Legendary past
Tanzania is home to the remains of Africa's first Arab trading cities. The ruins of Qanbalu, on the island of Pemba, date back to the 8th century and are thus the oldest in the region. But the most famous are the ruins of Kilwa Kisiwani. A prosperous port from the 12th to the 16th century, the site has preserved some astonishing buildings, such as the Great Mosque, whose vaults - some of which are decorated with embedded Chinese porcelain - can still be admired, as can its many domes, the main dome of which was the largest in East Africa until the 19th century! All the buildings were constructed from coral limestone and lime mortar. This was a key feature of Swahili culture, a skilful blend of Arab and African influences. The Songo Mnara site features 5 mosques, a beautiful palace complex and 33 houses built of coral limestone and wood. On other sites, Persian influence was added to Swahili elements. Indeed, many merchants from the city of Shiraz settled in the country and left their mark. The ruins of Tongoni and Kaole boast superb mosques, as well as beautiful Shiraz funerary stelae, recognizable by their pillar-like structure and rich ornamentation. Coral limestone is also the material of choice for the sumptuous urban houses and palaces to be seen in Bagamoyo and especially in Stone Town, the historic jewel of Zanzibar City. These houses are governed by two key principles: respect for privacy and ventilation. From the street, all you can see are their balconies, carved like moucharabiehs, and their doors sculpted like lace. The oldest, influenced by Arab culture, feature rectangular lintels decorated with geometric motifs, while the houses influenced by Indian culture have semicircular lintels and abundant floral decoration. Leaning against the facades, the barazas or stone benches, often covered in mosaics, allow the locals to get together. Once through the double door, a narrow corridor leads to the majlis, the meeting room and only public space in the house. The rest of the house is organized around a central courtyard lined with arcades. From this courtyard, a beautifully crafted staircase leads upstairs. These stone treasures also coexist with Indian stalls organized around a commercial space known as a duka, Hindu temples with their variegated colors and carved wooden decorations, square-plan Arab buildings with flat roofs, and the sumptuous palaces of the powerful Omani sultans. The most famous of Zanzibar palaces is the House of Wonders or Beit el-Ajaib, combining stone and metal architecture. And don't miss the ruins of Maruhubi Palace, with its beautiful columns, aerial aqueduct and small reservoirs supplying the Persian-style hammam. In Dar es Salaam, it's the Old Boma, built in 1866, that bears the Omani stamp, with its whitewashed silhouette of coral stone and mangrove wood and the crenellated line of its roof.
Colonial influence
At the end of the 19th century, the German presence was accompanied by the construction of rather neoclassical administrative buildings (customs, hospitals) and typical edifices such as clock towers or clock-towers, also very popular with the English. In Dar es Salaam, the Germans also carried out a complete overhaul of urban planning. The city was divided into 3 zones: the North-East, with its wide avenues lined with colonial villas; the Centre, with its dense network of lanes lined with Indian shops; and, separated by an open space acting as a sanitary cordon, the West, with its tight grid of African dwellings. This urban segregation is still evident today. The colonial presence was also, and above all, a religious presence, reinforced by the power of the missions. Height, proximity to a water source, fertile land and availability of materials all played a part in the choice of mission sites. In the early days, structures were fairly basic (plant cover on a wooden frame), then gradually the missionaries developed mud architecture, with sun-dried bricks or mud bricks produced in large specially-created kilns, before using coral stone (Tanga, Bagamoyo) or even volcanic stone (Kilema) in some missions. As lime was not always easy to produce, missionaries often employed the Swahili technique, replacing limestone with shells. The highlight of the mission is the colonial-inspired missionary house: rectangular floor plan, covered gallery with colonnade, overhanging roof. Fine examples can be seen in Kibosho and Dongoni. Mission churches, on the other hand, bear witness to an adaptation to climatic constraints with their thicker, more insulating walls, the appearance of clerestories for ventilation, awnings and side verandas to protect from the sun and solid, squat bell towers to resist storms. Mission churches are often more modest than those in large urban centers, where neo styles are more prominent, as in the case of Saint Joseph's Cathedral in Zanzibar, whose Romanesque-Byzantine silhouette and two towers flanking its façade are reminiscent of Marseille's cathedral, the Romanesque-Gothic church in Msalala, or St. Paul's church in Mtwara, whose facade and side walls are entirely covered with biblical scenes painted in bright colors by a German priest who trained numerous African craftsmen to reproduce these motifs throughout the country.
Modern and contemporary architecture
Tanzania in the 1950s witnessed an astonishing architectural effervescence with resolutely modernist overtones. The Englishman Peter Bransgrove developed what is known as "tropical modernism", i.e. the international style in vogue in Europe adapted to climatic constraints. The aim was to promote aeration and ventilation and avoid direct exposure to the sun. Bransgrove is credited with the technique of louvered concrete blocks, which can be found in many of his sober, simple designs, such as the YMCA in Dar es Salaam. But the great figure of Tanzanian modernism is Anthony Almeida, Tanzanian by adoption but born in Goa, a crossbreeding that results in a unique architecture playing on patterns and transparency effects, on the dialogue between light and shadow and on a natural adaptation to the environment. His creations often have a raised floor and a luminous central courtyard. Among the Tanzanian master's greatest achievements are the Regional HQ of the East Africa Community in Dar es Salaam, whose silhouette is reminiscent of Le Corbusier's housing units, and the University's Joint Christian Chapel, with its superb cantilevered roof. Another great figure of modernism was Beda Amuli, who designed one of Dar es Salaam's most astonishing structures, the Kariakoo Market, with its imposing pillars that open into protective corollas, giving the market the appearance of a concrete forest. At the same time, the GDR decided to help the island of Zanzibar to develop, sponsoring programs for the construction of prefabricated blocks of flats, such as the Michenzani Trains in Zanzibar City. Today, Dar es Salaam is covered with skyscrapers and astonishing buildings, such as the Z-shaped ZO Space, with its clever interplay of volumes. And Tanzania has no intention of stopping there, multiplying grandiose projects such as Zanzibar's Domino Tower, a 70-storey tower built on an artificial island that could become the tallest skyscraper in sub-Saharan Africa, and the Kigamboni New City, a new city imagined opposite the historic heart of Dar es Salaam and set to include hotels and glass towers, as well as residential and industrial zones, all accompanied by the construction of a bridge... financed by China. Far from all this grandiloquence, the lodges attempt to create an elegant link between tradition and modernity, using only natural materials and multiplying structures on stilts to limit the impact on the environment.
Aboriginal Habitat
The most common materials used are wood for the frame, mud or clay for the walls and woven grass or reed thatch, often layered in terraces, for the roof... natural materials with amazing insulating properties. Maasai villages are famous for their "boma" or "kraal", the enclosure that protects the dwellings. These may be made of stone, wooden posts or impenetrable thickets of thorny bushes. Maasai dwellings are generally rectangular in plan, and their mud-and-straw silhouette is often domed. The Zarama people, on the other hand, are famous for their superb woodwork and basketry, found around doors and on enclosure fences often decorated with matted motifs. The same decorative art can be found in Nyakyusa dwellings, where the braiding of branches gives a fine, elegant geometric appearance. The Sukuma people, on the other hand, have developed a circular habitat, the most advanced forms of which resemble domes. Round huts and domes are found among the Ha and Hadza, and especially among the Chagga, whose windowless, thatched huts populate the slopes of Kilimanjaro. The same windowlessness is found in the huts of the Fipa people. Zanaki houses, on the other hand, are distinguished by their conical roofs, the overhangs of which, supported by large branches, create a gallery around the dwelling. Among the Haya, the roof, also conical, is extended at the front to form a sort of2nd small roof over the porch-like entrance. And these are just a few examples of the richness of Tanzania's indigenous habitat. To find out more, you can visit the Village Museum, not far from Dar es Salaam, which brings together some twenty indigenous dwellings, and you can also visit villages belonging to the Cultural Tourism Program, a kind of ecotourism designed to benefit local communities, like N'giresi Village... The authenticity may sometimes be fake, but this program has the merit of protecting and raising awareness of these peoples' ancestral cultures.
