African Vernacular

African vernacular building covers many separate traditions, most built from earth, timber and thatch by their own communities. Common forms include walls of sun-dried mud brick or shaped mud, round houses with conical thatched roofs, and family compounds of several buildings set around a shared courtyard. The mosques of Djenné and Timbuktu are built of sun-dried earth brick and earth plaster, with bundles of palm wood called toron projecting from the walls; the toron are decoration and also serve as fixed scaffolding when the walls are replastered.

The Great Mosque of Djenné in Mali is the largest adobe building in the world. In northern Cameroon, the Musgum build domed mud houses up to about 9 meters tall, with raised ridges on the outside that give footholds during building and repair. The Batammariba of Koutammakou, on the border of Togo and Benin, build two-story earthen tower houses called takienta. In South Africa, Ndebele women paint house walls with geometric patterns in red, yellow, blue and green on a white ground.

These traditions have no single origin; each developed within its own region and people over centuries. Some earthen buildings have stood for hundreds of years. The Djinguereber Mosque in Timbuktu was built in 1327 under Mansa Musa of the Mali Empire, of earth with straw, fiber and wood. The first mosque on the Djenné site dates to around the 13th century, and the present building was rebuilt in 1906-1907 under Ismaila Traoré, head of the town's masons' guild.

Earth walls need regular repair. In Djenné the whole town takes part in a yearly replastering festival, known in French as the Crépissage. Ndebele house painting began in the 18th century and took new forms after the Ndzundza Ndebele's war with the Boers in 1883; the painter Esther Mahlangu has since gained international recognition for it. UNESCO listed the Old Towns of Djenné and the Djinguereber Mosque in 1988, and Koutammakou in 2004.