Royal and ritual architecture
In the history of the Kingdom of Dahomey, the dynasty of the Kings of Abomey occupies a special place. From 1625 to 1900, 12 kings succeeded each other at the head of the kingdom, each building a fortified palace. Now classified as a Unesco World Heritage Site, these palaces number 10, some buildings having been superimposed on others. The 47-hectare site is a true ode to the power and solidity of earthen architecture in beautiful ochre hues. Inside this fortified site, each palace, established on a single level and enhanced with bas-reliefs, is itself surrounded by walls and is organized around 3 courtyards (exterior, interior, private). The passage from one to the other is done via astonishing portals built on the main walls, in a game of imbrication illustrating the precept decreed by the great Houegbadja, founder of the royal city: "Let the Kingdom be always made greater". In addition to the palaces, the site houses buildings with sacred power: the djexo, the hut housing the king's spirit, and the adoxo, the king's tomb. Dakodonou, the second king of the Abomey Dynasty, is also famous for having built astonishing cellars with varied geometric shapes dug 10 m underground. Discovered in 1998, the site is officially called the "underground village of Agongointo Zoungoudo", but the Beninese commonly call it ahouando
, literally "war holes". Porto-Novo is home to the remains of the palaces of another dynasty, that of the Kings of Hogbonou, of which the Palace of Initiations remains. The city is also rich in a truly unique heritage, that of the vodoun culture (or voodoo in French). The Vodoun squares are strong ceremonial and identity places. In the center is always a fetish tree, while around it are the convent (training place for the initiates) and the huts housing the deities, all of which are made of ochre-colored clay on which are affixed geometric or figurative decorative motifs, including on the surrounding walls. The whole is protected by a legba, an earthen mound in the shape of a man to whom offerings are made. Out of nearly 40 places listed in the city, only 8 have been restored since 2015... But the most amazing vodoun site in Benin is in Ouidah. It is the Temple of the Pythons. A Vodoun temple generally consists of a courtyard or peristyle accessible to the public where ceremonies and sacrifices take place, and a convent in the form of a small pointed hut containing the altar and housing the spirit of the deity where only the initiated are invited. Here, the first courtyard contains a truncated cone-shaped building housing the pythons, as well as a round thatched hut and an earthen building with a corrugated iron roof housing the protective deities, while the second courtyard is enclosed by a cement enclosure painted pink. The tradition of frescoes and murals with bright colors and amazing pictograms is very widespread in the Vodoun culture. A culture that gives the habitat a quasi-spiritual dimension, transforming the individual houses into true sanctuaries. It is there, in the heart of the intimacy of the homes, that the diversity of this culture unfolds, whether it be small modest altars made of bricks and mortar, or astonishing multi-storey buildings spread out in large courtyards and tiled funeral rooms for the wealthiest families.Colonial period
The history of Benin is inseparable from that of slavery. The country has therefore decided to highlight "the key sites of the slave route in Benin," particularly in the departments of Zou, Collines, Plateau and Atlantic, whether they be forts (such as Fort Saint-Jean-Baptiste-d'Ajuda, a Portuguese fort
with its slave warehouses), places of gathering and sorting of slaves (such as Place Singbodji in Abomey), or places of refuge and resistance against the raids led by the Kings of Dahomey (such as the site of Yaka in Dassa-Zoumé with the Grottes du Roi et de la Reine, the vegetal ramparts, the watchtowers, and the temple erected in honor of protective deities). A moving and necessary visit. This period is also marked by an interesting evolution of architectural styles. In Ouidah in particular, the first Portuguese merchants erected a number of buildings recognizable by their covered exterior gallery, the whitewashing of the exterior and interior walls and the presence of stucco moldings framing the entrance. To build their constructions, these merchants imported materials from their colonies in Brazil, especially stone and baked brick, which were then bound with mortar made from the cooking of shells. To increase the size and strength of the frames, they also imported extremely resistant wood from Brazil.Alongside these lavish homes, they also developed more modest earthen architecture, similar to the local architecture. But in all cases, these traders "owned" "hut slaves" who lived in earthen constructions with straw or dried palm leaves roofs and separated from the rest of the dwelling by an enclosure.
Then, under the impetus of merchants, as well as former slaves from the Brazilian colonies who returned to Benin, a type of architecture known as Afro-Brazilian developed at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Warehouses to store goods, commercial houses with the first floor reserved for the store and the first floor for housing, or purely residential houses placed in the heart of a plot of land delimited by an enclosure and inspired by the architecture of the great estates of Brazil... Afro-Brazilian achievements are numerous. Among their main characteristics, we can note: almost systematic use of clay brick for the walls or use of a framework with pillars on which wooden panels are then fixed, walls protected by a plaster, brick or stone foundations, compact architecture compensated by large openings and presence of attics to create an air space and thus a permanent ventilation, gallery in the facade, blinds or openwork shutters. But what makes this Afro-Brazilian architecture truly unique is the care given to the decoration, which many describe as the meeting of the effervescence of the baroque and the richness of local know-how. Emphasis of the plaster decorations, bright colors of the whitewash, play on horizontality and verticality, geometric or symbolic forms, curves, volutes, colonnades, highlighting of openings by white or colored stucco moldings, play of arches animating the facade, paintings, frescoes and bas-reliefs, and attention given to the portal with its colored pediments, lintels and pinnacles... everything is a decorative abundance
Among the most astonishing buildings of this style, let us note: the Villa Avajon of Ouidah; and especially the Great Mosque of Porto-Novo, inspired by a Nigerian Afro-Brazilian mosque, itself inspired by the church of San Salvador of Bahia! See its molded porches, arched and decorated with flowers, its cornices and pilasters, its towers and, inside, its sublime starry vault. Porto Novo is also home to hundreds of Afro-Brazilian houses... most of which are in a terrible state of disrepair. In 2008, the city hall rehabilitated a first house, then three others in 2020, including one that will host a museum of Afro-Brazilian heritage... but many inhabitants are now launching an appeal to sensitize the heirs of these houses and push them to carry out the necessary restoration. For their public buildings, the French colonists favored a resolutely European architecture, passing from neoclassicism to historicizing eclecticism, before giving way to the more modern lines of Art Deco or functionalism. Finally, this colonial period was also marked by the role played by Catholic missionaries who established missions, seminaries, churches and basilicas, transposing to Benin a typically European religious architecture, as shown by the Basilica of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in Ouidah, a neo-Gothic building with large geminated bays illuminating an imposing central vessel 58 m long and 14 m wide; and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mercy in Cotonou, whose façade is covered with ceramic tiles forming alternating white and red bands.Vernacular richness
2022 will be the year of the big verdict... Benin will know if the request to extend the inscription of Koutammakou on the Unesco World Heritage list will be accepted! The rich heritage of the Batammariba, already classified in Togo, extends beyond the border, in the northwest of Benin... the country hopes to be able to make it a cultural asset! The very name of this great people means "those who shape the earth", "the good masons". The spiritual pantheon of the Batammariba is governed by Kuiye, a great solar figure and supreme architect who is known to have built a Tata Somba or fortified house in his solar village in the West of Heaven. On Earth, his people reproduce all the characteristics (the houses are always oriented to the west) in an architecture mixing know-how, technicality and spirituality. The materials used to build these authentic castles are raw earth (banco), clay, sand, wood, stone, millet straw and water to shape the earth. These houses, rounded two-story turrets with flat or conical thatched roofs, are organized in a village that also includes ceremonial spaces, springs and sacred rocks and sites reserved for initiation rites. From the outside, these fortified houses are almost blind, offering only rare small openings allowing to see without being seen and to shoot arrows at possible attackers. The Zarma people also built villages protected by fortified enclosures with round or rectangular houses made of mud bricks and topped with a thatched roof. The Fulani herders imagine mobile houses in the form of domes made of millet stalks or reed mats depending on the season... even if many of them are now forced to settle down.
But the most famous vernacular habitat in Benin remains without a doubt that of the lake villages that have developed over the last four centuries on Lake Nokoué. These places of refuge for slaves fleeing the raids have gradually developed into authentic small towns on the water. Three types of huts can be seen: the Kiho, with a roof made of raffia palm leaves; the Sansanho, a hut covered with straw (the most common); and the Ganho, with a corrugated iron roof. In the first two types of huts, floors and vertical walls are filled with stems and branches called Hoba and Hounkpa. These constructions have an average lifespan of 15 years. In Ganvié, fishermen even create fish pens made of bamboo poles and branches whose progressive rotting attracts fish that come to feed and reproduce there! In Lowe, a semi-lacustrine hamlet in the Ouémé Valley, the inhabitants are gradually replacing wood and bamboo with concrete. If in this village, its use is still reasonable, this is not the case in the suburbs of Cotonou, for example, where concrete constructions are multiplying in flood-prone areas... Concrete blocks and corrugated iron are also commonplace in the concessions in the city, these enclosed plots of land grouping together around a courtyard a group of houses occupied by the same family.Contemporary architecture
Like many other African countries, Benin has experienced very strong urban growth that is difficult to control, and has seen the addition of precarious housing areas, often without water or electricity, to the colonial neighborhoods "à l'Européenne", creating a very strong spatial segregation. At the same time, numerous buildings and the first skyscrapers were developed, notably in Cotonou, where the BCEAO Building, at 57 meters, is the tallest. But faced with this westernization of architecture, some have chosen to combine tradition and modernity, as with the Palais des Congrès in Cotonou, whose structure is inspired by the Tata Somba of the Batammariba people. The Palace has been the subject of a vast rehabilitation plan completed in 2020.
In 2021, the government has also launched a vast investment campaign to finance new roads, the renovation of the international airport, as well as the creation of major maritime and industrial centers. With the "Benin Revealed" project, the country has also embarked on vast cultural projects, such as the revitalization of the city of Ouidah with the restoration of the Portuguese Fort, and above all the construction of the International Museum of the Memory of Slavery, which will include a garden of remembrance and a replica of a slave ship. Opening planned for the end of 2022. Another highly anticipated flagship museum, the Museum of the Amazons and Kings of Dahomey, will be unveiled in July 2024 in the heart of the Royal Palaces of Abomey. It is a project led by the Franco-Cameroonian architect Françoise N'Thépé who wanted to work with local craftsmen to sublimate the raw earth architecture. Another highly anticipated project is that of the National Assembly of Benin, designed by the Burkinabe architect Diébédo Francis Kéré, winner of the prestigious Pritzker Prize 2022 (the Nobel Prize for architecture), who was inspired by the palaver tree under which, in the African tradition, decisions concerning the community are made. The architect's largest project to date, the building will showcase architecture that is deeply rooted in the spirit of the place and sustainable, emphasized by elegant, slender lines and volumes. Some architects imagine more modest projects, but always in connection with the community, like Habib Mémé, founder of the NGO "L'Atelier des Griots", which brings together architects, urban planners, designers and inhabitants, all ardent defenders of local, practical and ecological architecture. Based on vernacular know-how, favoring the recycling of materials, imagining creative and participative workshops, the NGO designs projects thought by and for all, such as the Youth House in the Akpakpa-Dodomey neighborhood in Cotonou.
