African Spaces:

Designs for Living in Upper Volta

The diverse and elaborate architecture indigenous to Africa remains widely unknown to both the general public and architects. African Spaces records in pictures and words a portion of this rapidly disappearing style.

Taking as their subject the Gurunsi people of Upper Volta (now called Burkina Faso), the authors provide case studies of eight separate ethnic groups. Illustrating their text with numerous photographs and carefully rendered drawings and maps, the authors describe for each group such topics as the history and founding the of the village, the spatial and social organization for the compound, the design and construction of dwellings, and the use of private and communal space in everyday life.

"The authors have achieved something of a milestone with this volume,…They have produced a pioneering report that will rank [as a] standard reference…Not only do Bourdier and Minh-ha provide new data for architectural research but they significantly raise the standards for its graphic presentation. Most importantly, however, they set forth a compelling argument that should put an end to the trivialization of built form and designed space in Africa as primitive mud huts...Special praise must be given to the attention to the graphic presentation of architectural evidence. African Spaces contains more than one hundred photographs and forty-eight drawings. They alone are worth the price of the book."
—John Michael Vlach, African Arts