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Title Revisiting the façade of Marché Kermel: a tripartite invented tradition
Full text https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/7214358; http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-7214358; https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/7214358/file/7214419
Date 2016
Author(s) Bigon, Liora; Beeckmans, Luce; Sinou, Alain
Abstract The celebrated phrase 'the invention of tradition' has been originally coined and explained by Eric Hobsbawm in his 1983 'Introduction' for his co-edited volume under this rubric. It had an immediate impact within the social and political sciences, disseminated into the architectural research only after more than a decade. With regard to the African context, this phrase has not only been used quite recently, but it referred almost exclusively to the built heritage of the French in North Africa. By bringing sub-Saharan Africa into the fore, this article critically examines the unique architectural style of the façade of Marché Kermel in Dakar, Senegal. Our analysis uncovers a process of an invention of tradition to which three formalistic layers could be assigned. Replacing the initial modest shed, the structure of Kermel was inaugurated by the French in 1910 in the heart of the colonial city center and port. The importation of neo-Moorish elements ' which so far were only implemented in French North Africa ' into the sub-Saharan environment were salient in Kermel. As such, these visual elements evoke questions as to the French contemporary aesthetical conceptions and political motives. At the same time, these elements reflect a bipartite process of invented tradition: the use of the typically North African neo-Moorish colonial style; and the transmission of this style, for the first time, to West Africa. Moreover, since the postcolonial period, a third layer of invented tradition can be assigned to Kermel's façade. Following the complete destruction of the market by fire in 1993, independent Senegal promoted its reconstruction as a replica of the previous colonial version ' a complex endeavor on both technical and interpretational levels. Retracing this tripartite architectural heritage implies on the intimate connections between visual representations and (post-)colonial policies, politics and ideologies.
Subject(s) Arts and Architecture; façade; colonial ideologies.; (post-)colonial architecture; Marché Kermel; invented tradition; Senegal
Language eng
Type of publication journalArticle; info:eu-repo/semantics/article; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Format application/pdf
Source ARCHITEXT; ISSN: 2412-656X
Rights I have transferred the copyright for this publication to the publisher; info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess
Repository Gent - University of Gent
Added to C-A: 2020-11-12;11:20:14