Traditional habitat
Traditional Bahamian architecture is a direct legacy of the early settlers from South America. They apply their mastery of wooden shipbuilding to their homes, which they build using local resources. The size of the house depends on the length of the logs used and most of them measure 9 by 12 metres. They are built high up to avoid flooding. Depending on his means, the owner would add a level, an awning, or a veranda on one, two or three sides of the house. This room is protected by an overhang of the roof decorated with carved wooden mantling, supported by thin columns, with a chiselled wooden terrace and scalloped walls. In many villages, the wooden huts display bright, pastel colours, like doll's houses. Refined and secretive, the Creole huts, all made of wooden slats, are generally two-coloured, white with a dominant colour: pink, turquoise blue, mimosa yellow, red, indigo, mauve, water green, etc. All the shades of the range are used and contrast cheerfully with the sky! Sumptuous gardens are abundantly flowered with bougainvillea, hibiscus, and other tropical flowers that tumble down cascading walls. The gardens, like caskets of colour, enclose the Bahamian hut. The traditional villages are a veritable festival of colours, a source of inspiration for local watercolourists.
Colonial splendor and plantations
The Bahamas were occupied by the Loyalists during the War of Independence in the late 18th century. They imported the Georgian, or federal, style, which was widespread in the British colonies at the time, applying to it some variations that characterise the local colonial style of architecture, known as the Loyalist style. In addition to the use of bright colours, the Georgian style was modified to cope with the hurricanes that often hit the coasts of the archipelago
It was in Nassau that the Loyalists left the most striking legacy. The city centre still bears the mark of Georgian architecture with its stone buildings. However, the most used material remains the pine wood from the island of Abaco in particular (whose forests have unfortunately been decimated). It is the characteristic style of the American settlers.
Many of the old houses still exist today and are protected as national heritage gems, including the Balcony House in Nassau, the oldest on the island. This pink house, which is characteristic of the Loyalist style, has now been converted into a historical museum. Entirely made of wood, it owes its name to the L-shaped balcony that runs along the first floor
On Harbour Island Bay, a Loyalist settler's cottage dating from 1797 is maintained as is and offered for rent to tourists on a budget
This architectural tradition continues and is also found in the poorest area of Nassau, Over-the-Hill, where single-storey houses have similar roofs and colours, but often tarnished or damaged due to lack of funds to maintain them. Among the poorest, the paint has even completely flaked off over time. They stand out for their appearance made of bric-a-brac and broc, due to the use of recycled materials, as well as the frescoes and mosaics that are sometimes found on the surrounding walls of the grounds.
Later, opulent colonial houses, built in stone, with verandas and columns, were built by the American planters who emigrated to the islands. This architectural style, reminiscent of the sets from the film Gone with the Wind, continued throughout the 19th century. On the heights of Nassau you can see some very luxurious old colonial houses. Most of the plantation buildings have now disappeared, or have fallen into decay, rare traces of the islands' slave-owning past. The Government House, which still houses the Governor General of the Bahamas today, is surely one of the finest examples of colonial architecture in the West Indies. After the devastating hurricane of 1929, it was supplemented by neo-classical elements, such as its frontispiece and columns, adding to the Loyalist style of the rest of the Loyalist building.
Religious architecture
The archipelago is home to churches in a wide variety of styles, from the 18th century to the modern period, religious architecture has been deployed to its most delirious forms. From colonial churches in neo-Gothic style to the modern Mary Star of the Sea Church (Freeport, Grand Bahama), the traveler will not be disappointed. The latter is topped with a diamond and has a large red cross on its roof. There are also many Anglican churches, such as the Andrews Church on the island of Great Exuma, which stands out in the landscape with its pointed shutters. Among the religious buildings worth visiting, there is also the magnificent St. Peter & St. Paul's Catholic Church in Clarence Town on Long Island. Dominating the surrounding landscape, it serves as a landmark on land as well as on the sea and its particularity is its round twin turrets, which are more reminiscent of lighthouses than bell towers.
Contemporary architecture
More recently, in order to meet the standards of "American-style" tourism, the islands have been embellished with concrete constructions, some of which are excessive. The tourist areas of Cable Beach on New Providence, Atlantis on Paradise Island, and Lucaya in Freeport, on the island of Grand Bahama were thus created. All the other islands of the archipelago offer on the contrary a controlled tourist development.
The Atlantis hotel complex is like an exotic theme park - a Caribbean Disneyland. Its buildings topped with eccentric turrets form a monumental archway that dominates the island. The complex spreads out over the whole of Paradise
, with its numerous pools - there is even a reproduction of a Native American pyramid that serves as a slide. A rather funny mix of genres when you know that there is nothing left of the Lucayan populations that lived in the Bahamas before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. Some of these huge resorts, like the Bahamar, take on the forms of colonial architecture, especially for the roofs, and thus display a style that could be described as neo-Loyalist.South of New Providence, in the Albany Marina, BIG completed the Honeycomb Building project, named for its honeycomb façade, which houses balconies with integrated pools. Unfortunately, the Plaza designed by the Dutch architect to resonate with the building was not realized, which makes the whole thing a little less beautiful.
The contemporary architecture is mainly manifested by the development of luxurious modernist villas scattered around the archipelago, reminding us that this little piece of paradise is as much tropical as it is fiscal.
