The Anatomy of Architecture: Ontology and Metaphor in Batammaliba Architectural Expression (Res Monographs in Anthropology and Aesthetics) - Hardcover

BLIER SUZANNE PRESTON

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521321735 ISBN 13: 9780521321730

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1987

Synopsis

Blier illuminates the extraordinary architecture of the Batammaliba people of Western Africa, revealing these buildings as texts through which we can read the beliefs, psychology, traditions, and social concerns of their inhabitants. In doing so, she explores the role of vernacular architecture as an expression of culture" A splendid analysis of the centrality of architecture in the daily lives of the Batammaliba and its integral role in articulating social values . . . The story is beautifully told in the best of anthropological traditions" Judith R. Blau, Contemporary Society" A remarkable study . . . Blier's volume carries the study of African architecture to a qualitatively new level of scholarship. It introduces a new dimension whereby the architectural medium can be used to illuminate much of the entire belief system of any culture" Labelle Prussin, African Arts" In this excellent book Blier provides a richly detailed and searching account of what architecture means to the Batammaliba of northern Togo and Benin . . . The finest account I have yet read of he relations between systems of beliefs, ritual practices, and African aesthetics and plastic arts . . . The ethnography and basic insight should be the envy of any social anthropologist" T.O. Beidelman, Man

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0521321735
• ISBN 13: 9780521321730
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336