Amerindian habitat
The Amerindian peoples have left a unique architectural heritage in French Guiana: the carbet, whose name means "large hut". It is a covered shelter, but without any walls or partitions, thus ensuring protection and ventilation. The original structure is entirely made of plant materials: wood for the frame, woven palm leaves for the roof. For the simple structures, the pillars supporting the whole are used to attach the hammocks, the inhabitants never sleeping on the ground. In this case, the kitchen and outbuildings have their own carbet slightly apart. In the case of the two-storey structures, where the floor is made of palm trunks, the kitchen is on the ground floor and the bedroom on the first floor. Other cabins have different functions (shower room, workshops...). Very beautiful examples can be seen in Awala-Yalimapo. The carbet is also a place of welcome. This is notably the case in the tukusipan or community carbets of the Wayana. The most impressive is the Tukusipan Taluen with its maluwana or sky hut, a wooden disc covered with allegorical paintings, placed at the top of this 7m high carbet. Today, this ancestral heritage is perpetuated thanks to the construction of new villages and the use of carbets as reception structures for sustainable tourism.
Colonial heritage
Guiana has long been the object of covetousness and tension... the remains of Fort Cépérou or the impressive brick and basalt silhouette of Fort Diamant are evidence of this. At the same time, the colonial cities developed according to an urbanism which gives pride of place to wide streets, green spaces and squares around which stand the large administrative buildings, mixing classical lines and Creole ingenuity. Cayenne is a good example with its Place des Palmistes, its public gardens and its Town Hall. Whether they are modest huts or more opulent residences, Creole houses have common characteristics: a brick base to protect against humidity, a projecting roof to protect against the rain, a simple floor plan with rooms arranged in a row or around a corridor, openings in the form of blinds and shutters, the presence of an open gallery surrounding the entire house and decorative wooden elements (mantling, friezes...). They can also be recognized by their coloured facades, sometimes with beautiful wrought iron balconies. The Maison Bleue in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni or the Maison Thémire in Cayenne are fine examples, as are the wooden houses in Saül. The mansions, also mixing classical rigour and Creole wealth, overlooked the dwellings, vast agricultural or industrial complexes based entirely on slavery. The Loyola and Vidal-Mondelice dwellings allow us to discover both the engineering prowess developed (forges, mills, boiler rooms, aqueducts, etc.) and the reality of daily life with the "negro huts", basic dwellings for slaves, chapels - often made of wood -, kitchens and hospitals. At the same time, a unique architecture developed in French Guiana, that of the Bushinenge, the slave-maroons. Between African, Amerindian and European influences, they created a colourful habitat. The Alukus are known for their small houses built on a raised floor and protected by an impressive inverted V-shaped roof. When they are on one level, these houses have no walls, the roof going down to the ground. Built of wood and palm, these houses are richly decorated, especially on the gable end, which is decorated with the colours of kopo futu tembé, a combination of interlaced geometric shapes painted and carved. Very beautiful examples can be seen in Apatou and Papaïchton.
The shadow of the prison
The many abandoned "camps" illustrate the difficulty of living with this double-faced past, as shown by the development of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, with on one side the "official district" that Albert Londres nicknamed the "Little Paris" and on the other the "prison district". The streets of the former are wide and wooded and have an ingenious system of brick gutters, while the buildings along them are protected by abundant enclosed gardens. Standardised huts and pavilions were also designed to house civil servants. A clean and neat appearance that contrasts with the austerity of the second, the Camp de la Transportation, built as a military barracks. In parallel with this prison architecture, an "architecture of the convicts" developed. Indeed, these men, used as labourers, were able to leave their mark in many of the buildings they helped to construct. The Saint-Joseph church in Iracoubo was entirely decorated by Pierre Huguet, a convict whose superb fresco is considered a masterpiece of naive art, while the<a href="etbspf_id:350676" title="CHAPEL DE L'ÎLE ROYALE"> Chapel of Île Royale</a> owes its panelling to convict Francis Lagrange. And take a good look at the bricks of the buildings... made locally by the prison administration (hence the AP seal), many of them were signed by these prisoners from the end of the world.
Looking ahead
Since the 2000s, French Guiana has multiplied the rehabilitation campaigns of its heritage sites: Creole houses in Cayenne, the penal colony of Ile du Salut, the former leper colony of Acarouany. At the same time, architects are turning more and more to bioclimatic architecture to combat standardized concrete structures. The great symbol of this revival is the House of the Cultures and Memories of French Guiana in Cayenne, which is divided into two ensembles: on the one hand, the Jean Martial Hospital, a Creole masterpiece, which has been entirely rehabilitated to become a museum; and on the other, the archive centre designed by the D3 Architects agency. Inspired by the Amerindian carbet, it consists of a monolith with a double concrete skin to protect the archives, encircled by reception areas (the reading room opened in October 2020!), the whole being covered by a protective envelope made of horizontal wooden strips. Astonishing!
