Dr. Ir. Pierre Maas [email protected] THE RESTORATION OF DJENNE, MALI African aesthetics and western paradigm's The city of Djenné is one of the oldest known cities in West Africa. Traces of early settlement, dating back to the third century BC, were demonstrated both in the region and in the town itself by archaeological research by the McIntosh (McIntosh & McIntosh 1980a and b, 1984; McIntosh 1995). It was demonstrated that urbanisation was well developed by the tenth century and that also the region must have been densely inhabited. Some 79 sites within a radius of 4 km. around Djenné appear to have been inhabited at the time. One of the largest mounds in the region, the site of Djenné-Djeno, even measures some 33 ha. Since archaeological research so far only consisted in digging test-pits for stratigraphic investigation, any insight into the structure of the sites themselves and their eventual interrelation is still wanting. It seems likely, however, that the reason for this peculiar type of dispersed urbanization should have to be sought in ethnic diversity, possibly also linked with economic/trade specialization. Taking advantage of its location in the fertile Inner-Niger Delta, which ensured rich pastures, fertile soils, and with fish and game in abundance, Djenné soon developed into a flourishing commercial centre, initially mostly interregional, later also becoming a post on the long-distance trade across the Sahara. Cola-nuts, gold, ivory and slaves from the South were traded for salt, books and textiles from the North. And though Tombouctou was to become better-known to most Europeans - thanks to the stories of North-African merchants who did not travel any farther - Djenné, in fact, took a considerably more important position, both commercially and as a centre for West-African Islam. Djenné owed its importance to its strategic location by the Bani River, one of the affluents of the Niger and at the border of a vast plain of over 30.000 square kilometres: the Inner-Niger Delta. Annually, the Niger flooded a considerable part of this plain. The region played a major role in the history of West Africa and was closely related to the development of such medieval empires as Ghana/Wagadu, Mali, and Songay. Naturally, many people were attracted to this fertile region bordering on the Sahara, the Marka/Songay (urban merchants), Bozo (fishermen and masons), Fulani (herdsmen) and Bamanan (agriculturists) making out the majority. Their descendants can still be seen in Djenné and, together with the merchants from the North and the South determined its real cosmopolitan character. To date, the town has a population of some 12.000 inhabitants. When the French conquered Djenné in 1893, they chose the more easily

accessible city of Mopti as their administrative centre. In this way, they only accelerated the decline of Djenné, which had already been set in motion from 1818, with its conquest by Sékou Ahmadou, the founder of the Fulani Empire of Macina. Sékou then made the newly established city of Hamdallahii the capital of his empire. Due to decades of droughts and the circumstance that many young people leave the city, presently, the economic situation is rather critical. Nowadays, only the widely known monumental mud architecture reminds us of Djenné’s former grandeur. This also made the UNESCO, in 1988, accept both the city itself and the archaeological sites around, as a World Monument. The architecture of the monumental two-storied mud buildings with their decorated façades is universally admired. The mosque, for example, measuring 75 by 75 m., is the world’s largest mud construction. The present building dates from 1906-1907 and has at least two predecessors. Oral tradition has it that the first mosque was built in the thirteenth century, by Chief Kon Konboro. Its ruins can still be seen in old photographs from 1893 (Rousseau), 1904 (Danel) and 1906 (Fortier). Sékou Ahmadou, the earlier mentioned founder of the Macina Empire, constructed the second mosque in 1834. Only one photograph, dating from 1893 (Rousseau), bears witness of this austere and plain building. Archaeological excavations yielded evidence of the use of mud bricks as early as the eighth to ninth centuries on the one hand, and of rectangular houses plans dating back to the eleventh and twelfth centuries on the other (McIntosh 1995: 64-65). However, exactly what the age of the existing houses is, is hard to ascertain. What we know for sure is that some of them figure in photographs from as early as 1893 onwards. Since these houses then already show signs of a certain age, it may be estimated that they could at least be some 200 years old. In addition to old photographs, also the shape of the mud bricks can be used to assess the age of houses. Until about 1940, the typical cylindrical Djenné mud bricks, the djenné ferey, were used. More recent houses are usually built employing rectangular, moulded, mud bricks, the socalled toubabou ferey, or, the 'white man’s brick'. Ever since the 1970s, the wide possibilities of research in this city attracted Dutch researchers of various backgrounds, such as Cultural anthropologists, Human biologists, Archaeologists, Physical and Social geographers as well as Architects. The results of their research led to numerous articles and even to several doctoral dissertations (for a complete bibliography see Bedaux 1993). An exhibition on Djenné, based on this research, and complemented with a catalogue, first opened at Leiden, in 1994, and was later, in 1996, also shown at Bamako and Djenné itself. Presenting a vivid image of this multi-ethnic city, a wide audience became aware of the disastrous situation of its architecture. Consequently, in 1995, the Dutch Embassy at Bamako took the initiative and asked the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde to draw up a plan for the restoration of the city (Bedaux et alii 1996). A joint Malian and Dutch mission went to Djenné to make an assessment of the actual situation. It then

appeared that more than 30 % of the monumental buildings that had still been visited by Dutch researchers in 1984, had disappeared by then and that those houses still extant were in a real poor state of conservation. This situation could in part be ascribed to the ongoing economic deterioration as a result of years of drought and out-migration. A plan for the restoration of the city, submitted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Den Haag), met with the favourable decision to subsidise the project for the period of 1996 to 2003. The project concentrates on the restoration of some 168 monumental buildings in the city of Djenné (out of a total of some 1.850 houses) and on setting up an organisation which may assure a safe management of the cultural heritage. Presently, this project is being carried out by the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, in close co-operation with: the Eindhoven University of Technology (dr.ir. P. Maas), Leiden University (prof.dr. R.M.A. Bedaux), the Musée National du Mali at Bamako (dr. S. Sidibe), the Mission Culturelle de Djenné (dr. B. Diaby), and the Malian architect …. at Djenné. The formal organisation of the project is rather simple. The Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde responds to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in regard to the execution of the project. The museum, in turn, made a formal agreement with the Malian Ministry of Culture and Tourism and established an executive office in Djenné, comprised of four persons: a director, in fact this is, qualitate qua, the Director of the Mission Culturelle de Djenné, a Malian architect, a Djenné mason and a chauffeur. This office is responsible for the execution of the annual restoration programme. Students from Paris, Eindhoven and Amsterdam assist the architect in drawing plans of the houses to be restored. A Scientific Committee comprised of representatives of the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, of the Dutch Embassy in Bamako, of the Malian ministries involved and UNESCO-representative, meets once a year to advise the executive office and to determine the final yearly programme. Moreover, a Committee of local authorities and chief-masons assists the office in regard to every-day matters. Because Djenné has been registered as a World Monument, the project has adopted certain principles of restoration, based on the International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites (Venice 1966). These principles have then been adapted conform to local circumstances. Even for World Monuments, there are no absolute and universally accepted restoration principles (Warren 1996). Two aspects are essential for the restoration concept of the project. First, the circumstance that the whole city is listed as a UNESCO World Monument and the Malinian law protecting all classified monuments, means that no alterations can be made to any of the some 1.850 houses in Djenné (1982). This creates a situation in which the social structure of a traditional architectural culture comes into conflict with an inflexible and very rigid set of rules. Djenné, as a living city, is caught in its own armour of architectural tradition. Its therefore that the project proposes not to classify all of Djenné's

buildings, but only those who are significant for its architectural image. They form a frame of reference for the urban structure around those selected monuments and will hopefully serve as a source of inspiration for future developments. In other words, the project tries to retain the atmosphere of the city based on its location, with its typical structure of narrow streets and small squares and, especially, the monumental mud-brick houses with decorated façades, plastered by hand. This ensemble must survive. Protecting this well-defined cultural heritage (9 %) will not hamper any future development of the city. It will be crucial however to declare the rest of the city a protected townscape in which mud should be used as the building material. For this reason, a number of 168, mostly monumental houses, were selected for restoration, sometimes bordering onto a street or square, sometimes standing by themselves, spread all over the city and in various states of deterioration. This selection is primarily based on architectural criteria. The list of the houses selected by the office and the representatives of the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, and approved of by the Scientific Committee, is made public a year prior to the actual restoration. This procedure assures that internal politics cannot play a role in the selection. Second, the role of the local masons - often of Bozo ethnic origin - in the project is essential. In Djenné, masons are organised in some kind of guild, which is unique in Africa: the barey-ton. This form of organisation of masons probably exists already for some centuries. At least, it is mentioned as early as in a 15th century local chronicle, the Ta’rikh el-Fettach, written in Tombouctou in Arabic. Each family has a long-established relationship with a specific mason’s family, in which also magic plays an important role. This traditional structure is well respected in the project. Therefore, the office hires local masons, selected by the owner, for the restoration work to be done. This also implicates that traditional construction techniques and materials are to be used to execute the work. We will come to that in a moment. Before any intervention, careful recording and research is necessary. The documentation consists in three parts: the eventually already existing plans and photographs (Maas & Mommersteeg 1992; Gardi et alii 1995; Dubois 1896); drawings and photographs of the actual condition; plans for the restoration with a detailed description of the work to be carried out, a calculation of the quantity and quality of the required materials, and a tender. The restoration plans are made by the architect and submitted to the office and the representative of the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde. The principle to retain as much of the original parts of any monument as possible is of paramount importance in the decision making. The elaborate documentation ensures that all restoration work is more or less reversible. The documentation of these houses will permit a reasonable control, something, which is now virtually impossible. It goes without saying that the restoration of a living, classified mud town, in one of the world’s poorest nations, in the way described above, does pose

some problems. As we said, the project executes the work in close collaboration with the barey-ton.This means that existing masonry techniques and traditional materials are used. The construction method employing cylindrical mud bricks does, however, pose some problems. These bricks are laid vertically in mud mortar, resulting in a rather weak bond in the walls. Especially when exposed to heavy pressure of second storeys and roofs, the lower parts of the walls tend to bulge. The traditional solution to this problem consists in supporting the walls with buttresses, or to rebuild the walls. The first solution only has a temporary effect and the bulging will continue. The second solution is rather rigorous, especially since it is generally impossible to only reconstruct the defective part of the wall, with staying methods not being known. Therefore, all of the wall and the roof above the defective wall will have to be torn down and then rebuilt completely employing rectangular mud bricks. This kind of restoration is more or less visible: straight walls and right angles are the result. The technique of temporarily supporting the good parts is not known and will not work, since the new mud wall will shrink when the heavy load of the good parts above is put upon it. As a result of this traditional restoration method, only few real old walls are left in the city. In the project this solution is nevertheless maintained, but every effort is made to restrict the damage to the minimum. Furthermore, a layer of plaster applied by hand and renewed every two or three years, will soon cover the rectangular aspect of the new parts. Only in exceptional cases, for example in old façades with only small defective parts, the old masonry technique with cylindrical bricks is reintroduced. Some of the old masons can still instruct others and pass on this technique. Old floor-plans are reconstructed when possible, that is, if such plans exist, or when the old plan can be deduced from the present situation or, exceptionally, when a clear oral tradition on the plan still survives. Doors of corrugated iron are replaced by solid wooden ones, decorated with iron studs and wooden locks. Old doors are reused and restored if their condition permits. Corrugated iron windows are replaced by wooden lattice ones. Carpenters and smiths still master these techniques. In small windows, earthenware screens are placed. Those surviving exceptionally serve as models for the potters. They also make the earthenware tiles, formerly used on the floors, nowadays also used as a protection of the outside walls against the rain. This, an experiment, does not work. Water creeps in cracks resulting from the difference in coefficients of expansion of dry mud and earthenware and whole blocks of tiles are falling down. The same technical difficulties occur even to a larger degree when mud walls are covered with cement plaster. Even without any rain, whole plaques are coming down.

The best plaster is made of a mixture of mud, chaff, urine, and excrements, which has been left to rotten for some time in a hole. When plaster of this mixture is put by hand onto the walls every two or three years, walls will be resistant to any damage by rain. The mosque, being plastered every year by the whole of Djenné population, offers a good example of the effectiveness of this traditional Djenné technique. Its walls remain in a perfectly good condition. Moreover, cement has to be brought in at high prices whereas mud is cheap, to be found anywhere around Djenné, and has superior insulation capacities over cement. Another problem occurs when the architectural starting-point for the restoration comes into conflict with the local sense of housing and living. In the project, the architecture and the city’s atmosphere of around the turn of the century are taken as an arbitrary model for the restoration. It is from this period that the oldest written records and illustrations survive and it was then that French colonisation started (1893). It is also this image of the city that is most famous and forms the basis of the so-called 'style soudanais'. In the western academic field, this 'style soudanais' is regarded as of Djenné origin and has served as a paradigm for other architectural developments in the region. Nowadays, this 'style soudanais' is part of a sense of national identity. The construction of a sense of national identity goes hand in hand with the development of heritage sites. Cultural heritage sites even have become important technologies in producing a national identity. However, if we assume that an official discourse on identity is being established through material forms (architecture), its is obvious that there will be a conflictuous connection between this and the way people construct their own identities and ways of living on a personal and daily basis. This conflict comes to surface on several levels in the project. At the moment, owners are responsible for keeping their houses in a decent state of repair. Yet, even though this is now well-known to a fair number of the inhabitants, and though the Mission Culturelle de Djenné - directly under the Minister of Culture and Tourism supervising and controlling the Monument - has done its best to make the population aware of all this, still everybody does as he likes. It is certainly not a common notion that it should be regarded an honour to figure on the list and that this offers possibilities for financing restoration, but that one, on the other hand, also has to accept certain restrictions. It is sometimes difficult to explain why, for example, restoration involves the retaining of intricate house-plans since these are interesting, or also typical low ceilings and inconveniences such as small doorways and windows. Djenné also has no adequate and official registration of the land. Therefore, the authorities will not give any official construction permit, since this might be used to claim ownership of a house or some plot of land. Marabouts and chefs usually deal with litigation procedures. As a result, asserting any control is not feasible at the moment.

Most inhabitants are proud of their architecture. However, some people associate the use of cement and corrugated iron with development. The use of mud and wood is considered as a sign of backwardness and conservatism. Especially in the case of the mosque and the school, the advocates of so-called development sometimes provoke heated debates. Many different ethnic groups (e.g. Marka/Songay, Bozo, Fulani and Bamanan) live together in Djenné. This ethnic diversity is, however, not reflected in the town’s architecture. Influenced by North-African architecture, Djenné masons have realised their own style, especially in the mosques, which subsequently spread to a large part of West Africa. In their home regions, these different groups each have their own typical style of architecture, quite different from that of Djenné. When people of these ethnic groups move to Djenné, they all adopt the unique Djenné style (Van Gijn 1993). Ethnic identity in Djenné thus finds no expression in architectural style. The architectural style is used by the people of Djenné as a symbol of their town and of their identity as town dwellers. The reconstruction of the first, thirteenth century mosque presents an interesting case of the manipulation of authenticity and identity. The reconstruction started in 1906 and was completed in 1907. It was thought, even by Prussin (1986) that the French administration was largely responsible for the reconstruction of Konboro’s mosque. The mosque was considered as a French interpretation of Djenné architecture. When Dubois, who earlier, in 1896, published a reconstruction of this mosque, revisited the town around 1910, he was horrified at the sight of the new mosque, in his view built by a benevolentFrench administrator. He wrote: "Au lieu d’un pastiche de l’architecture de Djenné, c’est la caricature qu’on voit aujourd’hui sous prétexte de mosquée. Une masse se dresse, hystérique, qui tient du hérisson et du buffet d’orgue, grâce à la débauche de cônes sur les sommets. Le tout est couronné par trois clochetons (!) à la silhouette de chapeau-chinois qui, définitivement, impriment à cette tentative un cachet de folie. En vérité, avec tous ces cônes, on dirait d’un temple baroque dédié au dieu Suppositoire." (Dubois 1911). Bourgeois (1987 and 1996) finally solved the question of who was responsible for the new mosque. The French did not contribute to the actual building of the mosque. The plan made by Maas (Maas & Mommersteeg 1992) revealed that no surveying instruments had been used. Also the dimensions of the columns differ considerably. Even the French money which would be used for the construction of the Medersa, the French-Arabic school for the local elite, and the mosque together (7.060 francs), was spent on the medersa exclusively. Only the school was of direct importance to French colonial policy. For the non-Fulani, the reconstruction of Konboro’s mosque meant a final blow to Fulani domination. The place where Sékou Ahmadou built his mosque in 1834 was sanctioned by his ‘forged’ version of the histories of the Djenné mosques. For the non-Fulani it was unimaginable to destroy a mosque and they supported the French in building the medersa on the spot of Ahmadou’s mosque. In doing so, the French were happy to be able to build the medersa,

the non-Fulani the mosque, and the Fulani could blame it on the French administration. Nobody would have benefited by revealing the truth. Ismaila Traoré, head of the Djenné barey-ton, built the mosque. The non-Fulani avenged Ahmadou’s insults by giving the new mosque high towers, a high ceiling, and a women’s gallery, just the opposite of Ahmadou’s mosque, a plain and low building. In this way, the new mosque is a local Djenné achievement, because of the politics involved, the design, the technology and the grandeur of the building. The French took this architectural style as an example for their neo-Sudanic style, employing it in administrative buildings all over the ‘Soudan français’ and even in France (Prussin 1993). What we can conclude from this story is that the mosque is at the same time authentic non-Fulani, Fulani and French. In deciding to make the town part of its national heritage, the Malian government also came to use the architecture of Djenné as a national symbol. The fact that UNESCO accepted to include Djenné in the World Monument List demonstrates beyond any doubt that the town is now even considered as an important world heritage.

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