Funco (architecture)

File:Chã das Caldeiras-Maison traditionnelle (1).jpg]]

Funco is a traditional Capeverdean house that originated in Africa.Michel Cahen, "Vilas" et "cidades" : bourgs et villes en Afrique lusophone (preface by Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch), L'Harmattan, Paris, 1989, p. 59 {{ISBN|2-7384-0431-6}}

These houses are represented in Guinea-Bissau,André Donelha, Descrição da Serra Leoa e dos rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde [Description of Sierra Leone between the Rivers of Guinea of Cape Verde] (1625) (intro, notes and titles by Avelino Teixeira da Mota), Junta de Investigações Científicas do Ultramar, Lisbon, 1977, p. 265 found mainly on the islands of Fogo, Santiago and Maio.[http://www.funco.org/ Funco, Portal of the Architecture of Cape Verde] Their circular form is made of different kinds of rock. The conical thatch roof is made of palm fronds.

Henrique Teixeira de Sousa explored the social structure of Fogo, his native island, in his novelsThe Island of Contenda by Henrique Teixeira de Sousa and in his essays."A estrutura social da Ilha do Fogo" ("Social Structure on the Island of Fogo"), Claridade, no. 5, 1957, "Sobrados, lojas e funcos", Claridade, no. 8, 1958 He showed the concern of white families with the rise of mixed families in the late 1940s. They feared the moment that "the blacks would be pushed out of the funco; [where] they would take the place of the mixed in the loja and the latter would put the whites out of the sobrado."Nelson Eurico Cabral, Le moulin et le pilon, les îles du Cap-Vert (The Mill and the Pestle, the Cape Verde Islands), Harmattan, Paris, ACCT, 1980, p. 145 {{ISBN|2-85802-161-9}} {{in lang|fr}}

According to António Carreira in 1965, the term was used to mean a "small, poor and miserable building".