Friedrich W. Schwerdtfeger, Hausa Urban Art and its Social Background: external house decorations in a northern Nigerian city. Berlin: LIT Verlag (hb €45.90 – 978 3 82585 643 4). 2007, 392 pp.
Friedrich Schwerdtfeger is a professor of architecture at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, northern Nigeria. His first visit to the emirate city in 1967 made a deep impression, and in 1976 he commenced a detailed study of its masons and decorated houses that was to last nearly a decade. His combination of architectural expertise and incomparable familiarity with the people and customs of this walled Hausa city make Schwerdtfeger the leading authority on the subject. Hausa Urban Art and its Social Background is a long-awaited publication for those familiar with the author's shorter, but seminal work on Traditional Houses in African Cities (1982). The present monograph represents an expert distillation of the complex weave of building-craft technique with magic, religious practice, social identity, economics and aesthetic judgement. The scholarship is meticulous and, undoubtedly, the book's rich data will be mined by architectural historians, anthropologists and Africanists for years to come.
Following a brief introduction that orients the reader within the physical city and its culture, the book is divided into three parts incorporating fifteen well-illustrated chapters and a conclusion. In addition to a catalogue of the decorative motifs displayed on surveyed buildings, nearly a hundred pages of appendices also supply a wealth of statistical information relevant to the study; outlines of the author's fieldwork questionnaires, and a practical glossary of Hausa terms.
Zaria's historic walled city is home to roughly 110,000 people distributed across forty-three administrative wards. At its heart sit an elaborately decorated Emir's palace, Friday mosque and marketplace. Most residents are self-defined Hausa, but there are also Fulani and a small representation of Yoruba. The extended-family compound forms the core of this conservative and highly-stratified Islamic society, and tall compound walls conceal series of courtyards and domestic spaces. The zaure is the transition zone separating private family life from the public streets, and, typically, this is the most lavishly decorated building of the household. Schwerdtfeger's central concerns lie with the production, meaning and aesthetic evaluation of these decorative motifs and patterns, as well as their survival as an art form.
Exterior wall decoration is classified into two distinct categories along with the artisans who execute the work. The oldest, and according to Schwerdtfeger the most prestigious, are the boldly sculpted geometries and patterns that adorn the houses of royalty, high office holders and the established elite. These are produced in mud by so-called ‘traditional’ builders (magina) using only their ‘hands, eyes and sense of proportion’, and rendered in a protective coat of specially-prepared laso (and now more commonly cement) and highlighted with brightly-coloured paints. The second type of decoration is made by the mai shafe decorators who scratch motifs into flat layers of cement plaster (sgraffito) using an iron implement and occasionally templates. The role of the mai shafe emerged after the Second World War with the introduction of Western building materials, including cement, corrugated iron sheeting, breeze-blocks and sawn timber. This less-expensive form of cement decoration was quickly adopted by the aspiring common classes who dared not adorn their homes with sculpted mud designs – the preserve of nobility – nor with such royal motifs as the fan, turban or umbrella.
Schwerdtfeger conceived his field survey of nearly one thousand decorated houses and over eighty craftsmen as ‘a rescue operation’. Throughout the book, we are reminded that this building craft is on a fast and seemingly irreversible decline. He describes how Nigeria's oil-fuelled economy of the 1970s transformed consumer tastes and instigated a popular disdain for mud as a building material. The status thatwas once connoted by Zaria's elaborate house decorations was reinvested in alternative prestige items such as hand-embroidered gowns, flash cars, electronic gadgets and two-storey concrete houses. A reverse in economic fortunes during the 1990s forced many back to mud-brick construction, but Schwerdtfeger claims that the younger generation acquiesced with reluctance. When I conducted fieldwork in Zaria in the early 1990s, my experience of the architectural situation was somewhat different. Though many facades of earlier decades were neglected and crumbling, others were being renewed, and new zauruka were being embellished with fantastical sculpted designs. Indeed, numerous interviews with compound heads and builders confirmed an extant and vigorous pride in this ever-evolving tradition, leading me to query Schwerdtfeger's overriding pessimism.
Part 1 of the book focuses on compound heads and the commissioning of house decoration. An important distinction is made here between the long-term relations of patronage that exist between the traditional magina and his clients, and the more intensely commercial contracts accepted by the mai shafe. Unfortunately, Schwerdtfeger's compulsive statistical analysis of survey results tends to overshadow possibilities for creative interpretation of the data and bleed the narrative. His statistics are potentially valuable for the specialist, but the overall text would have benefited by relegating the majority to footnotes or appendices. The flow of information improves in Part 2, where we learn about the history, professional organization, training, livelihoods and practices of the craftsmen. A magina's long apprenticeship lasts eleven years on average, followed by an interim period during which he broadens his skill-base by working with other master craftsmen. When fully qualified, a magina remains the pupil of his master and defers to his judgement. As in other West African contexts, the world of craftsmen is populated by spiritual beings and supernatural forces that may protect and bless with good fortune, or, conversely, cause harm. Builders accumulate secret knowledge throughout their careers that enables them to harness occult powers and effectively integrate these with their building practices. The final chapter in Part 2 is dedicated to the creativity of thirteen esteemed master craftsmen, and their fascinating statements about training and innovative uses of decoration are fully transcribed.
The final part of the book somewhat unnecessarily revisits several themes already discussed in previous chapters. Of notable interest, however, is the discussion of Islam and its relation to Hausa decorative arts. Schwerdtfeger astutely determines that Islamic art was grafted onto an already vibrant tradition and that, with obvious exceptions, the vast majority of motifs and designs are still of a secular nature. His persistent inquiry throughout the book into questions of aesthetic evaluation and symbolic meaning leads him ultimately to conclude that both defy categorization. Rather, the ‘master craftsmen use their own imaginations and inventiveness, guided by socio-economic values and beliefs, not by a clearly defined symbolic system’.
This could have been a more streamlined production. There is considerable repetition and the information is sometimes presented in a dry and unimaginative manner. But Schwerdtfeger's study is an extremely important one, and its robust scholarship will make it an invaluable reference source. We can only hope that his gloomy predictions concerning the fate of Zaria's decorated houses are mistaken.
