Usually representing spirits, ancestors or the primordial couple, these figures were placed in shrines and treated with great respect. Through a wide range of style, scale, belief and function the couples depicted share a timeless, serene equality necessary to the continuity of their societies.

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Alioune Diop University Extension / IDOM

The Government of Senegal, financially assisted by the World Bank, has started an ambitious plan for the extension and improvement of several universities in the country. In the University of Alioune Diop, in Bambey, to the West of the country, 4 new buildings are planned which will house the Training and Research Unit, which in turn will include lecture rooms, a lecture hall for 500 students, ...

Manuel Herz wins Tambacounda Hospital Project in Senegal

Tambacounda Hospital is the only hospital in a large region of eastern Senegal. It serves the 100,000 inhabitants of the city of Tambacounda - declared the hottest metropolis on the planet - and more than a million people from the surrounding region and Mali, whose border is about an hour and a half away.

Looking Up / Francesco Bonanomi, Michael Goldoni, Riccardo Bovo

Cult, introspection, spirituality, rest, identity: these are some of the themes translated through an architectural perspective to design a versatile space which can serve several varieties of cult. This is the place where every visitor can seek his own spirituality through an experience of personal introspection and detachment from reality; the centre around which architectural spaces and shap...

Eco Maison / Studio Tamassociati

TAM associati inaugurated the 'eco-maison', the first batch of the H2OS project, which envisages the construction of an eco-village in Senegal’s Keur Village, 200 km from Dakar in a scheme that consists of common spaces and autonomous housing modules from the point of view of Energy and water in an area where desertification proceeds inevitably. The project predominantly focuses on desertificat...

House Al Hamra / Atelier KOE

Atelier KOE found the response to both the architectural aesthetic as well as energy autonomy. The spacious residence, built entirely with stabilized earth bricks, totals 400m2 divided into six suites, a large living area, kitchen and dining room. This house was built as a place of open hospitality, welcoming guests with an interior peristyle and quiet fountain. A 12 meter wind tower helps circ...

Alliance Franco-Senegalaise / Patrick Dujarric

Built to house the Alliance Française, and to provide the provincial town of Kaolack with much needed library space, meeting areas, and classrooms, as well as performance and entertainment areas, the mission of the Franco-Sénégalaise Cultural Centre is to promote knowledge and understanding of the French language and culture. Its architect, Patrick Dujarric, grouped the various functional space...

Datum Antique: Jean Francois Lamoureux and Jean-Louis Marin's Dakar International Fair Grounds

The Dakar Exhibition centre is a psychedelic 70s baby, a building that perhaps represented a provoking, almost tickling and sparkling idea to the African foray of foreign architects at the time. This was an architectural building that purely and strikingly reveals the political factors that were affecting senegal at the time, and shows a clear depiction of the government's forge of character on...

Sinthian Thread Arts Cultural Centre / Toshiko Mori Architect TMA

The design of the Sinthian Cultural Centre is described as a parametric transformation of the traditional pitched roof, which is literary inverted to collect rainwater. The construction of this structure is found in a remote Senegalese village of Sinthian, close to the Mali border. This construction, begun by the New York Studio of Toshiko Mori, is designed in collaboration with two non-profit ...

Great Mosque of Touba / Tashiko Mori

Religion has the instrinsic ability to influence a creed, and so does architecture. At the heart of the Mouride holy city lies a well crafted piece of architectural realm in The Great Mosque of Touba. It is a riveting piece of qarchitecture, solemn in materiality but robust in versing and space making. The mosque rises up from the African soil with such confidence it can be seen from almost all...

Dakar's International Conference Center / Tabanlioglu Architects

The Dakar Centre just completed this year is an assortment of playful geometry by all words necessary. Steve Bright in Hailstorm was quoted saying ‘…there is always tension in good design; a tension between opposing forces represented by the creative and the prosaic, for design must work as few other artistic endeavors must work. It must work at many levels, at a practical level and at an imagi...

French School Group Jean Mermoz / Terreneuve Architects

This project fundamentally features contemporary architectural style as witnessed by the building’s design to respond appropriately to the client’s needs. The building and facility design was obliged in making this possible without unnecessary energy expense. It showcases innovative passive thermal control systems and its devotion in using the expertise of local businesses with limited import o...

Women's Centre/ Hollmén Reuter Sandman Architects

The centre is grouped around an internal courtyard according to the West African custom; the line between private and public is clear but flexible. The simplicity of the street façades adapts the building to its surroundings; the corner facing a road crossing forms a small public square where the facilities reserved for trading are located. The building's red colour gives the house its own iden...