The architecture of the West African mosque: an exegesis of the Hausa and Fulani models

This thesis will examine two models of West African architecture-- the Mosque at Zaria, Nigeria and the Mosque at Dingueraye, Guinea. It will also attempt to illustrate implicit patterns of creative expression, both literal and allegorical , in the space-making processes of the Hausa and Fulani peoples. In passing, some attention will also be given to the cultural and building traditions of the Mande people. The notion of space and place in much of sub-Saharan Africa oscillates in a realm which is neither absolutely rational nor ethereal. Culture, it could be argued, can offer us an opportunity to investigate an analytical taxonomy through which we can compare and discover particular attributes of space and the phenomenological dimensions of built form. Culture , as a layered accumulation of historical events , visual vocabularies, and architectural expression, is subject at one time or another to an ethos which may have had a syncretic origin. Among the Hausa and Fulani, the image which exists within the architectural paradigm can be described as a language, or code or a method of explaining spatial concepts related to concrete space and traditional culture. The Hausa and Fulani spatial schemes are concerned with the nature of space as a context and metaphor for experience , inner and outer, hidden and manifest.