Great Mosque of Djenne

The largest mudbrick building in the world, standing at the centre of the city of Djenne in the Inland Niger Delta of Mali. First raised in its religious role around the thirteenth century and rebuilt in its present form in 1907 on the same site, it is built in the local banco technique, sun-dried mud brick finished with a mud plaster that requires constant maintenance against seasonal rain. That maintenance is done communally: every year the whole city takes part in the Crepissage, a festival of replastering the mosque's exterior that is treated as a religious and civic occasion in its own right rather than mere upkeep. Alongside Timbuktu, Djenne was one of the major centres of Islamic scholarship in the Mali and later Songhay empires.