About Igbo Mbari House
An mbari house is an open-sided shelter of anthill clay raised for Ala, the earth goddess. Its pillars are washed with nzu chalk and banded freehand in ochre, camwood red and charcoal, and its life-sized mud figures — deities, ancestors, a District Officer, a motorcycle — stand frontal along the gallery.
This system takes that surface literally. Chalk over clay, bands that drift because a hand drew them, bays framed by two pillars and open through the middle, and a materiality that expects to weather rather than stay pristine.
- Origin
- Owerri and surrounding Igbo communities, south-eastern Nigeria
- Era
- pre-1900 into the twentieth century; documented in Herbert M. Cole's 1960s fieldwork
- Key figures
- Herbert M. Cole
- Movements
- Igbo mbari art · uli mural and body painting · West African earth architecture
Igbo Mbari House design spec
Colors
Typography
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