Two children, a little girl and her kid brother, sitting on a carved wooden bench in an Edo courtyard, Benin City, mid 1930s. 2nd Image: The Iyasere of Benin, Iyase Okhoro-Otun.

Photographer: Duckworth, E. H., a colonial era photographer for the colonial rule.

Courtyard likely of Iyasere Okhoro-Otun

In background, the Edo architecture of horizontal wall fluting.

An important part of the structure of a building, the horizontal fluting is anchored by supporting vertical wood beams forming the frame of each building. These striations are as well architectural aesthetic specific to Edo. It is not clear how often in the year, given the yearly rains, these walls were repaired. Much knowledge has been lost, especially as local materials have been abandoned for the more durable cement. What is clear is that in the decades that followed the invasion of 1897 and the subsequent propaganda and discrimination Benin suffered at the hands of the colonial rule and its newly forming 'state', a kind of decrepitude fell upon the upkeep of buildings. This must have been very difficult in the psyche of a people that once prided themselves on wide, cleanly swept streets and upright angular, fluted walls.

There was a revival or renewed attention to buildings in the 1960s-70s that strived through the mid 80s, including the development of the administrative city centre, given its university and teaching hospital, as a place for the budding Nigerian Scholar.

PS: notice the material of the Iyase's robes, which is the 'Benin Cloth' or 'Ukpon' in an earlier feature on this blog. See also DIGITALBENIN page.

Interesting too the carved backless chair in domestic, everyday use. This chair/stool, which is similar to the the one currently at the British Museum from the 1897 stolen artefacts, would have been a staple across Benin City, as both fit for daily use and as decorative emblem, even as the ancient Igbesanmwan wood guild made versions especially for the king across millennia.