completed in 1907. It was thought,
even by Prussin (1986) that the French administration was largely responsible
for the reconstruction of Konboro’s mosque. The mosque was considered as
a French interpretation of Djenné architecture. When Dubois, who earlier, in
1896, published a reconstruction of this mosque, revisited the town around
1910, he was horrified at the sight of the new mosque, in his view built by a
benevolentFrench administrator. He wrote: "Au lieu d’un pastiche de
l’architecture de Djenné, c’est la caricature qu’on voit aujourd’hui sous prétexte de
mosquée. Une masse se dresse, hystérique, qui tient du hérisson et du buffet
d’orgue, grâce à la débauche de cônes sur les sommets. Le tout est couronné par
trois clochetons (!) à la silhouette de chapeau-chinois qui, définitivement, impriment
à cette tentative un cachet de folie. En vérité, avec tous ces cônes, on dirait d’un
temple baroque dédié au dieu Suppositoire." (Dubois 1911).
Bourgeois (1987 and 1996) finally solved the question of who was responsible
for the new mosque. The French did not contribute to the actual building of
the mosque. The plan made by Maas (Maas & Mommersteeg 1992) revealed
that no surveying instruments had been used. Also the dimensions of the
columns differ considerably. Even the French money which would be used for
the construction of the Medersa, the French-Arabic school for the local elite,
and the mosque together (7.060 francs), was spent on the medersa
exclusively. Only the school was of direct importance to French colonial
policy.
For the non-Fulani, the reconstruction of Konboro’s mosque meant a final
blow to Fulani domination. The place where Sékou Ahmadou built his mosque
in 1834 was sanctioned by his ‘forged’ version of the histories of the Djenné
mosques. For the non-Fulani it was unimaginable to destroy a mosque and
they supported the French in building the medersa on the spot of Ahmadou’s
mosque. In doing so, the French were happy to be able to build the medersa,
the non-Fulani the mosque, and the Fulani could blame it on the French
administration. Nobody would have benefited by revealing the truth. Ismaila
Traoré, head of the Djenné barey-ton, built the mosque. The non-Fulani
avenged Ahmadou’s insults by giving the new mosque high towers, a high
ceiling, and a women’s gallery, just the opposite of Ahmadou’s mosque, a plain
and low building.
In this way, the new mosque is a local Djenné achievement, because of the
politics involved, the design, the technology and the grandeur of the building.
The French took this architectural style as an example for their neo-Sudanic
style, employing it in administrative buildings all over the ‘Soudan français’ and
even in France (Prussin 1993). What we can conclude from this story is that
the mosque is at the same time authentic non-Fulani, Fulani and French.
In deciding to make the town part of its national heritage, the Malian
government also came to use the architecture of Djenné as a national symbol.
The fact that UNESCO accepted to include Djenné in the World Monument
List demonstrates beyond any doubt that the town is now even considered as
an important world heritage.
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