EnglishHousing
Porto Novo, Benin, Bénin/Benim, former Daomé
Housing
The presence of the built culture of Portuguese influence can also be found in Porto Novo in the kind of houses that derived from the imported models of Euro-American roots – initially of Portuguese origin (17th-18th centuries), then consolidated by the Brazilians who returned to their ancestors homeland (19th century) to Africa. As Alain Sinou and Bachir Oloudé mention: “This architecture was mainly diffused by the former slaves who came from Brazil from the 19th century and who have reproduced in Africa certain building practices taken from their former masters. This remarkable style in the trading posts from Lomé to Lagos is also sometimes classified as Portuguese: some Portuguese traders have stayed at the trading posts since the 18th century. If they were able to erect houses similar to those made by the bourgeoisie and aristrocracy of their country, it is also true that such architecture only develloped with the return of the slaves from Brazil» (Sinou, 1988, p. 115). These houses, that is, the surviving examples, of predominantly 19th century style, use stone masonry walls, layouts of regular shapes (rectangular, square), façade elements with arcades (corresponding to verandas), frames of bays with classic-like lintels, marked by curves and richly decorated, and, in some cases, fitted with wood shutters that cover the verandas.