Upper Guinea or Mande, a savannah area in the northeast
In this region of Upper Niger are the villages of Gbérédou and Hamana, typical of traditional Mandingo architecture. The round huts are made of "banco", a mixture of earth and straw filled with shea butter and topped with straw. Grouped in a circle, they form family concessions. Within the same family, everyone lives in a hut in the concession, from the first wife to the fourth, including the mother-in-law. Children change concessions after their marriage. Huts used as bedrooms and kitchens often have two diametrically opposed openings to allow for drafts. Inside, the floor is made of clay or cement mixed with sand, and the furniture is rudimentary: a bed for the rich and a simple mat for the poor, a few "canaries" or earthen jars where water is kept, sometimes a table or shelves. Small granaries on stilts as well as shelters for animals are interspersed between the huts. The center of the concession is occupied by a straw hut where people gather to eat, drink tea, chat or play checkers, cards or awale. Many concessions are protected by walls made of banco linking the huts to each other: termite mound "caps" placed on these low walls protect them from erosion by the rains. The bara (the public square) is located in the heart of the village. It is under the "doubalen" (the palaver tree) that the villagers seek shade. The village of Kobanè offers an interesting bara with a doubalen whose vast shade impresses. In Faranah, the hut where Sékou Touré was born, in a solid earthen bed, is still visible between the many straw roofs. Dinguiraye, a religious city, is famous for its mosque built in the middle of the 19th century by El Hadj Oumar Tall. Bissandougou, the capital of the Wassoulou empire, offers some vestiges of this empire founded by Almamy Samory Touré, who resisted colonialism at the end of the 19th century. An international treaty between France and the Wassoulou Empire was signed in 1887 in Bissandougou.
Maritime Guinea or Lower Guinea, coastal zone
Of the ten largest cities in the country, three are in maritime Guinea: Conakry, Kamsar and Kindia. In the early 20th century, France imposed colonial administration and urbanization systems similar to those of its other African colonies. The historical districts of Kaloum were then cut according to a strict checkerboard plan composed of boulevards and traffic circles. Due to the lack of vertical growth, the peninsula developed on the mainland by absorbing old villages such as Dixinn, Taouyah, Kaporo. Still visible, these historical villages are dense and organized around the port and the market. The huts are made of banco but are square in shape and sometimes have a sheltered terrace. Equipped with a porch, they have several rooms and are not arranged in a concession but in a disparate way in the village. These villages are surrounded by vast areas of recent peri-urban dwellings spread out over the land without any precise urban organization. At Foulamory in Gaoual, the hut of the prestigious Alpha Yaya Diallo, landho (king) of Labé and national hero, is worth a visit. Influenced by Islamic traditions, it remains a perfect example of 19th century Fulani architecture. Built in 1878, the fortress of Boké is an infamous building. During the reign of Napoleon III, it was a halfway house for slaves from West Africa. The slaves used its labyrinths to get to the holds of the slave traders for a journey of no return. In Conakry, the People's Palace was built in 1967 by the Chinese. This elegant, sleek, modern building, which used to host important cultural events, is typical of Eastern European architecture. Once the pride of the country, the building is now in poor condition, unlike the Mohammed V Palace (formerly the Palace of Nations) and the Sekhoutoureya Palace, the presidential palace. Built in place of the former governor's palace by the Chinese in 1998, the Sekhoutoureya Palace is characteristic of Chinese imperial architecture. Its imposing central pavilion with its sloping roof embodies power and might. In Conakry, the future Palace of Culture should provide the capital in the coming years with a modern building whose architecture will take the form of the Nimba, the Guinean mask-sculpture of the Baga community. Most Conakrykas live in low-rise buildings with one to four rooms. In Kaloum, the overcrowded administrative and commercial district of Conakry, Turkish fashion imported by developers from the shores of the Bosphorus is popular with a wealthy clientele. For the past ten years, these buildings of excellent workmanship with rectilinear facades, uncluttered and with very careful finishes are all the rage.
Middle Guinea with the mountainous massif of Fouta-Djalon
The oldest vestige of military architecture in Fouta is located in the present-day prefecture of Télimelé. It is the stone fortress of Guémé-Sangan built in the 16th century by the Fulani warrior Koli Tengella. Only a few stones remain of the powerful fortifications that were erected to protect the inhabitants. Halfway up the wall, there is a cave, a formidable observatory that allowed the double valley of Kakrima-Konkouré to be watched. Inside the shelter, one discovers a games room, a sobané (tree) and even a bed. In Dalaba, the palaver hut built by the canton chiefs of Fouta Djalon is worth seeing. Built of earth in the 1930s, this hut was the venue for the region's major discussions. In Fouta, houses are made of cement, but in some small villages, natural materials are still used for the building and for the colorful decoration. The concessions are large and the villages are often very spread out. The Fulani care more about their herds than their homes, and the fields are dotted with animal pens delimited by fences and gates made of branches.
In Guinea Forestière, an area of forest in the southeast
As the main region of agricultural expansion, population pressure on Forest Guinea is massive. The clearing of the forest continues actively. The hut has given way to modern buildings.
