“We shouldn’t share what we just discovered here,” we said to each other today at the summit of the “Tanana ny Andriana,” as the villagers of the trano bongo in the valley call it. This majestic site, crescent-shaped and visible from miles away without truly being seen, is awe-inspiring as we gaze at the banks of the Ikopa River as well as the other royal massifs of Vonizongo. “But if we don’t talk about it, no one will come to preserve the place.” Already, some farmers have taken it upon themselves to break the enormous Vatolampy here and there to make gravel. In doubt, I won’t mention in this post where we spent our second journey discovering the strongholds of times gone by. But you can easily find the site by scrolling through my profile.
Once again, I am transported by the wonderful memories of this discovery—a series of arrangements, buildings, and kianja that have been inherited from a rich past dating back to the era of the proto-Malagasy. These necropolises, witnesses to the Sakalava and Merina occupations, rest atop sometimes inaccessible massifs. This time, our efforts were rewarded with the discovery of several well-arranged spaces for habitation, reachable only after navigating an impressive defensive maze of hadivory, galleries, gates, and manda.Yet, to fully comprehend what might have transpired on these sites, I still need to delve into a thorough and rigorous reading of Father Callet’s “Tantara ny Andriana” and other related works such as Adrien Mille’s Contribution à l’étude des villages fortifiés de l’Imerina ancien. And even then, this knowledge will cover only a few centuries. Of course, Rafolo‘s extensive research corpus will shed light on the specific complexities of this region.
But why is it that we, as commoners—and especially as architects and planners—have so little to rely on when it comes to theories of space and form in our own cultural context? Why has no one from our profession taken the time and resources to investigate these extraordinary places, which date back to the very dawn of human occupation in Imerina? These were times when the Vazimba tribes gradually evolved into powerful kingdoms, only to be slowly and inevitably subdued by the Hova invaders—those from avy any andafidriaka. These colonizers then engaged in internecine wars for over three centuries, only to lose these mountains to their Sakalava cousins.All of this has not been studied through the lens of architecture or urbanism, and existing publications have not been updated for decades. Still, we must train ourselves and many others to follow our hearts, prioritize our culture, and decolonize the fields of architecture and built environments. Only by doing so can we truly understand how rich and layered our past is—and only then will we be able to build the future of our Malagasy cities.