The great mosque of Djenne

In 1906 the French colonial administration arranged for the present Great Mosque to be built on the site of an earlier mosque. Different views have been expressed as to what extent the design was influenced by the colonial administration. The journalist Félix Dubois revisited the town in 1910 and was horrified by what he considered to be a French design with three minarets resembling bell towers[56] while Jean-Louis Bourgeois has argued that the French had little influence except perhaps for the internal arches and that the design is "basically African"

Image dimensions: 3246 x 2163 pixels