VERNACULAR

ARCHITECTURE OF
KONSO
Konso, is a small town in
Southern Ethiopia at 1650masl,
with a population of about
5,000 souls who live primarily
from cultivating and weaving
cotton, beekeeping and
general agriculture. There is a
market on Mondays and
Thursdays just out of town
along the road towards Jinka.
Named after the Konso people,
the town with 5,500ha of
surrounding cultural landscape
has been declared a World
Heritage Site for its traditional landscape
with terraced agriculture and typical villages in 2011.
Important features are the
unique designs of the houses,
the organization of the 32 dwellings
behind 1 to 6 rows of defensive stone
walls as well as nearby fossil beds.
The communities also build traditional
reservoirs to supply the villages with
water
during the dry season. The terraces
are built behind up to 5m high stone
walls to prevent soil erosion and
maximize the collection of rainwater,
so as to enhance agricultural
production.
 Cultural landscape
The Konso Cultural Landscape is
characterized by extensive dry
stone terraces bearing witness to
the persistent human struggle to
use and harness the hard, dry and
rocky environment. The terraces
retain the soil from erosion,collect
a maximum of water, discharge the
excess, and create terraced fields
that are used for agriculture.
The cultural spaces inside the
walled towns, called moras,
retain an important and central
role in the life of the Konso. Some
walled towns have as many as 17
moras. The tradition of erecting
generation marking stones called
daga-hela, quarried, transported
and erected through a ritual process,
makes the Konso one of the last
megalithic people.
The traditional forests are used as
burial places for ritual leaders and
for medicinal purposes. Wooden
anthropomorphic statues (waka),
carved out of a hard wood and
mimicking the deceased, are
erected as grave markers. Water
reservoirs (harda) located in or
near these forests, are communally
built and are, like the terraces,
maintained by very specific
communal social and cultural
practices
The terraces are the main
features of the Konso landscape
and the hills are contoured with
the dry stone walls, which at
places reach up to 5 meters in
height. The walled towns and
settlements (paletas) of the
Konso Cultural Landscape are
located on high plains or hill
summits selected for their strategic
and defensive advantage. These
towns are circled by between
one and six rounds of dry stone
defensive walls, built of locally
available rock.
Cont..
• Konso people live in 39 main towns spread in a 650 square kilometer
territory sub-divided into three distinct regions: Karati in the east, Takada in
the west and Turo in the north.
• The towns in each region are autonomous, they maintain cultural unity and
social organization. All regions are characterized with stone-lined
agricultural terraces which have earned them the status of World Heritage
Site.
• The Konso traditionally lived in stone walled settlements on hillsides for
defense from wild animals and human enemie.
• The age of these fortified towns is unknown, however, the size and number
of walls within a settlement, may give an indication of its age.
ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES
• 1. Forest- is a marker of the special interest they attach to these natural
resources.
• Outside the farmlands, almost no tree survived the demand for timber
construction or firewood; only a special reason or purpose, commonly
acknowledged by the entire community would keep the forest intact in
the vicinity of the villages.
• different functions associated to these forests: : some of them are
traditionally connected with the burial place of the ancestors of a clan
leader (poqalla)- essential part of the defensive system of the walled
towns. to extinguish an accidental fire before it spreads to the village is
absolutely necessary.
Cont.…
• The other reason for maintaining a forest near to the walls of the
village is purely defensive: when approaching enemies are detected,
groups of warriors, concealed in the forest, would be ready for
counterattack.
• The wood belt, even the dead branches, are carefully protected by
community rules from removing and therefore serves as the first
element of defense; in this regard, it is an architectural device as well
as the stone-walls surrounding the settlements.
Architectural features
• 2. Stone walls-The walls are made by stratification of irregular basalt
stones without any mortar: a structure considered one of the most
ancient typologies, known as pelagic or cyclopic.
• The inner walls, which are the oldest and often the tallest, reach a
height of 4 meters and a width of 2.5 meters.
• Originally conceived with a unique circle of walls, the villages grew
over time, and enlarged their defensive organization expanding the
masonry structure up to 6-8 circles in some villages.
cont.…
• 3. Rampant Walkways and Gates-. The technique of Konso warriors was
based on throwing heavy stones or spears, not us- ing arrows or firearms;
this is the reason why, unlike other warrior societies, the walls never present
any slit in their continuous structure.
• The entrance to villages was possible through two or more gates located in
the heavy defensive walls. The position of the gates doesn’t follow any
geometric rule, but was
• dictated by strategic consideration: the position of water sources, access to
main farmlands, to the main road to the weekly markets.
• No one was supposed to remain outside, nor to exit from the village by night
time, until the gate was opened to allow women to go out to fetch water.
Cont.….
• 4. Zigzag pathways- In some villages, as in Olanta, access to the main
gate was originally possible only by a zigzag path, enclosed by high
walls, following the climb of the hill.
• Sections of the path vary: in some points it is narrow while in at least
two sections it opens into a wide square. This is a feature related to
its defensive purpose.
• The zigzag pattern was extensively used in medieval defensive access
roads in Eu- rope and, more close to Ethiopia: in Yemen, as testified
on the still intact gates of its ancient towns, such as Sadha.
Cont.….
• 6. Internal road network- all medieval towns present narrow internal paths
due to the overpopulation and the lack of any transport means, besides
human shoulders.
• there are at least a couple of principal roads that intersect in the centre of
the village and serve the same purpose as the roman cardus and
decumanus.
• 7. Typologies: Fences and Compounds-The shape of the plot is irregular and
comes from the local orography. All the families cultivate their crops outside
the village walls.
• The compounds are usually surrounded by wooden fences. This feature is
very interesting, and we can identify three different typologies.
Cont.….
• The wooden barriers have different shapes: in isolated home- steads
they are built with strong 3-meter high poles (oxinta) connected with
horizontal beams (qada) sustained by small wooden pillars (qabayta)
and consolidated with plants growing where they intersect.
• They can have two different organizations: square or rectangular, in
which the lower part is made with stone while the upper one, is
wooden anchored to it and lays with Cartesian disposition. In addition
the vertical elements are bound by horizontal connectors. The living
fence, similar to the ordinary ones but with some of the principal
vertical elements made out with living trees, forced to grow in that
position and for that role.
Cont.…..
• 8. Houses-The Pafta, or cave house is archaic and rare to find these days,
being extensively used only in the Kolme area.
• Using the natural slope of the compound, a cavity is excavated to obtain a
rectangular shape; logs are disposed horizontally and a front wall erected
using stones cut in order to have a flat surface with straight angles.
• The Maana, or all-roofing house is a circular hut consisting of a straw roof
from the ground up to the top, with no differentiation in between
(basement- elevation-unification-roofing).
• A small door is the only entrance, and the radius usually doesn’t exceed
one meter.
Cont..
• The typical Konso hut or the double roof house has a round wooden
structure of poles deeply inserted into the ground and carefully
covered with chikka(mud and straw). Only one door gives access to
the interior, usually dark and smoky, be- cause the fire place in the
middle of the house has no chimney. Benches are present both
outside – dry stone masonry - and inside made of chikka; the latter
are used as beds by night. The roof is sustained by a central pole, but
there are structural differences: the pole reaches the centre of the
roof, or it stops at some 2.5 m. from the ground and then wooden
sticks open as umbrellas do, sustaining the roof at midway between
the pole and the top of the roof.
Cont..
• 9. Granaries. In the lower part of the compound, are sever- al
granaries (kossa), presenting the same shape of the double roofs just
described. The granary itself is a sort of cylindrical basket, most of the
time made by little bambu sticks, covered with chikka, presenting only
one lateral wooden flap.
• A special shaped granary, called aleeta kasa, may be described as a
one-legged building. It has a special central position in the compound;
it is made of one complete acacia tree, whose branches are all cut the
same length, so that on them the granary itself is built.
Cont.…
• 10. Moora -The term moora, in the local language, indicates a well-
defined typology of public space, and, for each village there are many
of them, from ten to twenty, with different functions, shapes and
attributes.
• It’s the place of social and spiritual life, where children play, youngsters
sleep and spend their time, the elders meet and discuss, women pass
and can participate in some of the happenings. Here, as in every
representative and cultural space, the role of the symbol becomes
prevalent, every element has a function and a role in the public life,
which comes from traditional believes, religious or magic myths.
10 Q !!!