Abstract:
Traditional buildings across Nigeria’s geographical zones are known to have
demonstrated a thorough response to the climate, local technology and socio-economic milieu
in which they evolved. The origin of these different traditional building body associates with
the natural materials availability to the local builders as well as religious belief, cultural and
taboos. The advent of colonialism in Nigeria changed the traditional life and culture of
Nigerian which creates a weak connection between traditional architecture and contemporary
architecture in Nigeria. Most recent buildings designs across Hausa regions in Nigeria have
been built with imported materials and the construction techniques tailored to satisfy the
modernity self-ego and aspirations. Thus, traditional architecture ought not to be abandoned
and forgotten, hence; experts’ awareness should be tailored to the understanding of its original
essence. This paper through intensive literature review of documents, journals, books,
periodical, seminar papers amongst others critically explore the key importance relating to the
development of Hausa traditional architecture. In addition, paper identifies the “determinant”
and “moderating” factors as main issues that contributed to the development of Hausa
traditional architecture, in cognizance of local materials, method of construction, methods layout, social, cultural factors, and environmental factors amongst others. The enumerated
factors dominate the colonial periods and the subsequent traditional forms development. Thus,
the paper concludes that despite the impact of modernization in terms of styles, materials, and
method of construction in recent times, the professionals, designers and the researchers should
be cognizance of the social- cultural and religious beliefs of clients/users. It is recommended
that, for functional architectural forms, efforts should be geared towards harmonizing the
traditional and modern contemporary designs concepts.
KEYWORDS: Hausa, Traditional Architecture, Determinant Factors, Moderating Factors,
