Welcome to Ouagadougou, the capital and largest city of Burkina Faso, home to more than 2 million people. Locals often shorten the name to Ouaga, and the people who live here are called ouagalais. This is the country's administrative, cultural and economic centre, where food processing and textiles are the main industries. The city has one of West Africa's largest markets, which burned down in 2003 and later reopened with better fire protection. A railway links Ouagadougou to Abidjan in the Ivory Coast. Let us explore its places of worship, its music and its art.
Ouagadougou Cathedral
Photo: kyselak · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsBefore you stands the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Ouagadougou. It was built in the 1930s, in the days of French West Africa, by the apostolic vicar Joanny Thévenoud of the White Fathers. After two years of construction, it was dedicated on 19 January 1936. Walk around behind the cathedral, near the car park, and you will find a quiet surprise: an altar to Mary, with a statue of the Virgin set in a carved stone arch.
Grand Mosque of Ouagadougou
Photo: Sputniktilt · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsHere is the Grand Mosque of Ouagadougou, one of the principal Islamic places of worship in the city. A mosque was first built on this site in 1952, after the city's Muslims sought land for a Friday mosque, with support from the Mossi traditional ruler, the Moro Naba. As the community grew, the building became too small. Between 1973 and 1979 it was rebuilt under the leadership of the businessman Oumarou Kanazoé, who, according to reports of the time, paid for the entire reconstruction himself. The new mosque was inaugurated in April 1979.
National Museum of Music
In the centre of the city, on Oubritenga Avenue, a two-storey building with dome-shaped roofs houses the National Museum of Music. Its architecture is in the Sudanese Sahelian style, and the building once belonged to an association for African architecture and urban planning. The first collection was gathered between 1998 and 1999 and has kept growing. Here you can see instruments of every family, from wind instruments and drums to rattles and strings. Each object is unique, and they range from 5 to 200 years old.
Symposium de sculpture sur granit de Laongo
Photo: Dvermeirre · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsAbout 35 kilometres from Ouagadougou lies Laongo, an open-air granite sculpture site. The symposium was founded in 1989 by the Burkinabe sculptor Siriky Ky. Its first edition opened that January with 18 sculptors from 13 countries. Invited artists carve their works right here, on the spot, from the site's own granite, and some combine the local stone with metal and other materials. Wander between the boulders and you see artworks emerging straight from the landscape.
La Maison du Peuple
Photo: Sputniktilt · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsThis is La Maison du Peuple, the House of the People, a theatre with 2,500 seats that opened in 1965. It is considered an important example of modernist architecture, and it has long hosted concerts and events. Its significance was recognised in an unusual way: in 2022 the World Monuments Fund named it among the most threatened buildings of the year.
Lomakuume
