Abstract:
The diversity of Nigeria with about 370 identified ethnic groups, and each expressing its own history and culture, and reacting to various external architectural influences, gave rise to multiple variations in architectural products classified and listed as monuments. Architectural monument is a building or structure designed and built to commemorate an important or great historic event or in memorial of a famous person. It could be a historic building (very old building) or structure preserved for its unique architectural style/design, construction material and methods (technology) and aesthetic characteristics. A preliminary survey on some architectural monuments in the South-East zone of Nigeria revealed traditional design concepts and construction methods/ingenuity worthy of consideration as criteria for listing architectural monuments. But available documentation however revealed that the existing criteria for listing architectural monuments in Nigeria are generalized and thereby failed to capture the intrinsic peculiarities of the ethnic diversity in Nigeria. Therefore, the aim of this study is to search and identify the intrinsic peculiarities worthy of consideration as criteria for listing architectural monuments in the South-East zone of Nigeria and to evolve appropriate and comprehensive listing criteria for architectural monuments in the South-East zone of Nigeria. This study adopted historical and qualitative research methods in combination with descriptive survey and correlation analysis of data from literature reviews and field study. Also, Factor Analysis (FA) or Principal Component Analysis (PCA), a statistical technique was used in processing the data gathered for this study.
