Building with mud bricks is one of the oldest construction techniques in the world. The bricks are shaped from clay, mixed with straw to make them stronger, and dried in the hot sun. When finished, the walls are covered in a smooth layer of mud plaster, giving them their beautiful curved, rounded look.
The wooden poles you can see poking out of the walls are not just decoration - they are a clever part of the design. Because mud expands and cracks slightly every rainy season, the poles act like a built-in ladder. Each year, local craftspeople use them to climb up and repair the outside layer of plaster, keeping the building looking as good as new.
The building has two towers on either side of the front entrance, and smaller cone-shaped spires run along the top. This style of architecture - tall, pointy mud towers decorated with wooden poles - is found across West Africa and is called Sudano-Sahelian architecture. It is recognised by the United Nations as a unique and important building tradition.
The Grand Mosque sits in the Kibidoué quarter, the oldest part of Bobo-Dioulasso. Around it is a lively neighbourhood of narrow lanes, market stalls and old houses built in a similar style. Many visitors say that stepping into this part of the city feels like stepping back in time to a different century.