To the origins
Zambia is home to some amazing prehistoric sites that show how people used caves and stone shelters to create a sophisticated habitat. Rocks and stones were worked to create arches and protective screens above the shelters, which all had a central stone hearth. The Mumbwa caves are a good example. It is in the heart of these stone dwellings that a fascinating rock art has developed, as shown in the Nsalu cave and its paintings with schematic and geometric patterns. With the progressive sedentarization of the area, the first villages appeared with houses made of wood and plaster. The site of Sebanzi Hill in the Lochinvar National Park contains the remains of an Iron Age village. More recent, the archaeological site of Ingombe Ilede reveals the remains of several villages dating from 700 to 1400. In particular, there are burial sites revealing an extremely advanced decorative art using glass bead and shell motifs, testifying to the social status of the deceased. A hierarchical organization which announces the chieftaincies and kingdoms of which the country shelters numerous palatial complexes. The buildings are always placed in such a way as to create an exterior courtyard that serves as a gathering place, itself always embellished with trees offering shaded spaces. The main palace is reserved for the chief, while the annexed residences are reserved for the family. The courthouse is the place where all daily activities are organized. The entrance to the complex is filtered through a reception area. In the nineteenth century, when he visited the Kazembe Kingdom, Livingstone gave a fascinating description of the capital, Kanyembo, with its vast square palatial enclosure surrounded by high reed hedges, and housing the large chief's hut and a multitude of smaller annexed huts. Another fascinating palatial complex is to be seen in the no less fascinating cultural landscape of Barotseland, inhabited by the Lozis. It is the Royal Palace Lealui with its many pavilions and the house of the queen, all made of materials from the four corners of thekingdom. Barotseland is also famous for its architecture and engineering adapted to the floods that cyclically flood the area. The inhabitants dug numerous canals to facilitate drainage of the land; built numerous mounds to safely house their houses (mostly rectangular in plan, with a mud-filled wooden pole structure and thatched roof), palaces, temples, and burial and sacred sites; and built dams to connect the mounds. Forced to leave their mounds during transhumance, the Lozi also designed temporary shelters called maongo and made of reeds, grasses and branches. An architecture thought to adapt to its environment and now protected by Unesco!
Colonial heritage
The first large colonial settlements were the missions. Although they were all different, they had some common characteristics: enclosed space, arrangement of buildings around a central area, spaces arranged so that everything converged on the church, deployment of secondary buildings in order of importance (school, hospital, dispensary...). The missionaries were the first to introduce dried or burnt brick made from a mixture of clay, sand and water. A material that allows to create interesting plays of colors and patterns according to their arrangement. The Mbereshi Mission Church, near Mwansabombwe, trained its own brickmakers and building artisans. The flagship building of the mission is the church. Among the most fascinating are the ruins of Niamkolo Church, the oldest church in the country, which retains its thick stone walls and square bell tower, giving it a decidedly medieval look, even though the church is dated 1895; or the impressively proportioned Chilubula Mission Church in Mporokoso, with its Romanesque arches, porch and bell tower. The colonial presence then took on more defensive forms. The British Empire thus marked out the territory with fortified administrative or police posts called bomas. Originally, this Bantu word referred to enclosures made of stone, wooden poles or thorny groves protecting villages, but the British used the word to refer to fortified government offices erected in remote areas and protected by wooden or stone palisades. Nkala Old Boma and Fort Monze are good examples. To establish their domination, the British tried to control the territory and its varied topography by building bridges in particular. The Victoria Falls Bridge is the most famous of the country. Overlooking the Zambezi River, this masterpiece of engineering, completed in 1905, is 198 meters long and rises to a height of 128 meters. A mechanical cable system had been designed to allow the movement of materials from England and designed to resist the elements. This bridge led to the opening up of the area and the development of Livingstone. The town was designed according to a grid plan and was divided into administrative, commercial and residential zones, the latter being located on the outskirts. Post office, church, courthouse, hotels, the city experienced a real building boom that illustrates very well the evolution of domestic colonial architecture. At the beginning, the first houses were not really designed for comfort... it must be said that their walls and roofs made of tin turned the whole place into a steam room. But progressively, the roofs became steeper and were equipped with ducts in order to promote ventilation, then thatch and cob were used instead, much better adapted to the climate, before making an almost systematic use of brick. At first, without any transition between interior and exterior, the houses were equipped with verandas of increasingly large dimensions, soon going all the way around the houses, the whole resting on brick or stone foundations and being protected by a roof with imposing overhangs. Some of these houses were inspired by the Cape Dutch style, which is very common in South Africa and can be recognized by its curved gables, whitewashed walls and thatched roofs. The Old Freedom House and the Old Government House are perfect examples of this colonial architecture. The country experienced another phase of construction fever with the exploitation of the Copperbelt and the creation of mines. Road and rail infrastructures, imposing concrete dams and hydroelectric stations, workshops... mining changed the face of the country, and reinforced an already very present segregation, the white workers being housed in garden cities and quality housing, while the black workers were relegated to precarious housing.
Since Independence
Like all African countries that gained their independence in the 1960s and 1970s, Zambia chose a modernism that it wanted to symbolize post-colonialism. Concrete is king and we see the multiplication of administrative and educational buildings, stadiums, memorials and other university campuses. The University of Zambia Campus in Lusaka is a perfect example. Designed by Julian Arnold Elliott, the complex is stunning with its cascading concrete terraces. The Parliament of Zambia, whose brutalist silhouette dominates a small hill, and Findeco House, with its 90-meter high glass facade, are among the other highlights of this modernist trend. At the same time, and especially in Lusaka, residential areas where concrete villas were the rule, multiplied. Since then, the country has experienced urban growth that is difficult to control. Today, it is estimated that nearly 70% of the urban population lives in informal settlements with no infrastructure. In response to this situation, the country is participating in the UN Habitat project, which aims to develop sustainable, low-cost construction in the areas most affected by poverty. At the same time, the country has also signed partnerships with companies specializing in artificial intelligence, in order to draw up a complete map of the capital, the city most affected by this uncontrolled urbanization, and to identify the needs in terms of transport and infrastructure, to create a real cadastre and to enable the planning of a new Lusaka.
Another major problem for the country is access to education in remote areas. To remedy this, international architects have been inspired by vernacular architecture to design new types of educational centers. The Mwabwindo School by Selldorf Architects, whose overall design is inspired by the tall trees of the savannah providing shady meeting places, reveals a canopy of corrugated iron roofs covering a village of compressed earth brick classrooms organized around courtyards and an interior street, while solar panels, wind turbines and rainwater harvesting systems ensure a green and sustainable architecture. In Chongwe, the Caukin studio has designed the Evergreen School. Made of local materials, the school is organized around a large central courtyard. Its raised roof allows for the creation of a floor of open-air classrooms, while shutters and skylights allow for the modulation of light. These various educational centers also generate employment and promote the development of local communities. This concern is also reflected in the many eco-lodges that dot the country's major parks and reserves. Using local materials left in their raw state or canvas tents reminiscent of nomadic camps, these eco-lodges do everything to limit their environmental impact. Among the most beautiful are the Thorntree River Lodge and the various luxury camps of the Time + Tide chain.
Vernacular riches
At the end of the 1990s, the American architect and professor at Copperbelt University, John "Twingi" Sojkowski, decided to travel to a large number of African countries in order to gather as much information as possible about their vernacular architecture. This information will be used to feed an unpublished database gathering the vernacular treasures of 48 of the 54 African countries, including Zambia. Sustainable, vernacular architecture uses only natural and local materials. Bamboo is known for its strength and flexibility and can be used to create textural effects when woven into wall panels. Thatch, most often composed of miscanthus or "elephant grass" and mupani, is first combed to be smoothed before being layered from the bottom to the top of the roof structures, which are most often four-sided with strong overhangs and decorated ridges. Frames can be composed of trusses, beams or cleats, and rest on posts and branches cut in a Y shape to ensure greater stability. The wood used for the frames and supporting structures is always hardwood, more resistant to termite attack. Walls can be made of dried bricks, cob, reed or even bamboo covered with plaster for added strength. In the wetlands known generically as Dambo, clay from the soil is used as a gray-black mortar, creating a nice contrast to the traditional orange-red hues. Retaining water and mold, this mortar is widely used for interior floors and walls, especially since when wet, it provides continuous freshness. These raw and natural materials are often enhanced by elegant decorative work: painting of the sub-basements, ornamental patterns on the facades, wood carvings, polychromy of the bricks arranged to create various patterns, colored sands used to create patterns and protect the walls from the weather... the possibilities are endless! In general, villages are divided into residential areas - whose houses are organized around three elements, the central room, the bedroom and the veranda that creates a permanent link with the outside - and functional areas. The central element of the village is theinsaka, a Bamba term for a place to gather. It is a kind of kiosk or pavilion that is also very often used as a kitchen space. Burnt brick foundations, walls made of bricks or structures of wooden poles and mud, and thatched roofs characterize these insakas, which can be open, semi-open, or totally enclosed. Placed on raised platforms for protection and ventilation, the attics are characterized by a removable thatched roof whose overhangs protect the woven bamboo or cob walls. Because of its flexibility, bamboo is mostly used in circular constructions, especially in the eastern provinces. In the North, more influenced by the missionaries in particular, we find more structures of square plan and dried bricks. Other vernacular treasures of Zambian villages include peanut containers, ovoid brick structures placed on wooden platforms, pigeon houses with woven bamboo walls, and tobacco drying structures made of mud and thatch. Some still have "initiation huts", traditional buildings made of wattle and daub, located away from the houses. Other unique structures include the bent-frame, grass-covered shelters of temporary fishing camps; the Tonga stilt houses with their wooden pole platforms, plaster base creating a rigid floor, bamboo and plaster walls and thatched roofs; or the Tonga huts with their wooden beams, which have been built in the early 1990s; or the grass huts of the San, which can be recognized by their dome shape, their roof of grass and reeds reaching almost to the ground and supported by a frame of fine branches, and their protective reed fence. A unique vernacular architecture, conceived in harmony with its environment and reflecting the infinite richness of a country that has not finished surprising you!
