Tabu. Tabbi. Tabique. Tabú.

Jola Idowu MArch and MCP

Advisors: Garnette Cadogan & Sheila Kennedy

Reader: John Oschendorf

The uniqueness of tabby concrete is based in its process of collecting local materials and producing concrete through reuse. The origin of tabby as either North African, tabbi, or the Spanish, tapia, has been debated, and no conclusive evidence exists that points towards either place. This clouded absence of origin displays the roots of tabbi’s history as both rooted and rootless; fluid and based in an intercultural exchange that removes tabby from a linear timeline of a beginning, middle, or end. In tabby’s move to the Western Hemisphere, its existence is blurred across socio-cultural divides as a symbol of militaristic power, the plantation economy, and the homes of the slaves who built both. In the United States, tabby was composed of oyster shells sourced from Native American middens, the remnants and discarded materials collected by Native Americans years prior, holding a record of indigenous practices and colonial erasure. The end of slavery completely changed the prevalence of tabby for to produce tabby, particularly tabby quicklime, required days of labor which could only be afforded as a result of slave labor.

However, despite its importance in American building culture, tabby is a material that has faded historically and materially. If one were to happen across a tabby structure today, its former marble like finish has deteriorated due to weather damage and neglect, and the broken walls and floors reveal the oyster shells beneath. In response, tabby structures across the country are undergoing many different types of preservationist practices, whether that is archaeological digs and recordkeeping, the physical preservation of tabby structures, or the continued use of oysters as a construction material in the American South. The current process of tabby preservation does not acknowledge the diasporic and network character of tabby, and focuses on specific sites or landscapes that do not highlight the labor and historical absences of the material. This project proposes a new approach to tabby preservation based on its connection to reuse and its subversion of cycles of capital by the enslaved and indigenous peoples associated with its labor.