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Our Architectural Tree
One hand holds the north and the south, the east and the west, and the centre, on which they all rely. From seashores, where the waves sing and carry cotton and salt, to the hinterlands of the west, where memories are guarded by the sand and water is scarce. To the north marked by its civilizations and the south, engulfed by two rivers and then there is the centre… where dialects blend and stories are told like flowing streams.
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When limbs of clay, stone, and wind intertwine to tell a single story… our story.
Introduction
“We crave a temporary death
We crave it, and it craves us
We wrap ourselves in distant cities and seas
To give meaning to the sudden hope
And return to our reflection in mirrors”
Look at your hand, don’t just glance… study it in detail. Five fingers, none identical yet living side by side without conflict. You might think they are the same, but they differ in length and dexterity, in texture and function, even the lines carved out on each finger’s surface are different. And when you wonder why a finger on its own seems so weak, you begin to understand that any meaningful action cannot be achieved unless all fingers work together.
This is Sudan… if you really want to know it.
One hand holds the north and the south, the east and the west, and the centre, on which they all rely. From seashores, where the waves sing and carry cotton and salt, to the hinterlands of the west, where memories are guarded by the sand and water is scarce. To the north marked by its civilizations and the south, engulfed by two rivers and then there is the centre… where dialects blend and stories are told like flowing streams.
But a nation’s hand may become numb just like any other hand which has been wounded. Fingers lose sense of each other… the little finger moves outwards… the thumb tires… and life shrinks into a palm that once pulsed with energy. Different characteristics that were meant to bring harmony, bleed away and the picture shatters.
Still, hope remains that feeling will once again return to the wounded hand.
That people may find in their cities something resembling their own features… that their grandmothers’ stories will be felt in the decor, and in the design of an open square, the warmth of gatherings. That they may trace their first steps in clay, and listen to the echo of the call to prayer as it once was; from the heart, not just as a matter of habit. Only sincere cities, those built like woven stories can restore to humans their hand.
The hand by which they define their homeland.
The Origin: The Architectural Family Tree
If you are puzzled by the difference between your fingers… remember that difference is never a coincidence.
Behind every variation, there is an origin, there is a story.
This hand which Sudan resembles is no ordinary hand… it has a lineage stretching way back in time, its roots sunk in the silt of history, its branches spread wide across geography as life itself spreads. Its trunk gave rise to civilizations… not just political systems or borders, but ways of thinking, styles of building, and the spirit of living.
The mother was Nubian with sharp features like engravings and stillness resembling the Nile when it rests between its banks. She mastered listening to stones and gave them meaning. She built domes, as if to protect time, and village dwellings concentrated in harmony between the shadows of mountains and the warmth of sunlight and clay.
The father was Arabian, descended from clouds. He was used to wandering, but when he settled, he settled for the language and architecture. He mastered arches, raised minarets like poems, and arranged alleys to the rhythm of the mihrab.
The deepest root belonged to the Kushite grandmother… majestic in her silence, the guardian of origins. Legends are attributed to her, as are the enduring structures. She knew organization and the choice of site, and taught time how to be straight in her temples and solemn in her kings. The temples of Jebel Barkal remain a testimony to precise planning and grand construction.
From this lineage, marked with civilizations, emerged five children… the children of Sudan.
The Children of the Tree: The Fruit
In the east, the water-child was born… with the sea reflected in his eyes and a voice of the wind that crosses the land.
There, white stone intertwines with blue, and houses rise near the shore as if to greet the sea each morning.
In Port Sudan for example, architecture is influenced by port designs using sea stones and lime. In Kassala, balconies are carved in wood and doors carry graceful arches, protected by the Taka Mountain and breathing the breeze of the River Gash.
In the west, the earthy child appeared… stubborn as rock, soft as ash.
There, the qutiyyah hut of straw grows as if naturally sprouting from the land… round, embracing the inside, shielding from the sun’s blaze.
In Nyala and Al-Fashir, courtyards are designed to allow ventilation as well as for community gatherings. Architecture respects both the harsh climate and the people, creating wide yards and spaces for privacy and togetherness. Homes grow out of the land, not imposed upon it.
In the north lives the wise child… who listened to his Kushite grandmother’s stories more than he spoke. He uses clay not as an inferior material, but as a treasure chest of warmth and colour. Nubian arches rise between walls, and homes are decorated in bright colours, each wall reflecting the mood of its residents.
In the villages of the Mahas and Danagla, Nubian houses stand with facades painted in white ash and symbolic motifs telling of beliefs, rivers and of forthcoming marriages.
And the south? There, the dreaming child was born… who knew no difference between house and tree.
Buildings rise on stilts, blend with rain, laugh with the river. Spaces are open, full of light, created not to confine but to sing.
Everyone is gathered in the centre.
The fifth child… imbibed by each of his siblings and their contradictions, then tried to make his own tune.
Sometimes he constructed tall buildings at other times he made narrow streets, integrating architectural languages in the way dialects mingle in markets.
A city searching for itself… rearranging the family album each time.
Yet despite all the differences, none of the children strayed from the origin.
Every city took its own form but shared the same architectural template… as a poem takes on the voice of its reciter.
Today’s Fruit… Yesterday’s Wars
When a tree blossoms, you don’t ask about the shape or taste of its fruit… it is enough that it ripened under the same shade and drew life from the same roots.
This is how Sudan’s cities appear today: fruit of one tree, yet different in flavour, texture and colour, each saying: I am from there… but I am something new.
The windows of houses may differ, their colours may vary in shade, one may design a courtyard for singing, another for silence, a third for hospitality. Yet everyone lives under the vast shade of that tree that embraced diversity and cherished it, just as a mother does not favour one child over another but is happy with every difference considering it a blessing.
But what does this tree look like after the war?
Storms never pass without breaking something.
The architecture that was once the vessel of warm life has collapsed in Khartoum, Wad Madani and Zalingei. Whole neighbourhoods turned to ruins, historic buildings emptied of meaning when their people left. Displacement, though seemingly a temporary solution, brought with it an architecture that is alien to these new places. Homes once built to embrace climate and tradition are now replaced by tents or cement blocks that neither heed the environment nor tell the story.
The architectural family tree still beats… but its branches are weary.
Who will restore it? Who will listen to the call of stones? Who will open up the memory for architecture to return?
Conclusion
The geography of Sudan, stretching across plains and slopes, from the Red Sea mountains of the east to the golden sand dunes of the west and from the fertile savannas of the south to the northern plateaus, has given every region its own architectural tale.
Clay in the north differs from that in Darfur, stone from the Red Sea is unlike sandstone in the centre, and winds in Kordofan carve out homes as they carve sand.
Maps that once separated distances now attempt to draw paths of connection… extending bridges from root to root, from branch to branch, in cities learning to speak each other’s language and rediscovering their siblings after a lengthy absence. Perhaps the time has come for us to go back as returning children not to look for the abnormalities of these cities, but to rediscover what we have in common.
To hear a father’s voice in a carved doorway… a mother’s whisper in a clay dome… or a grandmother’s call in an old street.
In every city we step into, someone came before us, built before us, loved before us, and left traces for us to follow.
The architectural family tree still beats.
And its fruit… though they may differ in scent and taste… remain sweet.
For they sprouted from a single story: Sudan.
This article is part of a series of ideas and research initiatives part of the project “Architectural Tour” which aims to discuss everything related to architecture and development in Sudan.
Cover picture: Kassala peace garden, taken by Michael Mallinson
References:
1. Suad Abdelwahab Abdelrabah: Architectural Characteristics of Nubian Housing in Northern Sudan: A Case Study of the Sakot Region
2. General Authority of Antiquities and Museums: Jebel Barkal and the Sites of the Kushite Civilization
3. Dr. Fatima Babiker Mahmoud: Housing Issues
4. Reports of UNHCR on displacement and its impact on urbanism
5. Interviews and field testimonies from the؛Architectural tour archive
When limbs of clay, stone, and wind intertwine to tell a single story… our story.
Introduction
“We crave a temporary death
We crave it, and it craves us
We wrap ourselves in distant cities and seas
To give meaning to the sudden hope
And return to our reflection in mirrors”
Look at your hand, don’t just glance… study it in detail. Five fingers, none identical yet living side by side without conflict. You might think they are the same, but they differ in length and dexterity, in texture and function, even the lines carved out on each finger’s surface are different. And when you wonder why a finger on its own seems so weak, you begin to understand that any meaningful action cannot be achieved unless all fingers work together.
This is Sudan… if you really want to know it.
One hand holds the north and the south, the east and the west, and the centre, on which they all rely. From seashores, where the waves sing and carry cotton and salt, to the hinterlands of the west, where memories are guarded by the sand and water is scarce. To the north marked by its civilizations and the south, engulfed by two rivers and then there is the centre… where dialects blend and stories are told like flowing streams.
But a nation’s hand may become numb just like any other hand which has been wounded. Fingers lose sense of each other… the little finger moves outwards… the thumb tires… and life shrinks into a palm that once pulsed with energy. Different characteristics that were meant to bring harmony, bleed away and the picture shatters.
Still, hope remains that feeling will once again return to the wounded hand.
That people may find in their cities something resembling their own features… that their grandmothers’ stories will be felt in the decor, and in the design of an open square, the warmth of gatherings. That they may trace their first steps in clay, and listen to the echo of the call to prayer as it once was; from the heart, not just as a matter of habit. Only sincere cities, those built like woven stories can restore to humans their hand.
The hand by which they define their homeland.
The Origin: The Architectural Family Tree
If you are puzzled by the difference between your fingers… remember that difference is never a coincidence.
Behind every variation, there is an origin, there is a story.
This hand which Sudan resembles is no ordinary hand… it has a lineage stretching way back in time, its roots sunk in the silt of history, its branches spread wide across geography as life itself spreads. Its trunk gave rise to civilizations… not just political systems or borders, but ways of thinking, styles of building, and the spirit of living.
The mother was Nubian with sharp features like engravings and stillness resembling the Nile when it rests between its banks. She mastered listening to stones and gave them meaning. She built domes, as if to protect time, and village dwellings concentrated in harmony between the shadows of mountains and the warmth of sunlight and clay.
The father was Arabian, descended from clouds. He was used to wandering, but when he settled, he settled for the language and architecture. He mastered arches, raised minarets like poems, and arranged alleys to the rhythm of the mihrab.
The deepest root belonged to the Kushite grandmother… majestic in her silence, the guardian of origins. Legends are attributed to her, as are the enduring structures. She knew organization and the choice of site, and taught time how to be straight in her temples and solemn in her kings. The temples of Jebel Barkal remain a testimony to precise planning and grand construction.
From this lineage, marked with civilizations, emerged five children… the children of Sudan.
The Children of the Tree: The Fruit
In the east, the water-child was born… with the sea reflected in his eyes and a voice of the wind that crosses the land.
There, white stone intertwines with blue, and houses rise near the shore as if to greet the sea each morning.
In Port Sudan for example, architecture is influenced by port designs using sea stones and lime. In Kassala, balconies are carved in wood and doors carry graceful arches, protected by the Taka Mountain and breathing the breeze of the River Gash.
In the west, the earthy child appeared… stubborn as rock, soft as ash.
There, the qutiyyah hut of straw grows as if naturally sprouting from the land… round, embracing the inside, shielding from the sun’s blaze.
In Nyala and Al-Fashir, courtyards are designed to allow ventilation as well as for community gatherings. Architecture respects both the harsh climate and the people, creating wide yards and spaces for privacy and togetherness. Homes grow out of the land, not imposed upon it.
In the north lives the wise child… who listened to his Kushite grandmother’s stories more than he spoke. He uses clay not as an inferior material, but as a treasure chest of warmth and colour. Nubian arches rise between walls, and homes are decorated in bright colours, each wall reflecting the mood of its residents.
In the villages of the Mahas and Danagla, Nubian houses stand with facades painted in white ash and symbolic motifs telling of beliefs, rivers and of forthcoming marriages.
And the south? There, the dreaming child was born… who knew no difference between house and tree.
Buildings rise on stilts, blend with rain, laugh with the river. Spaces are open, full of light, created not to confine but to sing.
Everyone is gathered in the centre.
The fifth child… imbibed by each of his siblings and their contradictions, then tried to make his own tune.
Sometimes he constructed tall buildings at other times he made narrow streets, integrating architectural languages in the way dialects mingle in markets.
A city searching for itself… rearranging the family album each time.
Yet despite all the differences, none of the children strayed from the origin.
Every city took its own form but shared the same architectural template… as a poem takes on the voice of its reciter.
Today’s Fruit… Yesterday’s Wars
When a tree blossoms, you don’t ask about the shape or taste of its fruit… it is enough that it ripened under the same shade and drew life from the same roots.
This is how Sudan’s cities appear today: fruit of one tree, yet different in flavour, texture and colour, each saying: I am from there… but I am something new.
The windows of houses may differ, their colours may vary in shade, one may design a courtyard for singing, another for silence, a third for hospitality. Yet everyone lives under the vast shade of that tree that embraced diversity and cherished it, just as a mother does not favour one child over another but is happy with every difference considering it a blessing.
But what does this tree look like after the war?
Storms never pass without breaking something.
The architecture that was once the vessel of warm life has collapsed in Khartoum, Wad Madani and Zalingei. Whole neighbourhoods turned to ruins, historic buildings emptied of meaning when their people left. Displacement, though seemingly a temporary solution, brought with it an architecture that is alien to these new places. Homes once built to embrace climate and tradition are now replaced by tents or cement blocks that neither heed the environment nor tell the story.
The architectural family tree still beats… but its branches are weary.
Who will restore it? Who will listen to the call of stones? Who will open up the memory for architecture to return?
Conclusion
The geography of Sudan, stretching across plains and slopes, from the Red Sea mountains of the east to the golden sand dunes of the west and from the fertile savannas of the south to the northern plateaus, has given every region its own architectural tale.
Clay in the north differs from that in Darfur, stone from the Red Sea is unlike sandstone in the centre, and winds in Kordofan carve out homes as they carve sand.
Maps that once separated distances now attempt to draw paths of connection… extending bridges from root to root, from branch to branch, in cities learning to speak each other’s language and rediscovering their siblings after a lengthy absence. Perhaps the time has come for us to go back as returning children not to look for the abnormalities of these cities, but to rediscover what we have in common.
To hear a father’s voice in a carved doorway… a mother’s whisper in a clay dome… or a grandmother’s call in an old street.
In every city we step into, someone came before us, built before us, loved before us, and left traces for us to follow.
The architectural family tree still beats.
And its fruit… though they may differ in scent and taste… remain sweet.
For they sprouted from a single story: Sudan.
This article is part of a series of ideas and research initiatives part of the project “Architectural Tour” which aims to discuss everything related to architecture and development in Sudan.
Cover picture: Kassala peace garden, taken by Michael Mallinson
References:
1. Suad Abdelwahab Abdelrabah: Architectural Characteristics of Nubian Housing in Northern Sudan: A Case Study of the Sakot Region
2. General Authority of Antiquities and Museums: Jebel Barkal and the Sites of the Kushite Civilization
3. Dr. Fatima Babiker Mahmoud: Housing Issues
4. Reports of UNHCR on displacement and its impact on urbanism
5. Interviews and field testimonies from the؛Architectural tour archive
