Faced with rampant urbanization, what is happening to Dakar's last round "bubble houses"?

M arième Ndiaye emerges from her home in Dakar, an igloo-shaped building with a 1950s retrofuturistic aesthetic. She's always lived here, but her brothers want to raze it. In this central neighborhood of the Senegalese capital, the singularity of the building contrasts with the neighboring rectangular buildings under construction. "When I was little, we only had balloon houses" in this neighborhood, says M arième Ndiaye. "For me, it's sentimental."

Built in two days

In the 1950s, some 1,200 of these small dwellings emerged in several Dakar neighborhoods to counter a housing shortage after World War II and respond to a rapidly expanding population. They were built in 48 hours, by spraying a giant balloon with shotcrete, then deflating it. Very sturdy, but not always practical. Despite the presence of a vent on the roof to evacuate hot air, these houses can become stifling when exposed to the sun. On the other hand, the concrete protects them from humidity. With an average diameter of only six meters, a standard bubble house like Marième Ndiaye's includes a bedroom, a living room, and a bathroom, explains Dakar architect Carole Diop. Some, larger ones, have two or three bedrooms.

They were built in forty-eight hours, by spraying a giant balloon with shotcrete, then deflating it.

Conceived by an American architect, Wallace Neff, and then launched by the French colonial authorities, these constructions received a mixed reception: Senegalese families, traditionally large and multigenerational, quickly felt cramped there. On the other hand, the land on which they were erected quickly increased in value, arousing great covetousness.

No protection

Today, only about a hundred of them have survived, the rest having succumbed to Dakar's rampant urbanization. Without historical or architectural societies to preserve them, the small igloos have only their last inhabitants as protectors. Some have been modified, enlarged with extensions, to better meet the needs of households. "Unfortunately," notes Carole Diop, "many families who could afford it ended up demolishing their 'balloon' to make way for a building."

Marième Ndiaye's home, purchased by her father in the 1950s, is now part of a large family compound where she lives with half a dozen relatives spanning several generations. The bubble house sits in the middle of the complex's square courtyard, where other rooms have been arranged along the perimeter walls.

A ten-minute walk away, Sekouna Yansane recently built a large house next to the bubble house his father acquired. He attached the dome to the vast building, creating a room that protrudes from one side. Sekouna Yansane resists real estate developers, convinced of the heritage value of these residences.

"I find it very unusual, I love it," exclaims the 65-year-old artist, "it reminds me of the yurts I saw in Mongolia." His immediate neighbors, on the other hand, have razed everything, he laments.

“At the rate at which the city is becoming denser, I think that unfortunately in a hundred years, there will be no more balloons.”

Wallace Neff is best known for his Spanish Colonial-style mansions and the villas he designed for Hollywood stars like Judy Garland and Groucho Marx. However, he considered the bubble house to be his greatest contribution to architecture.