₦airaland Forum

The architecture of the Igbo people is almost as diverse as other parts of their culture. This thread will showcase different types of traditional buildings built mainly before colonisation and will include their origin and history if available. If you are going to contribute please include the origin of the building.

Most Igbo houses were private houses built alongside other buildings in a family compound enclosed by a large wall. The main entrance was usually a gate. The main materials used in building Igbo houses include mud, timber and raffia/palm stems which are used for the wall support of the walls and roofs, and the roof. There were different kinds of shapes and and sizes of buildings and compounds, which most buildings were housed in, and of course public buildings as well.

Most of the pictures are from here: http://ukpuru.tumblr.com/

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Mbari house. The location was posted as unknown.

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Chief Ogbua, Onitcha

Nice thread, Ezeagu.

Ekpe Lodges

In pre-colonial times, Ekpe lodges were one of the most important buildings that existed in Eastern Igbo communities. They were situated at the heart of villages and were symbols of autonomy. Once a village had an Ekpe ledge, it was considered autonomous since the presence of the lodge suggested that it was capable of governing itself.

The lodges were centers of government, learning, and diplomacy. Within them, court cases, communal affairs, law legislation, and diplomacy were discussed. It was forbidden for non-Ekpe members to enter them (especially women and children). Even during European colonization, Ekpe lodges were used as temporary government houses until permanent structures were built. Nowadays, they are still significant because Ekpe members still gather within them.

The lodges were built with mud bricks and their exterior walls were decorated with Nsibiri ideograms. Their roofs were made of raffia palms and grass roots.

I will post a picture of an Ekpe lodge soon.

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Here's what makes me upset. It takes a high degree of specialized language in order to communicate these architectural ideas; language that involves terminology for the concepts of geometry, measurement and logistics. The lack of active written records also means that people had no choice but to really know what it was they were doing and also know how to communicate that knowledge to others that they were working with, because otherwise, they would not be able to produce these works. I wonder now how many people still have this knowledge and to the same specialized degree. The lexicon would be invaluable to language development.

Anyway, let me not break the flow here. I just felt like getting that out of my mind.

Yeah, I wonder what the different communities called 'floors', 'stairs', 'stair case', 'geometry', 'cube', 'balcony' and hundreds of other features seen in these buildings.

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