Architecture of the Asante
Only a handful of buildings survive from a kingdom that once ruled in West Africa
An 1819 travelogue by Thomas Edward Bowdich describes Kumasi as a city of broad streets centered around a royal palace. His book provides detailed descriptions of Asante construction techniques and includes plans by the king for ambitious urban redevelopment projects.
But years of war with the British devastated the Asante and their built heritage. In 1874, British forces sacked Kumasi, leveling its royal palace with explosives and burning large swaths of the city to the ground.
By the 1970s, when the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB) took over the management of the sites, only 16 examples of traditional Asante architecture remained in all of Ghana. Today, that number has dwindled to ten—none within Kumasi itself.
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Entrance to Abirem Shrine
View of Atuo Kosua Shrine (2016) by Zita Ursula ZageWorld Monuments Fund
The surviving buildings are all of one type: shrines dedicated to deities in the Asante’s traditional religion. These gods, or abosom (singular obosom), are tended to by an okomfo, a priest who mediates between the human and divine.
The abosom to whom the priest speaks, can in turn convey messages to the Asante’s supreme god, Nyame, whom humans lack the power to address directly.
Religious Ceremony at Besease Shrine
The Structure of Asante Shrines
Asante shrines are composed of four rooms built on raised plinths and oriented around a central courtyard. Three rooms would be designated for the ritual activities of cooking, singing, and drumming respectively.
The fourth room, which houses the shrine proper, can be entered only by an okomfo. This last room is screened from view by elaborate patterned latticework, which allows light in while also preserving the division between the sacred space, to which access is restricted, and the rest of the site, which is more open.
Most of these buildings were constructed using a technique called wattle and daub, in which walls are built by first weaving horizontal strips of wood (wattle) over vertical stakes and then covering this skeleton with earthen plaster (daub).
Caretaker demonstrating how strips of cane were bent to create the reliefs at Bsease Shrine (2016) by Joy AgyepongWorld Monuments Fund
A striking feature of Asante shrines is the decoration of their walls, which are colored lime white above and clay red below and often feature elaborate geometric and figural reliefs.
The original roofs would have been made out of raffia palm thatch and pitched at a dramatic angle, which helped to increase their durability. In recent times, however, many of these have been replaced by roofs of corrugated tin.
Maintaining Traditional Asante Architecture
Asante shrines require regular upkeep in order to be able to weather the elements. The GMMB recommends that the buildings be replastered every two years and repainted annually. Palm frond thatch would likewise have traditionally been redone every seven years.
“The steps and raised floor of these rooms were clay and stone, with a thick layer of red earth, which abounds in the neighbourhood, and these were washed and painted daily, with an infusion of the same earth in water.”
Thomas Edward Bowdich
Caretaker trimming a tree near a traditional building (2014)World Monuments Fund
But in recent decades, this cycle of renewal and repair has fallen off, caused in part by the declining number of followers of Asante traditional religion as Christianity and Islam have attracted converts.
At many sites, an okomfo no longer resides on the grounds to tend to the shrine daily; when these priests pass away, it can be difficult to find a replacement. Meanwhile, with so few remaining examples of traditional Asante earthen architecture left, maintaining the skills necessary to care for these buildings poses a challenge.
But for the few remaining Asante structures to survive, regular renewal is crucial given the climate and the materials out of which they are constructed. Humidity promotes mold growth, while heavy rainfall and drainage issues can cause the walls to deteriorate. Organic matter–such as the palm fronds out of which the roofs would traditionally have been made–can play host to termite infestations, posing a risk to the integrity of the structure as a whole.
"The plastering is very frail, and…the relief frequently discloses the edges of the cane."
Thomas Edward Bowdich
Such examples drive home the fact that sustainable conservation efforts necessitate restoring not only individual buildings but the knowledge and skills required to maintain them for years to come.
In 2014, World Monuments Fund (WMF) partnered with the GMMB to document and preserve the historic Besease Shrine, which dates to the nineteenth century.
Tano Kwadwo Shrine (2016) by Noah AlorwuWorld Monuments Fund
In 2022, WMF placed Bonsam Shrine, which had suffered looting and defacement during its pandemic-related closure, on the Watch to highlight its historic importance. Asante leaders consulted with deities at the site during their war with the British.
It is hoped that conservation of the shrine can generate lessons that may be transferred to other sites in the years to come.
Learn more about Asante Traditional Buildings
