Synecdoche of Empire: The Paris Colonial Exposition of 1931 and the Great Mosque of Djenne

The current Great Mosque of Djenné in southwestern Mali is now recognized as an exemplar of the native mud architecture of West Africa, but it was virtually unknown when completed under French supervision in 1907 to plans of architect Ismaila Traoré. This paper examines the critical role of colonialist geopolitics surrounding international expositions between the 1910s and 1930s as the catalyst for the emergence of the Great Mosque of Djenné as one of the great monuments of African architecture. Much of the rationale behind French colonialism rested on both the mission civisilatrice and their interest in documenting and preserving indigenous architecture, a fascination largely derived from French architects’ training at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

The French pointed to their rebuilding of Djenné’s Great Mosque, based on its medieval ancestor, as tangible proof of the beneficence of their imperial project, one of the few examples in West Africa. As such, the Great Mosque became the paradigm used for all French West African pavilions at subsequent international fairs. Although observers insisted upon French architects’ mastery of native forms, as this paper argues, the pavilions’ awkward blurring of “African” and “Western” identities speaks more clearly to the objectionable nature of colonial appropriations of local cultures. As a result, the pavilions’ presence at these exhibitions, along with the exhibits inside them, forecast the dismantling of colonial empires into independent nations.