Africa Hall

ARTURO MEZZÈDIMI

A MONUMENT TO AFRICAN HISTORY

Kwame Nkrumah waves jubilantly to the huge crowd that stood before Parliament House in Accra, Ghana, as midnight on March 5-6, 1957, brought the newly independent British Commonwealth country into being as the first nation in SubSaharan Africa to gain independence.

especially

students.

The public park built in front of Africa Hall became a meeting and recreational space,

for

Young girls smile at the camera while boys observe the scene at a distance in November 1966.

The foyer area leading to the plenary hall where “information and document collating booths, entirely clad in fine wood, are set within the internal curved wall completely covered with a photographic canvas of a composition inspired by the African flora.” 56

The pas perdus areas “follow the external perimeter of the plenary hall […] which is entered by the end of the two main wings.” 56

Aerial view of the newly built City Hall in 1964, standing on a hill overlooking Churchill Avenue.

The municipality complex comprised seven buildings of 70,000 cubic meters. The southern three, suspended on the ground floor, stand symmetrically on the avenue’s axis, creating an open square with two wings embracing the city in front of the complex.

On the north side are three buildings housing 270 offices, the Council’s assembly hall, public spaces, a cinema-theater, a library, cafeteria, and restaurant. The municipality was inaugurated by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom during her state visit to Ethiopia on February 4, 1965. 157