A 2023 visit to the King's Palace Museum in Nyanza sparked an unexpected journey of discovery for Sankara Mutoni, a Belgium-based Rwandan artist and architect.

Fascinated by the ingenuity of traditional Rwandan architecture, he set out to understand not just how ancient homes were built, but also the cultural beliefs, language and way of life that shaped them.

The experience eventually inspired Inzu, an illustrated book that explores the architectural heritage of Rwanda and the lessons it holds for contemporary building practices.

Mutoni recalls being particularly struck by the design of the reconstructed royal residence at the museum.

"I thought the place was so beautiful. It was built so that the house’s real size is not visible from the outside. It looks a bit small, but once you enter, it is huge,” he said.

But it was not just the architecture that captured his attention. During a guided tour conducted in Kinyarwanda, Mutoni encountered traditional terms whose meanings were unfamiliar to him.

"Some words I had never heard of, others I didn’t quite understand their true meanings,” he recalled.

Among them was igitabo, a word commonly understood today to mean "book” but which, he discovered, also refers to an element of a traditional house designed to prevent water from entering.

"I would listen to traditional music, from Masamba, for instance, and not understand what he meant. But I later learnt that I was not alone,” he said.

The discovery made him realise that understanding traditional Rwandan architecture required more than studying its physical structures. The language associated with those structures also offered insights into their purpose, construction and cultural significance.

Determined to learn more, Mutoni began researching the beliefs, customs and practices that influenced how Rwandans designed their homes.

"I decided to learn everything I didn't know about the house, ancient Rwandans’ beliefs, and the intrinsic value of cows. These three are the grounds for designing a home like that. We can see the house, but why was it built like that? This is what I wanted to know,” he explained.

The result was Inzu, which examines the relationship between traditional architecture, cultural beliefs and the environment, looking beyond the physical appearance of a house to explore the values and everyday practices that shaped its design.

Preserving the language of architecture

For Mutoni, documenting traditional architecture also means preserving the Kinyarwanda vocabulary associated with it.

"I wanted to highlight the everyday life of an ancient Rwandan beyond the house, and I wanted to preserve the exact vocabulary that they used for everyone to understand,” he said.

One example is inkingi y'imbabazi, or the "pillar of forgiveness”, which he said stood at the entrance to the royal palace.

According to Mutoni, a person sentenced to death by the king could obtain a pardon by reaching and touching the pillar, even if it meant overcoming those who tried to stop them.

For him, such accounts demonstrate how architectural features were closely connected to the customs, beliefs and social practices of the time.

He believes their significance can be lost when the original terminology is forgotten.

"I also wanted to showcase the richness of our language. I am not calling for us to be nostalgic, but to at least appreciate the intelligence and sophistication that constitute our language and how our ancestors saw things,” he said.

Mutoni argues that preserving these words is also a way of safeguarding the knowledge they carry. The names of building elements, for example, can reveal their functions and how people understood and organised the spaces they occupied.

He is particularly concerned that younger generations may encounter traditional objects in museums without fully understanding their names, uses or cultural significance.

He observed that many young museum visitors might recognise inkangara and agaseke, but struggle to identify other types of traditional woven baskets.

The same, he believes, applies to architecture, where distinctive terminology, building techniques and design patterns offer insights into Rwanda's history.

Through Inzu, Mutoni hopes to make this knowledge more accessible while encouraging readers to appreciate the sophistication of traditional Rwandan design.

What modern architecture can learn from the past

Beyond cultural preservation, Mutoni believes traditional architecture offers practical lessons for today's architects, particularly in sustainable construction.

He points to the resourcefulness of earlier generations, who built homes using locally available materials and developed techniques suited to their surroundings.

"It is interesting to understand how they dealt with heat and how they sourced every building material locally. We can learn from them on these points because these are major challenges in today’s building. They used timber, clay, cow dung, and other locally sourced materials. Knowing this would help us build sustainably,” he said.

In Inzu, Mutoni also explores how traditional Rwandan homes were organised within enclosed compounds known as urugo.

These compounds were more than collections of houses. They reflected a communal way of life in which extended families and close relatives shared space.

A traditional urugo could accommodate several generations, including parents, children and married sons who had not yet established their own homes. Its layout therefore reflected both family relationships and the social organisation of the community.

But Mutoni does not necessarily advocate a return to this model of communal living.

As family structures and lifestyles have evolved, modern Rwandan households are more commonly organised around parents and their children, often living in a single home.

For Mutoni, the relevance of traditional architecture lies not in replicating the past, but in understanding the thinking behind it and identifying practices that can inform modern design.

The use of locally sourced materials, for instance, offers lessons in reducing dependence on imported construction resources. Traditional methods of managing heat and adapting buildings to their surroundings also provide inspiration for environmentally responsive architecture.

He encourages aspiring architects to study these approaches and consider how traditional knowledge can help address contemporary construction challenges.

Ultimately, Inzu invites readers to look beyond the physical appearance of traditional Rwandan homes and appreciate the language, beliefs, family relationships and environmental knowledge that shaped them.

For Mutoni, rediscovering this heritage is not about abandoning modern architecture in favour of the past. Rather, it is about recognising that traditional Rwandan design contains valuable lessons for creating buildings that respond more sustainably to their surroundings.

Inzu is available in English and French at Librairie Ikirezi.