The N'Kisi Iron House is located in the building next to the African Bead Museum.
A Flikr page at (
visit link) tells us:
"The N'Kisi Iron House symbolizes the energy, power, philosophy etc. Africans had invested in the use of iron, mirrors, and wood for protecting the people, the village and keeping the land fertile.
The N'kisi has hundreds of pieces of mirrors, rusting iron, paint on rusting iron and old decaying wood that changes with the weather. If the sun is bright, the N'kisi is bright. If the weather is cloudy, the N'kisi is cloudy. If the wind is blowing, the N'kisi makes sounds. If sun rays are beaming, the N'kisi radiates heat.
The N'kisi is constantly changing: the iron is rusting and the paint is fading. The N'kisi lives because it reflects the environment it's in. The small pieces of mirrors makes the N'kisi appear to be having some kind of electric device attached to it and at night the light show begins. "
This article in the Detroit News (
visit link) describes the process of rebuilding the house:
"N’kisi the Iron House
June 1, 2008 we begin work on the N’kisi a building that had been donated; our goal was to beautify the area and provided information about African tradition cultural material cultural.
.The house has been striped of all material of value, including the bricks from the exterior wall. The only thing left was wall molding, wall cabinets and the bricks from the foundation and they had started removing them. We built a fence and place boards over the doors and windows.
We named this building the N’kisi Iron House symbolizes the power and philosophy Africans had invested in the use of iron, mirrors and wood traditionally.
This is perhaps the largest N’kisi in the world in the form of a building.
The items on the building have new meaning they are iron, wood, pigment and mirrors.
The N’kisi are sometime large erect wooden sculptures, sometime magical substance are place inside the abdomen, back or head and sealed with a mirrors (in this case, place in the building). The N’kisi may also be in the form of animals, box, medicines bundle or in our case a building."