A Semiotic Perspective of the House Concept in Yoruba Architecture

Abstract

Housing is a necessity of life that cuts across all peoples in all places worldwide. Ensuring good living and solving homelessness are fundamental issues in the United Nations charter and a sustainable developmental goal (SDG). Houses communicate the culture of the builder-occupants as a non-verbal language. However, the meaning of house concepts and their importance in Yoruba architecture is unclear and well known in contemporary architecture. Despite not being iconic and monumental, their built-forms have symbolic functional, morphological, and sustainable qualities. This paper investigated the importance of the house to Yoruba culture by identifying the critical usable space across the house plans and their symbolic importance for adoption in contemporary architecture. This study was carried out using the archaeological method to x-ray the building plans, while a Semiotic approach was adopted to interpret sign systems’ science, often in cultural contexts. A qualitative research design was conducted using observation, interview, and focus group discussions across southwest Nigeria’s study area. With the peoples’ Mutual Contextual Beliefs (MCBs) cognisance, the study showed that words are there for only what exists. For interpretations, the study of Yoruba building terms showed the house; culturally more than mere shelter as in the English term ‘… a roof over my head’. The Yoruba word for the home; ile showed the house to be multi-dimensionally important, that phenomenon like; family (idile), heaven (ajule-orun) and the earth (ile-aye) all derived from it, to be seen as its bigger cosmological modules. Eight discovered housing typologies, with commonalities of basic rectangular shape, courtyards, large family lobby in-between rooms and family lobby (oruwa) are highlighted. In conclusion, the southwest Nigeria Yoruba-speaking people’s housing concept and practice are richer than the eye meets.