Sources of Nigerian Architecture in the 21st Century

Nigeria, the home of the largest conglomeration of blacks in the world, deserves its unique architectural identity. Its variety of vernacular built environment seems to hold promise to that ambition. Vernacular architecture across Nigeria’s geographical clusters has demonstrated a thorough response to the climate, local technology and socio-economic parameters in which they developed. The advent of colonialism, the spread of Islam in Africa, and the end of slave trade, impacted tremendously on the options available to developers and master builders over the years. This review paper identifies the prospective sources of evolving the country’s unique spatial identity and architectural language by critically exploring the determinant and moderating factors of the development of ethno-regional built environment for the country. The life style and the divergent historical circumstances of the nation’s core subdivisions readily suggest the devolution regional identities. The paper argues that a national identity could be forged through a five-tier synthesis of architectural strategies, to positively integrate form, space, and order imaginatively to fit user “genius loci”, i.e. sense of rootedness. The application of the courtyard within the family compound (groups of dwelling units sharing common services), serves physical, social, and economic functions concurrently. Hence, the essence of traditional style has to be cherished dearly, to ensure cultural heritage conservation of the society. It could be concluded that despite the gradual replacement of traditional building practices with modern trends; core cultural values like hierarchic selective interaction (privacy) afforded by the courtyard housing system, seem to be retained as consistent features of Nigeria’s build environment, which must be jealously guarded.