Gondarine Imperial Architecture – Ethiopia
By Neza Cebron Lipovec
In 1979, the historic royal compound of the capital of the Abyssian kings, Fasil Ghebbi (fig.1) in Gondar, Ethiopia, was listed as a World Heritage Site . Not only, as stated by the III criterion, it bears an exceptional testimony of cultural tradition or a civilization that has disappeared: known as the Gondarine “Renaissance”. Moreover, in accordance with the II criterion, it exhibits important interchange of human values, over a span of time and within a defined area, mainly in architecture and technology. In fact, the Fasil Ghebbi and its connected sites, represent a unique mixture of influence from Europe, India and Arabia, firmly fused and developed within the indigenous tradition.
Gondar, bloomed in the middle of the rather deserted region of Amhara, at the foothills of the Simien Mountains. As it is situated on an altitude of 2200 meters, north of Lake Tana, it is today “touristically” regarded as the “Camelot of Africa”. However, it conveys much more than merely the scenery for medieval mythical “king heroes” and warriors. Strolling through the vast landscape of arched halls and doorways of palaces and scattered ruins, sunk in afro-alpine shrubs and high grass, the impressions melt in a surrealistic paysage. Common European eyes get confused and fascinated to see medieval resembling fortresses that were actually the very core of an immense national, cultural and artistic renaissance, while at the same time the interiors remind of the hedonism and plaîsir culture of French Baroque courts. In Ethiopia, the European linear sequence of time loses logic. And time thaws.
Uncovering the tangled layers of history that veil Fasil Ghebbi, we first need to step into the myth. The main myth tells that, a vision, the emperor Lebna Dengel (1508-1540) was visited by the Virgin Mary and Archangel Raguel who announced that the first permanent capital of the Ethiopian empire, blessed by heaven, would have to be situated in a place, with a name starting with "G". It was the king Fasilidas (reigned 1632-1667) in 1633 to determine Gondar as the place where the itinerant court would start to settle down. This turn-over in Ethiopian history marks the dawn of a period of major building campaigns spanning over more than a century. However, there is a preamble: The century-old kingdom of orthodox monophysits, descendants of Menelik – son of Solomon and the queen of Saba, and its Axumite empire as well as heir of king Lalibala - risked total annihilation due to the attack of the Muslim amir and imam Ahmad Ibrahim al-Ghazi, called the Grañ, between 1526-1541. The Abyssians ultimately won with the help of a Portuguese expedition of soldiers from Goa. This alliance is commonly reputed to be the cradle of the European influence in Ethiopia, despite the fact that cultural interchange existed previously as well. Along with the soldiers, came their spiritual sustainers, the Jesuits, since the aim of the European alliance with Abyssians was not only the war against the Turks and thus the regaining of the trade routes on the Red Sea, but also the catholicisation of this old Christian land. Despite the attempts of the first missionaries in 1557, they only succeeded during the reign of king Susenyos who converted to Catholicism in 1621. Already before the conversion, according to agreements with the king, the monks had the right to build their own churches and palaces. Thence, we find the castle at Dambya, as early as mid 16th century, laying down as the foundation for what was meant to become a typical Gondarine building feature: a quadrangular castle with cistern and cylindrical tower with egg-shaped tops. Manoel Ramos outlined the basic characteristics of pre-Gondarine architecture in relation to their probable influences. In the castles, the towers supposedly refer to the Portuguese and Turkish defensive architecture, while the leisure hallways and piping systems could be potentially associated with the refreshing pavilions of Indian palace architecture.
In religious architecture, the European examples of Jesuit hall-churches as well as the Latin-cross churches were precisely transplanted. A remarkable example of this could be still seen at Gorgora, on the north shore of Lake Tana, had it not collapsed in 1995. Gorgora was, in fact, one of the main Susenyos’s royal camps and one of the options for the new capital. Another possibility for the capital site, starting with the aforementioned “G” was Guzara where we find another typical, egg-shape-towered castle, ascribed to different emperors. Despite the apparent welfare, the Jesuit period and their forcedly introduced religion has been much contrasted by Abyssian nobility. It was in 1632 that king Susenyos abdicated, after tumultuous trouble because of the new Catholic patriarch Alfonso Mendez. Susenyos' son Fasiladas ascended the throne, re-established the orthodox monophysit belief as the official Ethiopian religion, expelled the Jesuits, closed the kingdom’s boarders to isolate it and founded the royal city of Gondar.
The Castle of Fasilidas, who reigned between 1632 and 1667, was the first to be built, supposedly between 1635 and 1636, although it was not until Yohannes I, Fasiladas' son that the itinerant court definitely settled down in Gondar. Fasilada’s (fig.2) features all the aforementioned characteristics: quadrangular in plan, with four round towers covered with enkulal tops on the corners and crenellated parapets in between, it also has a 32m high square battlemented tower on the southwest and. The basaltic stone as main building material and the red tuff, from the nearby Kusquam, of the frames and decoration also represent identifying characteristics of the Gondarine architecture. In the large, high-ceiling rooms of the two stories traces of decoration are still visible: carved stars of David, niches and alcoves. On the east side of the castle, merged with the varying of the terrain, we find the so-called baths, a rectangular vaulted space, which was filled with water by a channel system along the side and the pavement of the castle. This structure is retained to have served mostly likely as a cistern, although legends call it also the fish pond where Fasiladas used to fish. The spatial disposition of the palaces, built by the following emperors, somehow established a timeline, flowing from the southeast to the northwest. The northwards from Fasil’s castle two smaller buildings built by Fasil’s son’s, Yohannes I are supposed to have served as the Library and Chancellery . The Library (fig.3), a petite square battlemented building, with round windows covered with beige plaster with tuff frames, with stucco decorations interior was supposedly a book storage or a love house for the newlyweds, according to different sources. The site was largely restored during the occupation of the Italian Mussolinian army between 1938 and 1941. Right next to it stands in ruins the rectangular two stories battlemented Chancellery (fig.4), which was supposedly used for public meetings while it also kept the official documents. It is characteristic for its two towers, a square on the west and a round one on the east. Eastwards from Fasil's castle, lays the castle of Iyasu I (1682-1706) (fig.5), which regained the “fortress-ness” of his grandfather’s castle. Dating to around 1700, it is unique not only for the saddle-roofed chapel in the northwestern tower, but also for its particular slenderness and two round towers (fig. 6) flanking one another in the southern side. Some scholars presume that this might have been the castle covered by “mirrors and crystal”, accounted in Iyasu’s Chronicle. North from Iyasu Castle, lays his son’s, Dawit’s castle (fig.7), from the first decades of the 18th century, which consists of a larger one-storey building with a curious remain of an interior longitudinal division wall. Opinions vary about the purpose of this castle as well, since all emperors normally used all existing palaces and constructed new ones for new functions. Dawit‘s castle is sometimes called the House of Song, again as a result of different etymological interpretations, while the Italian researchers in the 1930s called it the “palace of delight”. The pleasure life-style could only be ensured by great power, embodied in their kings' emblem - the lion. In fact, the kings kept lions in cages (fig. 8), which we still see between Dawit's and Bakaffa's buildings. The latter is a long V-shaped structure of a banqueting hall with adjacent open arched stables (fig.9) that king Bakaffa, called “the Wizard”, built in the 1720s in the northernmost part of the compound. The long battlemented hall with arched windows overlooking the city on the north recalls somehow the French Baroque galleries for nobility’s small-talk. The last building was supposedly built for Bakaffa's wife Mentwab around 1750. The two-storey Metwab's Castle (fig.10) with elegant tall arched windows and red tuff relief decoration on the western facade is topped by a square tower and crenellated, still a more precise look clearly shows that the whole palace is the extension of a pre-existing narrower and lower structure. The castle has been intensively restored by the Italians in the 1930s, especially on the eastern facade and in its interior, but still does convey a somehow solemn, though homely atmosphere, of the Italian Renaissance palaces. Traces of passages that connected the palaces are still visible, so are the other ruins, especially the "Turkish" baths which again confirm the luxurious life-style of the Abyssian kings. The whole compound is enclosed by a wall which has however been expanded through time, along with the newer additions. Twelve gates or ber open the wall, each of these bears a name according to the function or a specific characteristic (the Judges’ Gate, Guards’ Gate, Gate of the Commander of the Cavalry just to name some), furthermore the compound encompasses also three churches. Ethiopian churches in Gondar deserve a chapter apart, as do the traditional round etchegg houses and the Italian architecture of the 1930s.
To provide a full overview of the Gondarine imperial architecture two other connected sites need to be mentioned. The Fasil Bath (fig.11) that represents a Fasiladas palace, on the outskirts of Gondar. The palace situated in the center of a large basin which was filled with water for the holiday of Timqat every January, when the believers jump into the water. The second spot, Kusquam, is situated to the north of the city. Here Mentwab decided to build another compound, smaller in size, with a banqueting hall (fig.12), a mansion and a round chapel, most of which today lay in ruins. Kusquam represents, thus, the swan song of the Gondarine Renaissance which ended in wars for power between the lords or ras. It was finally concluded with the establishment of the new capital of Addis Abeba by the end of the 19th century.
At the arrival of the Italians in late 1930s, the palaces of the Fasil Ghebbi were in a deplorable state of ruins which lead them to restoration. Despite the fact that the Italian interventions paid toll to the authenticity of the buildings, these contributed to their final survival. The site underwent a second, large restoration campaign between 1968 and 1973, promoted by UNESCO and executed under the guidance of the Italian architect Sandro Angelini. At present, the site is undergoing a conservation project financed by the World Bank, coordinated by the Ethiopian Tourism Commission and the Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage with the technical assistance of the company Hydea s.r.l (Italy). While awaiting the results of this project, we could recommend reading the James Bruce's accounts on his stay in Gondar between 1768 an 1773. The surrealistic paysage here becomes a palpable setting of a unique episode in world history .
Key references:
Ghiorghis Mellessa, (1969). Gondar Yesterday and Today, in: »Ethiopia Observer«, XII, 3, pp.164-76.
Alessandro Augusto Monti Della Corte (1938). I Castelli di Gondar. Roma, Società Italiana, Arti Grafiche,
Stuart Munro-Hay (2002). Ethiopia, the Unknown Land. A Cultural and Historical Guide. London & New York, I. B. Tauris Publishers.
Richard Pankhurst, ed. (1965). Travellers in Ethiopia. London, Oxford University Press. (more articles by Richard Pankhurst on www.abyssiniacybergateway.net)
Manoel Ramos (2004). The Indigenous and the Foreign, pwp.netcabo.pt
List of images:
Fig.1 : Fasil Ghebbi, by Silvia Cravero 2006
Fig.2 : Fasiladas' Castle, by Silvia Cravero 2006
Fig.3 : Yohannes Library, by Denise Gallino 2006
Fig.4 : Chancellery, by Denise Gallino 2006
Fig.5 : Iyasu Castle, by Denise Gallino 2006
Fig.6 : Tower of Iyasu Castle, by Denise Gallino 2006
Fig.7 : Dawit Castle, by Denise Gallino 2006
Fig.8 : Lion cages, by Denise Gallino 2006
Fig.9 : Bakaffa Banqueting Hall, by Denise Gallino 2006
Fig.10 : Mentwab Castle, by Silvia Cravero 2006
Fig.11 : Fasil Baths, by Denise Gallino 2006
Fig.12 : Kusquam, Banqueting Hall, by Silvia Cravero 2006
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