Asante Traditional Buildings

The Asante Traditional Buildings are a group of shrine ("fetish") houses in the countryside around Kumasi, Ghana, mostly to the north-east of the city. They are the last substantial survivors of the architecture of the Asante kingdom, which was at its height in the 18th and 19th centuries, and were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1980.

Construction

The buildings are made of timber, bamboo and earth. Walls are built with wattle-and-daub and earth techniques and finished with mud plaster. Rooms are arranged around courtyards, typically four rooms facing a central court, and stand on a raised plinth. The walls carry bold bas-relief decoration of spirals and arabesques, together with animals, birds and plants associated with Adinkra symbols.

The roof

UNESCO records that the buildings were originally covered with steeply pitched roofs thatched with palm fronds. The steep pitch suited the hot, wet forest climate, shedding heavy rain quickly and keeping water off the earthen walls.

In 12 of the 13 buildings recorded by UNESCO, the thatch has since been replaced with corrugated iron. The metal roofs are lighter and set at a shallower pitch than the originals. This is one of the clearest documented examples in West Africa of a heritage building type changing its roof covering from organic thatch to sheet metal, a change that alters the silhouette and the way the building handles heat and rain.

Early records

Drawings made by the English visitor Thomas Bowdich in 1817 are an important record of the architecture of Kumasi before the British conquest. The royal mausoleum at Kumasi was destroyed by British forces during the 1895-96 expedition to Kumasi, and the surviving rural shrines are now the main physical evidence of the tradition.

Conservation issues

The buildings face a demanding environment:

• The hot, humid climate damages earth and wattle-and-daub walls and encourages mould.
• Termites and other insects attack timber and organic materials.
• Agricultural expansion makes thatch, bamboo and some timber species harder to obtain.
• Many structures are incomplete, with parts of the original buildings missing.

UNESCO notes that the survival of the shrines depends on regular maintenance and a sustainable supply of the organic materials needed for repairs. Restoring thatch would require reliable sources of palm fronds and skilled thatchers.

Significance for roofing

The Asante shrines show the forest-zone counterpart to the flat earth roofs of the Sahel: a pitched, thatched roof over earth walls, relying on overhang and steepness rather than mass to protect the building.