Razing the Roof: Building Destruction and Recreation in Dahomey Political History
Suzanne Preston Blier

This paper will focus on the concept and practices of 'unbuilding' and 'renewal' in Dahomey architectural history. Here architecture practice historically has been as concerned with þnbuilding' the architectural landscape of previous cultures living in the area, banished kings within the lineage, or political opponents to the monarchy, as it has been with the creation of new architectural forms. The co-joined processes of tearing down/building up have important aesthetic, social, economic and political dimensions. My paper will examine the ways that these two closely integrated architectural 'drives' have played out in the dynastic history of Dahomey. The threat (and reality) of annihilation, by way of architectural destruction, was one of the chief by-products of war. It was also a vital political tool which was used to keep local populations in check. Colonial and post colonial architectural projects have been implicated in this larger process as well. While the central focus of my analysis will be on 18th and 19th century architecture practice, I will also examine how UNESCO's project in Abomey to preserve the historic palaces became implicated in the tearing-down of the very structures they had been responsible for preserving.

Suzanne Preston Blier
History of Art and Architecture and Afro-American Studies, Harvard University

Professor Blier has been active in bringing African art into the mainstream of art historical study and has also curated a number of exhibitions on African art. She has done extensive research in the West African countries of Benin and Togo. She is the recipient of numerous scholarly awards, including those from the John S. Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, the Fulbright-Hays Award, the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, and the Seaver Institute. Professor Blier is the Editor-in-Chief of an electronic media project at Harvard called Baobab: Visual Sources in African Visual Culture, which is an interactive database of images on African art and material culture.

In addition to numerous articles, her books include African Royal Art: The Majesty of Form (Calmann King, Jan. 1998), African Vodun: Art, Psychology, and Power (University of Chicago Press, 1995), which received the Charles Rufus Morey Award for distinguished book in art history written in 1996, and The Anatomy of Architecture: Ontology and Metaphor in Batammaliba Architectural Expression (Cambridge University Press, 1987; University of Chicago Press, 1995), which was awarded the Arnold Rubin Outstanding Publication Award in African Art scholarship. Professor Blier holds a Ph.D. in art history and archaeology from Columbia University, where she was also a professor, and a B.A. from the University of Vermont. She has also held teaching positions at Northwestern University and Vassar College.