The Machine for Living in 18th-Century West Africa

Author(s): George Kubler

Source: The Journal of the American Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Apr.,
1944), pp. 30-33
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural
Historians
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/901188
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THE MACHINEFOR LIVING IN

18th-CENTURY WEST AFRICA

by George Kubler
provisional
Prefabrication,
housing, the Dymaxion house, and air
are terms peculiar to the technological
culture of the seoconditioning
the
interest
therefore
ond quarter of the twentieth
will
It
century.
readers of the Journal to examine an eighteenth-century
prefiguration
or mechanized housing of today.
The accompanying reof the "rational,"
by
1, 2) are drawn from the "Essay on Colonization,"
productions
(figs.
Carl Bernhard Wadstr~m, published at London in 1794-1795 (1).
"A tree of proper size
The tree house .s described as follows,
be so topped and cut as to form a central spindle,
and form.,.should
above each
perpendicularly
leaving at least two supporting shoulders,
to suit
round
be
moved
when
so
that
house
otherg
the
necessary,
may,
edifice
the
In
the aspect of the different
seasons..."(2).
principle
conforms exactly to the device proposed by Buckninster Fuller as the
to the latter were the central mast and the
Essential
Dymaxion house.
the
rotation of
Dyliving space about the mast; all else in Fuller's
was
air-conditioning,
maxion design
already abundantly familiar--the
etc. (3).
the sewage and 'garbage disposal,
etc.,
the illumination,
of a continual circulation
The house "adapted for the transfusion
as a precursor of cerinterest
far greater
of air" (fig. 2) possesses
The house on
of
tain elements
housing technology.
twentieth-century
the living
for elevating
evokes Le Corbusier's predilection
stilts
Wadstrom explains that the design of his
space above ground level.
"elevated house" was the invention of Mr. Andrew Johansen, a Swede,
who had patterned it, with respect to the elevation,
upon existing
Negro housing on the West Coast of Africa (4).
lWadstrom, however,
He explains
added to Johansents design a system of air-conditioning.
"To Mr. Johnasen's Invention I have added an apparatus
it as follows,
used in Germany for bloving their fur-which I have seen frequently
But where that adwhere they have water-falls.
naces, in Situations
for cooling a House
of
water
sufficient
is
a
quantity
wanting,
vantage
-which the water
a
Is
Cistern
be
a
from
raised by
pump. i.
may easily
falls through the pipe k. full of holes, by which the Air enters & is
forced downwards by the violent descent of the water, into the close
(1)
(2)
(3

(4

particularlyapCarl Bernhard Wadstrm, AL Essay on Colonization,

..*in
parts, London, Darplied to the western coast of jA
twv-o
ton & Harvey, 1794-1795, Plate I.
pp. 49-50
Wadstr6m, op. cit.,
FORTUNE,EJIf-iYo-*T.E,
July, 1932, pp. 64-65

Wadstrmn,.2c, cit.

Professor of the History of Art, Yale UniverDr. Kubler is Assistant

is
well
He
sity.
imown for his studies in the art, archi- a
He is just omupleting
and city planning of Latin America..
tecture,
Follow.
a
as
Guggenheim
year's appointment

page 30

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barrel 1.
The water dashing on the basons m. is broken into
froth & falls into the lower part of the barrel n. whence it runs off by
the hole o....
The Air, being disengaged frcm the broken Water, & confined on all sides,
is driven into the pipe p. by which MPr. Johansen's
pipe q. under the earth, is furnished with a constant stream of Air,
which ascending through his pipe r. spreads itself
in his air reservoirs s. & continues its ascent through his side pipes t.
The cool &
purified Air thus delivered by these pipes, being specifically
heavier
than the Air in the Room, descends towards the floor,
& takes place of
the rarified
Air which constantly
ascends till it escape by the opening
u."
To Johansen, then, may be assigned the design of the elevated
house with double floor, walls, and roof for the circulation
of air.
Johansen also imagined that a draft might be created by the installation of the fire at d. Wadstr&a added the forced draft,
based upon a
workable if inefficient
device which was widely used in the forges of
eighteenth-century
Europe. It is figured in Diderot's Encyclop4die,
where it is designated
as the "trompes du Dauphine," or irompes dFoix" (fig.3)
(5) It should be emphasized that Wadstrm's application
of forced draft to a hollow-shelled
house constitutes
a veritable
airas opposed to a simple air-cooling
conditioning
unit.
installation,
Wadstrim's device achieves the washing, cooling, dehumidifying and cirof the modern air-conditioning
The instalculating functions
system.
lation is inefficient,
but its principles
are sound. All it lacks is
adequate air-pressure,
a system of filters,
and insulated ducts to be
the analogue of the modern oimmercial unit (6).
Although Wadstron's and Johnasen's designs were contrived for the
in generalized
environments, their
tropical
comfort of white settlers
invention is closely
associated
with the foundation of the Sierra Leone
The formation of this colony is of great interColony in West Africa.
est, for many Americans, including John Jay, Samuel Hopkins, and Dr.
William Thornton,were implicated
in its gestation.
Before discussing
these relationships,
however, one should indicate that prefabricated
but realized,
in connection with the
housing was not only projected,
founding of Freetown in the Sierra Leone Colony.
According to the documents presented by Wadstrin, the Sierra Leone Company, incorporated
in 1790, arranged to have houses framed in
England and sent to Africa (7).
the ship York put
In 1792, in effect,
in at Freetovn with the frames of buildings
intended for the Nova ScoVarious troubles attended the unloading; finally
tian settlers.
a church,
a warehouse, a range of shops, two hospitals,
several dwellings,
and four
canvas houses (also described as "patent houses" of oilcloth,
made in
were erected.
Knightsbridge)
Th~e cost in London amounted to E 8430; at
Freetown,
b 3300 were expended upon finishing
the construction.
Wadstrbm
notes that the original
Goverror's
house at Freetown was similar
to the

F -Dictionnaire

des sciences.

les arts liheraux,et

(6)

Troisibme
Section.
Riesbeck,

de planches,

sur les

sciences,

livraison.
Seconde
Paris, 1765,
Forges ou art du for.
Planche III.
Trcmpes du Dauphin.
E.W., Air Conditioning,
Fundamental Principles..,,Chicago

Goodheart-Willoox,

(7)

Reoueil

eT-s arts mechaniquep, avec leur explication,

39

e d.,

Wadstrom, op.cit.,
of Granvilli 'frp
2 vols

-11,

See also Prince Hoare, Memoirs

pp.31, 42, 266.
1828 (2nd edT~Esq., London, Henry
39.
Colburn,

pp-30,
page 31

It is not clear
Johansen-Wadstr&n house already described (fig. 2).
whether the air-coaditioning
vas realized;
Wadstrom probably means that
the Governor's house was raised upon brick arcades and surrounded by
cost of the prefabrication.
Of sone interest
is the excessive
porches.
For an outlay of nearly b 12,000, amounting to 5% of the total capital
a few simple
of the Company (1 230,000, raised in ! 50 subscriptions),
the setof
them
survives
were
achieved
(8).
Nothing
today:
buildings
in
sacked
burned
the
French
1794
was
and
(9).
by
tlement
It is not surprising to find that such radical departures in
idealism.
housing technique accomapanied a social program of striking
The Sierra Leone Company incorporated nothing less than the project of
emancipating all the Negro slaves of America, and of extending the beneIt was
to the Negro peoples of Africa.
fits of an advanced civilization
with
the
the
in
destruction
of
slave-trade
to be the great opening wedge
The leaders of the Abolitionist
movaeent in England, America,
Africa.
and the
and France were deeply involved in the Sierra Leone project,
outcome.
Republic of Liberia is its latter-day
a grandson of the Archbishop of York
Granville Sharp (1735-1813),
under Queen Anne, was its moving spirit
by the
(10).
Deeply distressed
to
had
Granville
the
in
of
free
arranged
London,
Negroes
Sharp
misery
ship 400 of them to lands set aside for their use in Sierra Leone in
The
1787.
were involved.
From the very beginning,
Igaerican interests
the
British
on
who
had
in
American
were
slaves
fought
question
Negroes
Disbanded by Cormnallis in 1781,
side in the n.orican Revolution.
large n1nbers had congregated in Nova Scotia, Boston, New York, and
In HNevport and Boston, Dr. William Thornton, the
(11).
Philadelphia
not only organized? the Negroes for their
of
ardent advocate
liberty,
to
but
expressed the desire to accompany them to Sierra
voyage
Africa,
SamuLeone, and drew up a plan for the new African comnonwealth (12).
divine of New Haven and Rhode Island, likewyise
el Hopkins, the
eminent He had earlier published an anti-slavery
pwmphlot
agitated the project.
in conjunction with Ezra Stiles
(13).
of
the publicist
Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville (1754-1793),
consulted in London with Granville Sharp in 1787the French Revolution,
(8)
(9)
(10)

(11)
(12)

(13)

in History and Tradition,

London,
F.W. Butt-Thompson, Sierra Leone
Witherby, 1926, pp. 2, 8~.
of the n
Africans
nn tho
Thomas Winterbottoma, An account
vive 1,273.
Hoare, nei-,hM]emborhood of Sierra Leone, London, 1803, 2 vols.,
Appendix,pp.xxxviii-xVlizl
,London,
1828,II,
ha~r
so,- -[av-lle
Granville Sharo and the freedom of slaves in
E.C.P. Lascelles,
"SOee
1928.
Granville Sharp, A short sketch of te~poEngland, London,
Sierra Leothe
for
intended settlement...near
ralr eroulationd...
ne, London, H. Baldwin, 1783 T3rd ed.).
p. 91
Butt-Thompson, op.cit.,
ProceedGaillard Hunt, "Williami Thornton and Negro colonization",
April 1920, Ne--,-eies.,
ings of the kAmerican Antiquarian Society,
also Hoare, Memoirs of Granville Sharp,
vol. ,0,
pp. 44-47,
Se
94.
London, 1828, II, 86,
See the letter from Hopkins to Sharp, vwritten at Newport, R.I.,
Also Ezra
January 15, 1789, in Hoare, Mi2emxoirs,1828, II, p.125.
Stiles and Samuel Hopkins, Letter to the Public, Newport, 1776.

page 32

1788(14)1 during his journay in the United States, he conferred with the
American representatives of the movement and met Dr. William Thornton
(15). The latter would seem to occupy a fairly central position in the
undertaking; a fresh examination cf the unpublished Thornton papers may
reveal his architectural participation,
especially as regards the technique of prefabrication (16).
It remains in this brief note to clarify the relationship of WadOf Johansen, nothing is known, alstr"n to the Sierra Leone project.
though it is not unlikely that he was connected with a coastal settlement to the north of Sierra Leone, rather than in the colony itself.
Carl Bernhard Wadstramwas born in Stookholm in 1746. Trained as an engineer and mineralogist, he served his King in hydraulic and mining enterprises, between 1767 and 1769. In 1787, a reading of Swedenborg
fired him with the desire to discover the New Jerusalem mystically situated by Swedenborg in Central Afrida. Wadstr8m set out for Africa with
royal permission, accompanied by the naturalists Sparrmann (1747-1820)
and Arrhenius. Returning via England in 1788, his teohnical knowledge
of West African conditions was heavily drawn upon by the English backers of the Sierra Leone Company. Wadstromwas summonedto appear before the Privy Council, and in 1789 he was sent upon a secret mission
by the English, p resumably to prepare the way for the Company's venture.
In 1795, Wadstr was in Paris, where he addressed the Corps Legislatif
upon the subject of the Sierra Leone Company,and in 1798 he was designated as "Citoyen Wastrcam." At that time, Napoleon desired to obtain
the "Essay on Colonization;" Wadstr&Cpresented him with his own copy,
and it presumably accompanied Napoleoa to Egypt. Wadstr&ddied in Paris
in 1799 (17).
(14)

Cl. Perroud, J.P. Brissot, correspondance et papiers, Paris, 1912,

'
d'6tablir
p. x1v. See also Brissot,
iscours sur la ?rbest
Paris une soci6te pour oonocurir, ave ce1Ies dArAirique et de
Lo0rtres,

(15)

(16)
(17)

iabolti

on de la traite&de

s1"e lavage

des Tagres,

nouv. ed,. Paris, 1788.

Allen C. Clark, "Dr. and Mrs. William Thornton," Records of the
Columbia Historical Society, XVIII (1915),
t,
1791 (3 Vols), II,
No~uveauvoyage dans le Es ts-Unis...Paris,
144-2087;9
JP3o lsII
pp. 68---o
See the bibliogtaphical
note by Fiske Kimball, Dictionary of American Biography, New York, Soribner, 1943, vol.xi~1,p.---0.7
verselle,
Paris, 1827, vole 50, s.v. Wadstrmn(ar)Tograpiinee Jacob). Annual Register, 1799, London, 1813, notice
signed
tcie
by Helen Maria Williammws,
2-j.
ppo.

page 33