Winfried Bullinger

The Musgum structures were photographed in 2026 in Cameroon’s Far North Region and in Chad near the Logone River. The structures are uninhabited. The Musgum abandoned their famous mud-brick architecture as a living building tradition at the end of the 20th century. There are no longer any inhabited traditional Musgum settlements. I was unable to locate any Musgum settlements or ruins depicted in 20th-century photographs. The mud-brick houses shown here were built decades ago by Musgum people who still possessed the knowledge to construct them. The aim was to protect this famous architectural form from disappearing. The Musgum structures feature a complex ventilation and interconnecting system between the domed buildings. The structures on the outside of the mud-brick buildings serve as climbing aids and are not merely decorative. Preserving the mud-brick architecture is a labour-intensive task.