French West Africa - Expo Paris 1937
A striking building with a 30-metre high dome was the authentic reproduction of the famous mosque of Djingaréber in Timbuktu.
The interior was the museum of handicrafts, where particularly valuable old collections were exhibited together with the most characteristic works of modern master craftsmen.
On your right, this upstairs and terrace complex was the Rue de Djenné.
On the ground floor, the buildings were occupied by jewellers from Senegal, copper chisellers from Dahomey, woodcarvers and loincloth makers from Sudan, Ivory Coast, Niger, and other black craftsmen, students of professional schools.
Facing the workshops, a thatched building reminded us of the palace of King Glé-Glé in Abomey. It housed an exhibition of tourism and hunting, featuring the works of painters and sculptors who had spent time in French West Africa.
The tents of nomadic, Moorish and Tuareg craftsmen from the Sahara and Mauritania were set up next to the exhibition. Finally, on the opposite side of the Rue de Djenné, there was a lake village of the lower Dahomey with its stilt houses, fishermen and pirogues.
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