Yoruba Architecture

Yoruba architecture is the building tradition of the Yoruba people of West Africa, chiefly in present-day Nigeria and Benin, dating from around the eighth century and continuing through the colonial period beginning in the nineteenth century. Its core form is the courtyard compound, built of rectangular, windowless, single-room structures arranged around a central courtyard ringed by verandas, with the courtyard deliberately made larger than the interior rooms to serve as the social hub where families gathered, cooked and crafted goods. Walls were built of molded mud from laterite soils on timber frameworks, with roofing that varied by region, raffia palm leaves along the coast and wood in place of palm fronds further north, later supplemented by thatch, aluminum and corrugated iron. Pre-colonial Yoruba settlements were defended by mud walls, including Sungbo's Eredo, considered Africa's largest pre-colonial monument, while palaces and chiefly residences displayed carved posts, painted animal murals and shrines, and incorporated farm, temple, sacred, kitchen and herb gardens along with impluviums for collecting rainwater.