Agadez: Rehabilitation of the Old City, the Pearl of Niger

Niger

Agadez: Rehabilitation of the Old City, the Pearl of Niger

Operators: Imane Atarikh in cooperation with the Planning Committee of the Old City of Agadez and Iconem

The Old City of Agadez, built along caravan roads before the 15th century, preserves a rich tradition of local architectural styles. The city’s Great Mosque boasts a minaret that is one of the tallest mud-brick structures in the world, and the mud houses surrounding it are decorated with unique and intricate shapes and patterns. The combined effects of civil unrest, which resulted in bombings in 2013, and climate change, which is causing flash floods, have put this exceptional architecture at great risk.

An emergency project, conducted in 2020 by the NGO Imane Atarikh, in cooperation with the Management Committee of the Old City of Agadez, documented and restored the Great Mosque and four houses surrounding it and provided training to 30 youth so that the community can maintain these buildings in the future.

With this first step completed, ALIPH is now funding a second phase to rehabilitate the old city using Iconem’s high-resolution 3D scans of the site, architectural analysis, and by restoring the Great Mosque complex and 15 other houses. Traditional architectural techniques and oral histories of the old city are being recorded and a traveling exhibition of the project results is being organized.