“Terra” Conference on Earthen Architecture in Bamako, Mali, 1-5 February 2008

By Neza Cebron Lipovec

In the first week of February the Malian capital Bamako hosted more than 400 experts, from approximately 75 countries, working in the domain of earthen architecture and its preservation. Organized by Getty Conservation Institute and the Malian Ministry of Culture, the 10th edition of the “Terra” conference for the first time took place in Africa, so to allow a larger focus on African issues in earthen architecture.

The seven sessions tried to enlighten the different aspects of the main topic, which spanned from regional specificities of earthen architecture, its physical properties and seismic behaviour. Discussions were raised on topical managerial quests and the expanding need for addressing the local communities and their know-how, so to preserve both the tangible and intangible values of this patrimony. Paper presentations, posters and workgroup sessions provided insights also on recent advances in research, the challenges and opportunities of conservation and development, training and formation. The conference attempted to englobe both stocks of earthen architecture, the historic and the new structures, so to finally provide guidelines for both.

Great attention was paid to problems regarding the conservation of living sites and the position of earthen architecture in the contemporary society. The presented projects of international cooperation, such as the different “Missions Culturelles” in Djenné and Timbuktu and the Aga Khan projects, as well as cases from Benin, Burkina Faso, Libya and Egypt showed best practices of capacity building but underlined the question of post-restoration management. Some of the cases, as for example the maintenance scheme of the Royal Palace of Abomey in Benin, provided a significant example of a solution.

The question of transmission of the local know-how by introducing it and adapting it for newly built structures gave suggestions to the architects, active in building projects, while it also denounced the misunderstanding of the qualities and value of earthen architecture in present-day society. In fact, an echoing discussion followed after the scholar Hossam Mahdy had recalled the milestone and revolutionary Hassan Fathy’s New Gourna village, newly built in adobe in upper Egypt in the late 1940s, and stressed the issue of the general public’s misappreciation of mud brick today. The issue of technical and cultural appropriateness of building in adobe nowadays was addressed also by several poster presentations that introduced cases of its re-discovery in some cases, or its continuation in others. Representative is the activity of the association “La voute nubienne” in several African countries, or the mud-brick housing in Brazil. The intangible features and oral traditions, as composing element of local know-how, were stressed by many presenters as the ones in greatest need of preservation.

Most of the archaeology-related contributions provided examples of best practice through implemented projects. Nevertheless, several again underlined management issues, regarding the involvement of stakeholders and their role in the development, as well as the practical issue of daily maintenance and monitoring of changes. Another red-thread connecting the different papers was the determinant role of documentation and the digitalization, determinant for both, historical analysis as well as for adequate management, as in the case of the Buddhist monastery of Ajina Tepa in Tajikistan or the site Joya de Ceren in El Salvador.

Technique-oriented contributions offered valuable insights into stability solutions. For example, an interesting discussion was raised by the Brazilian research on termite saliva as stabilizer for earthen structures. Highly appreciated for their usability were the contributions on the different methods for evaluating the compressive strength in earthen building materials, the testing of earthen grouts for the conservation of historic earthen surfaces as well as the one on mud-based grouts for repair of historic walls, experimented in the Buddhist monasteries of Ladakh in India.

The ultimate overall conclusions of the conference actually questioned the topical problem of the conservation sector in general: the position of the earthen architecture as heritage in the modernizing, globalised society. In this regard, the hosting continent opened most of the questions, mainly concerning the intangible components of earthen architecture: the religious ceremonies that take place in the buildings, the social events that they serve, the traditional maintenance techniques that are losing their role as social cohesive. The traditional re-facing of the mosque of Djenné, the ancient mosques of Ndinghe in Ivory Coast or the Na-yiri of Kokologho in Burkina Faso are emblematic. Thus, the implementation of a participative management, the request for proactive attitudes in all fields and the enhancing of dissemination constituted the final guidelines of the five-day worldwide gathering.

Additional activities of the conference offered to the participants a “hands-on” experience in the tangible and intangible heritages of Mali, starting with the concert of Vieux Farka Touré, followed by the meditative photography exhibition “Sacre banco – Beautiful banco” in the National Museum of Mali as well as in the Modibo Keita Memorial, and the encounter with the work of traditional masons from the different regions that built appositely for the conference four examples of gates in the different Malian architectural idioms. Unfortunately, the dense schedule of presentations allowed many participants to see only the built structures and not the procedure of their building.

Evenings in the French Cultural Centre added enriching intensive experiences, such as the constructed documentary movie “Future in Mud: a tale of houses and lives in Djenné” by Trevor Marchand, Susan Vogel and Samuel Sidibé. While promoting the use of adobe for contemporary living-standard housing, the movie introduced to the international public the dilemma of the Malian local community between maintaining and transferring the traditional adobe techniques and providing higher education to children outside the local environment. The conference days were closed “in tune” by the concert of the hyperactive and cheerful Malian diva Fantani Touré.

About a fifth of the participants were fast enough to get a place on the post-conference tours in the five days between 6 and 10 February. Three different itineraries offered glimpses on the most renowned Malian heritage sites: Timbuktu, Djenné, Mopti, Dogon country and Segou, where the participants could exceptionally visit also the interiors of the mosques and meet the local project leaders.

In conclusion, we can state that the 10th Terra conference definitely raised a general awareness on the significance of the “historic treasure” of earth-constructed architecture that represents about 20 percent of architecture of the World Heritage List today, especially thanks to the presence of a great number of young African students. This fact gives great hope on larger scale. Considering that “nearly one half of the world’s population—about three billion people on six continents—lives or works in buildings constructed of earth”, the uplift in its appreciation by younger generations is of utmost importance: to preserve the historic structures and to allow new buildings to be built in traditional materials and techniques.


Photographs by:
A.Khalatbari (group photo and performance ‘vieux farka’)
J.Lidwin (Modibo Keita Masons)
Neza Cebron Lipovec (Nigerian presentation on Hausa architecture)