The African Influence on Earthen Architecture

Popular architecture is an important element of expression of the interactions that occur between the various cultures that form a society. Brazil is characterized by a broad cultural background that has left us with an even greater diversity of architectural heritage, one of which is African. We therefore propose the recognition of African influences that occurred due to the interaction between the raw earth construction cultures of the slave labor force, of Afro-Western origin brought to work, and those techniques used in 18th-century constructions. The degree of autonomy given to slaves in the design of their dwellings on farms, on the outskirts of villages, and in mining company settlements will be distinct from that granted to them in the formation of quilombos. This differentiation was reproduced in the forms, uses, and appropriations of spaces, which were, however, always linked to African architectural matrices. In this way, it was possible to verify that the relationships between spatial configurations and social structures in West Africa and Minas Gerais are similar in several aspects, these being constituent parts of our popular architecture.