On the Swahili coast of East Africa, monumental stone houses, tombs, and mosques mark the border zone between the interior of the African continent and the Indian Ocean. Prita Meier explores this coastal environment and shows how an African mercantile society created a place of cosmopolitan longing. Meier understands architecture as more than a way to remake local space. Rather, the architecture of this liminal zone was an expression of the desire of coastal inhabitants to belong to places beyond their homeports. Here architecture embodies modern ideas and social identities engendered by the encounter of Africans with others in the Indian Ocean world.
Examines relations between material culture, including ceramics, imported goods, and architecture, and identity across Swahili societies. (Annotation from "Swahili City-States of the East African Coast," Oxford Bibliographies Online)
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"An open access, intellectual resource focused on architecture, urbanism, environmental and landscape design, visual culture, and conservation issues related to the Muslim world." Sponsored by the Aga Khan Foundation.
From Egypt to Ethiopia, Botswana to Burundi and Zimbabwe to Cameroon, this book presents a study of African architecture from antiquity to present day. The author evaluates historical, traditional and contemporary architecture by examining the various cultural groups of North, Central, East, South and Western Africa from ethnic, climatic, political, regional, economic, religious, and historical perspectives. In addition the final chapter looks at modern architecture throughout Africa.