Architecture 101: Introduction
With Haiti, rarely is anything ever simple
Klas la nan sesyon.
So of course Architecture is more than buildings. It is a reflection of how people live, gather, survive, and imagine the future. Because afterall, where you live will be built how you gather and use space.
In Haiti, architecture tells the story of climate, history, family structure, spirituality, migration, artistry, inequality, resistance, and community.
Like Haitian culture itself, Haitian architecture is layered. It reflects influences from the island’s Indigenous Taíno population, West and Central African building traditions carried through enslavement, French colonialism, and generations of Haitian adaptation and innovation after independence.
Over time, Haitian architecture has also been shaped by migration and global exchange. Many Haitian architects, engineers, and designers have studied abroad — particularly in France, the United States, Canada, and elsewhere in the Caribbean and Latin America — bringing back new techniques, materials, and architectural ideas that merge with local realities and aesthetics.
At the same time, modern construction in Haiti has increasingly been influenced by international development agencies, NGOs, foreign contractors, and donor-funded rebuilding projects, particularly after natural disasters such as the 2010 earthquake. These projects often introduce external building standards, materials, and design philosophies that may not always align with traditional Haitian ways of living, local climate adaptations, or communal spatial practices.
For better or worse, currently the modern architecture of Haiti, is just that a mosaic of all of these forces.
But we have many cultural legacies that reflect more of the originating force that built Haiti.
These are the lakou compounds, the brightly colored rural homes, the orante Gingerbread houses, the fortresses built after independence.
This series explores this.
From mountain lakou compounds to brightly painted rural homes, from the ornate Gingerbread houses of Port-au-Prince to the great revolutionary fortresses built after independence, Haitian architecture reflects centuries of adaptation and creativity.
Lekòl lage
To continue with this series click below…
View Architecture 102: The Lakou →
View Architecture 103: Traditional Building Systems →
View Architecture 104: Architecture and Identity →
View Architecture 105: Gingerbread Houses →