The Asante Traditional Buildings are a small group of surviving shrine houses scattered around the city of Kumasi, Ghana, the last significant remnants of the building tradition of the Ashanti Empire before most examples were destroyed in nineteenth century wars with Britain. Built in timber frame construction infilled with earth or clay and finished with steeply pitched thatch or, more recently, corrugated iron roofs, the buildings are arranged around a central courtyard in a form historically used for shrines, chiefs' residences and other significant structures. Their walls carry low relief decoration in abstract and figurative motifs, executed in the same earth plaster as the walls themselves, historically the work of women. UNESCO inscribed the buildings as a World Heritage Site in 1980 as an exceptional testimony to a once-widespread Ashanti building tradition that has almost entirely vanished elsewhere.
Facts
Building TypeEarthen shrine houses with timber and wattle and daub walls, originally thatched roofs 2 LocationAshanti Region, within about 35 kilometers of Kumasi, Ghana 2 Classification
Standing StatusSourced to the subject's own account Building Type
Building Type (category) Connections
Has Building Type
Entity-backed identity for the building-type enum value this building already carries, resolved to an architecture concept by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The building-type fact itself stays on the building unchanged.
Uses Element
Source Asante Traditional Buildings (Wikipedia)
Source Asante Traditional Buildings (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Ghana, located there.
Sources
1. Asante Traditional Buildings (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationEntity description and the lead of the Wikipedia article
The Asante Traditional Buildings are a small group of surviving shrine houses scattered around the city of Kumasi, Ghana, the last significant remnants of the building tradition of the Ashanti Empire before most examples were destroyed in nineteenth century wars with Britain. Built in timber frame construction infilled with earth or clay and finished with steeply pitched thatch or, more recently, corrugated iron roofs, the buildings are arranged around a central courtyard in a form historically used for shrines, chiefs' residences and other significant structures. Their walls carry low relief decoration in abstract and figurative motifs, executed in the same earth plaster as the walls themselves, historically the work of women. UNESCO inscribed the buildings as a World Heritage Site in 1980 as an exceptional testimony to a once-widespread Ashanti building tradition that has almost entirely vanished elsewhere.
Uses Element: Timber, Wikipedia article
The houses are arranged around courtyards, and are built of timber, bamboo and mud plaster.
Uses Element: Bamboo, Wikipedia article
The houses are arranged around courtyards, and are built of timber, bamboo and mud plaster.
View the Source 2. Asante Traditional Buildings, Ghana Museums and Monuments Board
Section beginning Currently, only ten of these buildings are standing
Nine of them are within a thirty-five kilometre radius of Kumasi, the seat of Asanteman, the Asante Kingdom.
Section beginning The typical house, whether designed for human habitation
the humid tropical rainforest, which has always represented a threat to earthen and wattle-daub wall and palm-thatched roofs
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