“African Architecture is Translation� A Discourse on the Ability of Architecture in African Cities to Translate Traditional African Cultures and Hybrid Identities.
Stephanie Ete
Introduction What is African about African Architecture? Identity in the Cities of Modern Africa The Future of the African Cities The African Architect Translating Urban Realm -Pedagogy Shift and Contemporary Methodologies
Conclusion
Introduction
“
Ex Africa Semper Aliquid Novi
”
- Pliny the Elder
“Africa always produces something new” (Ronca, 1992) is a translation of the Greek aphorism that referred to the hybridity of animals observed on the continent. It might now be used to pay witness to vastly different occurrence happening in Africa today - for indeed: something new is happening. It is estimated that the urban population of Africa is projected to increase from 471 million in 2015 to 1.33 billion by the year 2050 (United Nations, Department of Economic and Population Division, 2014). The continent of Africa is urbanising at rate more substantial than any prior population growth in human history. By the year 2100, 13 of the 20 most populous cities in the world will be African (Figure 1), the top three of these Metropolises being Lagos, Kinshasa and Dar Es Salaam. Such projections have created a shift and renewed intrigue regarding the African continent, whose populations have so often been marginalised by Western notions of subordination (Said, 1993) and assumption of rural life across the continent. Though the African metropolis or city is not a new phenomenon (Appiah, 2016) this shifted focus on African urban populations, begets to those who live and work in, or design and shape such urban regions to own the narrative. Professor and Head of the Graduate School of Architecture in Johannesburg, Lesley Lokko refers to Africa as being in “an intense period of translation” (Lokko, 2013) and she places architecture itself as a tool of this translation.
Figure 1 Map showing the 20 Most Populous Cities in the World by 2100, 13 of which will be across the African Continent (Desjardins, 2017)
Architecture, often posed as one of the many languages of the city (Sudjic, 2016), meets greater complexity and nuance when applied to the needs and challenges that arise in African cities. In the lecture, Culture is Culprit (2013), Lokko positions the African architect (or students and teachers of the profession) as both “interpreters and investigators; translating a world [or African Reality] that is invisible to western eye both to themselves and others, yet, at the same time exploring it in all its depth.” (Lokko, 2013). The suggestion being that Africans, themselves, at this opportune time, through the tool of architecture can interrogate traditional African cultures and hybrid cultures or identities that play out across the continent’s urban environments and through this interrogation, prescribe new visions of what the African metropolis can or should become. This essay therefore will explore the diversity that comprises African architecture in the city and how such urban architecture has been used to shape and translate identity in the past. It will then aim to understand how contemporary actors; African architects, designers and influencers alike engage with their role as ‘translators’ using architecture as a tool to explore, narrate and prescribe solutions or visions for both the future and present day needs of Africa’s urban regions.
What is African about African Architecture?
Figure 2 Terrain Map of Africa by Adjaye Associates 2011 showing the 6 terrain types in the continent
How might one begin to define or understand what is meant by African Architecture? And why dare to group the architecture that span across 54 individual countries into one entity? It seems this question or similar convictions are raised in any discourse around such themes. The questions, though not disingenuous, seems to confront a western guilt for the previous and in some cases continual subjugative and pejorative framing that the continent receives, and the failure of some to recognise the enormous diversity of the peoples, cultures, histories and geographies that Africa possesses. During the colonial era, European powers divided the land mass of Africa into a political map, ignoring natural patterns of migration, territories pertaining to certain ethnic groups and the varied geological terrains. As a result of these arbitrary divisions, there are similarities and trends that persist across different countries, irrespective of the political borders. In the book Adjaye ¡ Africa ¡ Architecture: A Photographic Survey of Metropolitan Architecture (Adjaye & Allison, 2016) the architect Adjaye specifically defies the political map of Africa when exploring the different cities of the continent, choosing instead to opt for the geological terrain map (Figure 2) through which he frames his investigation.
This compilation of Adjaye’s is an act of translation, as the British Ghanaian architect “aims to add something to the cultural and visual history of the continent” (Adjaye, 2016) as a point of reference for his fellow architects. He links the similar terrain and climates to the development of intertwined cultures, traditions and histories that have dictated the built architectural expression of geologically connected cities whether or not they exist in different countries or different regions. Therefore, to only discuss the cities of a specific country or region can negate more explicit comparisons concerning architectural identity that could otherwise be made. Adjaye might categorise ‘The Architecture of The Maghreb’ or ‘Forest Architecture’ rather than adhere to the term ‘African Architecture’ as these terms are specific and add greater depth to discussions about more ‘localized’ architecture in Africa.
Pages from Adjaye · Africa · Architecture: A Photographic Survey of Metropolitan Architecture
However, for this particular discourse, even Adjaye’s categories become limiting and we therefore need a boarder terminology. To speak of African Architecture, should be to assert a myriad of architectural identities rather than diminishing it to a single monolithic entity. In 2014, architectural historian Andres Lempik ‘coined’ the term Afritecture attempting to “help capture the idea of the continent’s pluralities which often exist in an ‘encasement’ of Western sameness” (Kamara, Afritecture and Moving Forward for African Architecture, 2014) as understood by the Nigerien architect Mariam Kamara. This term ‘Afritecture’ on the one hand embodies hybridity, as a portmanteau word expressing a blended notion, but on the other can be perceived as patronising, though
intending the exact opposite. The term incidentally ‘others’ African architecture rather than lifting it to the esteem of architecture that exist in other parts of the world, as terms like ‘Eurotecture’ or ‘Asiatecture’ would essentially be meaningless. What might then be a more favourable definition is that which comes from the French architect Henri Chomette, designer of iconic modernist architecture across the continent, mostly – though not limited to the Francophone countries. He states; “We shall thus call African Architecture that which translates the aspirations of those who “live” in Africa; the architecture that knows how to adapt itself to the ground, the climates, and the means of production.” (Chomette, 1964). His definition encompasses the connection the architecture has to its geological context as highlighted through Adjaye’s book and explorations; it signifies the need for architecture to translate culture through style and the means of production and it sets the aspirations of the people that the architecture will serve as the pinnacle focus.
“
We shall thus call African Architecture that which translates the aspirations of those who “live” in Africa; the architecture that knows how to adapt itself to the ground, the climates, and the means of production. (Chomette, 1964)
”
Identity in the Cities of Modern Africa In the Post Colonial era (the late 1950’s to the early 1970’s), the newly sovereign nations of Africa, looked for political and cultural ideologies, as well as, new forms of expression through which they could declare their national aspirations, ambitions and identities to the rest of the world (Schröder, 2015). Despite the arbitrary borders that had constructed these countries, this period of independence was the opportunity for the peoples of these nations to curate their national identity. One might best understand this period of nation building and cultural curation made by the African peoples through the ambitions of the leaders they elected and how these ambitions translated in built space. In the opening essay of his book African Modernism: The Architecture of Independence, Manuel Herz reflects on a passage from the novel ‘A Bend in the River’ by V.S. Naipaul in which a fictional President of a newly independent African nation aims to transform his country starting with the redevelopment built on the destruction of a former European settlement. Herz notes that the author uses architecture and urbanism in this fiction as “the central spheres in which modernization and a new national identity can be realised” (Herz, The New Domain: Architecture at the Time of Liberation, 2015). It can hence be understood that ‘Modernity’ became the vague and elusive driver of culture for many of these new African nations as a means of establishing post-colonial identities and prove themselves equal or levelled
with Western counterparts. Many real life leaders in Africa, such as Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana and Leopold Sedar Senghor in Senegal, contended with how to express cultural identity through the commissioning of architecture, urbanism and infrastructure projects in the new capitals of their cities to display such a leap into modernity (Lepik & Enwezor, 2013).
Figure 3 Independence Square, Accra Ghana
President Nkrumah’s approach in the cities of Accra and Kumasi were iconic in nature; as the first Sub Saharan African country to gain independence, the Ghanaian identity that Nkrumah established was as the leader at the front of black Africa and a core player in the Pan African movement. Independence Square (Figure 3) is a grand urban space at the coast of Accra that monumentalised this ambition – it begins with the gate from the city towards the sea which references the style of neoclassical gates easily found in Britain and France. The gate is topped with the Black Star emblem signifying African freedom (the same star on Ghana’s adopted national flag) but directly contradicts its colonial referenced architectural form. Within the square are three triumphal arches that elevate a presidential box and complex butterfly roofs that cover the fixed seating structures - the form of the architecture here employs the dynamic use of concrete arches, parabolas and other expressive forms that could easily be found in Latin America, to Italy to the countries of the former USSR embracing the fluid neutrality of modernist architecture. Here in this singular urban space the architectural language articulates the competing influences that existed in the Ghanaian society at the time – a hybrid icon with elements of the colonial British past, African freedom and Pan-African unity as well as the strive for Modernity.
Figure 4 Facade of a Pyramide of Foire Internationale de Dakar Fidak, Dakar Senegal
Figure 5 Ecole nationale d’administration Dakar Sénégal
The national identity adopted by Senegal in the post-colonial era is most visible in the country’s capital Dakar and can be best understood through the concept of ‘Negritude’. Negritude was the rejection of the assimilation policy and the experience of alienation from Western or European popular society particularly in the Francophone world (Romick, 2018). It was also the reaffirmation of black identity and African heritage whilst existing in a postcolonial landscape. Applied to the cultural nationalism of Senegal (Herz, Senegal, 2015), Negritude was not the complete rejection of French cultural legacy but the attempt at reconciling the French imperial mission of modernity with the indigenous cultures and history. A founder and champion of this ideology was the Leopold Sedar Senghor who later became the first President of Senegal. Under his influence Senegal’s architecture, along with its literature, art, music and textile industry (Herz, 2015) became the tools used in this era to mediate the ‘chasms between Modernity and African authenticity’ (Schröder, African Universe: Africa Place at Expo 67, 2015). The streets of Dakar are filled with buildings that monumentalise a hybrid, contradicting form of modernism that Herz (2015) describes as ‘assymetrical parallelism’ – the Foire Internationale de Dakar Fidak and the Ecole Nationale D’Administration (ENA) buildings are two of note. Both buildings express familiar modernist volumes and form but in detailing reflect Senegal’s vernacular building styles and applications – observed in the pebble applique façade-work on the former (Figure 4) and the particularly the straw marquetry in the roof interior of the latter (Figure 5) conveying, in built reality, the multiplicity of the modernist African city.
Future of the African Metropolis City
Scene from Black Panther
Informal Settlements and Lack of Urban Vision Adibijan, Cote D’Ivoire (Diabate)
In 2018 the Marvel Film “Black Panther” showcased the fictional African country Wakanda; both its rural and urban contexts. Wakanda has become emblematic of the contemporary literary and visual art movement Afro-futurism which is an evolution of the Negritude ideology (Romick, 2018) ; exploring the multifaceted black person or society and African-ness in future or imaginary worlds as oppose to the Modern world. (Latief, 2018). What many found remarkable about the Wakandan capital city was its translation of traditional vernacular architecture from countries like Zimbabwe, Mali , Mozambique, and Zambia into iconic megastructures (Walker, 2018), in juxtaposition with contemporary ideas for the future sustainable cities (Malkin, 2018). Most poignant, about this depiction is its non-dysfunctional envisioning of an African city free from an obsession with informality (Schröder, Herz, Jenkins, & WarnockSmith, 2015). Whilst the leaders of Modernist Africa used the city and its architecture as political instruments to level the disparity between Africa and the West (building affordable housing, public spaces, and architecture with social, cultural or administrative purpose), many charge subsequent African leadership with a lack of vision and control over the urban space (Diabaté, 2015) which has caused the informality and urban sprawl we see today.
Figure 6 Eko Atlantic, Lagos Nigeria
Visions of Kibera, Nairobi 2030 vs Kibera Slum Upgrading project
The predominance of slums and informal settlements across African cities is problem that governments and leadership; designers and planners as well as inhabitants are tasked with remedying should they want to realise grander ambitions for African urban life in the image of the Wakandan ideal. Professor Vanessa Watson of the University of Cape Town’s School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics notes, in her lecture African Urban Fantasies (Watson, 2013), that the governments of many African cities are opting instead for spectral urban ‘fantasies’ in the likeness of Asian and Middle Eastern Smart /Eco-cities and investing in such developments instead of development that might uplift and provide for the vast majority of their urban populations whilst reflect the character and tradition of the local culture. These visions of the African city often take the form of new towns or ‘satellite towns’ built on the edge or outskirts of the existing metropolitan region and therefore ignore the existing challenges of the city – an example of this is Eko Atlantic (Figure 6) in Lagos, Nigeria built on reclaimed land at the sea front of the megacity that does address the overcrowding on the Lagos Mainland. Alternatively, some of these urban visions are designed in the place of existing homes belonging to the urban poor, facilitating their erasure. Watson, in her lecture gives the example of the Nairobi 2030 masterplan and the future vision for what is currently the Kibera settlement, that she asserts will displace or dramatically affect upwards of 383,922 people currently living there. Watson’s assumptions in the case of Kibera might be taken with a pinch of salt as it is unclear if this vision will certainly affect the Kibera settlement and if this project will fail to provide
housing for the urban poor Kibera, as the settlement is part of an upgrading masterplan by UN Habitat and KENSUP (Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme). Figure 7 Michael Uwemedio presents Greater Port Harcourt Master Plan of 2008
Community Involvement in the Design Process for the Chicoco Community Centre in Port Harcourt
However, the point Watson makes about the erasure of peoples and their cultural narratives is extremely true when applied to the city of Port Harcourt in Nigeria. What Watson defines as “occupancy or insurgent urbanism” speaks to the movement that occurred in Port Harcourt following the mass evictions and slum clearances of 2009. The Nigerian-British filmmaker Michael Uwemedimo (CMAP, 2010-2019) documented the mobilisation of Port Harcourt citizens who asserted that ‘People Live Here’ when their community and histories were ‘greened out’ in the futuristic visions of Greater Port Harcourt Master Plan of 2008 (Figure 7). Through his organisation CMAP, Uwemdimo and his team developed the Human City Project in Port Harcourt where the community affirms which histories, narratives and symbols are integral to the urban fabric of their city by mapping their local areas, partnering with architects, planners and designers, and communicating their intentions and their rights as citizens to a global audience. This is a multifaceted approach to translating the visions and aspirations of an African city that is more equal and inclusive for all inhabitants and put the power of architecture and urbanism in the hands of the people.
The African Architect Translating Urban Realm Pedagogy Shift and Contemporary Methodologies
Professor Lesley Lokko
Figure 8 Architecture schools in Africa
What the approach of the Human City Project demands for is both a cultural and pedagogical change in the way we plan and design for cities in Africa during this opportune time of rapid urban growth in order to be sensitive to the nuanced narratives that coexist in the city and all its citizens. The subsequent question must be, how should the architect position themselves in such a shift. Whilst Watson begrudges international architecture offices and developers for their ‘devastating’ master plans (Watson, 2013), architects like Issa Diabaté says that architects must reclaim the control of the city and urban planning out of the hands of mediocre governments in Africa – choosing in his case to operate as both Architect and developer in the African urban context (Diabaté, 2015). Professor Lesley Lokko (Look Back in Anger, 2019), however, asserts, that the problem begins with pedagogy. The way that African architects who wish to design within the African context are taught, disconnects them from their lived experience as well as their cultural heritages. Firstly, there are not enough school of architectural education on the continent (figure 8) and where they do exist in higher numbers like in South Africa and Nigeria; they either have a dark history of the exclusion of black Africans (South Africa) (Lokko, 2019) or the
Christian Benimana of the MASS Design group
African Design Centre Fellows, Fellow learning vernacular techniques
teaching styles that have failed to evolve since the era of colonial tropical modernism (Nigeria) (Udoko, 2019). This failure results in a continual cycle of potential African architects learning abroad in cultural, geographic, and political contexts that cannot be fully applied to the their homelands (Benimana, 2017) and the creation of architecture that is merely performance and not explored in its full depth (Lokko, 2019). At the University of Johannesburg, Lokko has implemented a first step to remedying this. Implementing the design unit system, she proposes that the tool of design research, which is embedded in this form of education, gives the budding African architect the freedom to contextualise their education with their specific African cultures. She gives reference to a graduate student who is assembling a Zulu dictionary of words that describe dwelling and built space as a first step to mediate the disparity between his culture and architectural language. The act of building or in this case is secondary or even tertiary. Another proponent of this pedagogical shift is the architect Christian Benimana of the MASS Design group in Rwanda. He advocates that in order for African cities to be met with sustainable visions and proposals unique to the African context, the designer’s formation must happen in Africa (Benimana, 2017). Benimana and his partners, created the African Design Centre, a 20-month fellowship program for African architecture graduate to tackle the real challenges and drivers that will dictate the urban and architectural condition in Africa for the coming years. It gives them the opportunity to test their ideas, work and build within the African context.
Figure 9 NM2000 Housing project in collaboration with united4design Mariam Kamara
Figure 10 Makoko Floating School - Kunle Adeyemi
Its opportunities like this, that Nigerien architect Mariam Kamara calls for more of. She accuses those that commission architecture in many African countries of not trusting young designers to challenge the lingua franca of accepted construction styles that has made much of contemporary African architecture, imitations of lack lustre international styles (Kamara, 2017). In order to prescribe better visions for the African City, African architects must be given the freedom to test and prototype. In the project NM2000 (figure 9), Kamara reconfigures the traditional Nigerien family house in the city of Niamey and brings it into the contemporary age, thus suggesting a new way reference for housing in the city. This method is also used by the likes of Nigerian architect Kunle Adeyemi who in his floating school modulations (figure 10) triggers the question of how to facilitate the sustainable urban growth of Lagosian city dwellers living on the water. Actors, like Kamara and Adeyemi and those that follow hence are tasked with working in defiance of the embedded norms that have dictated the architectural form of African cities through their means of execution.
Conclusion
It appears then, whilst still on the cusp of both a pedagogical and cultural shift in the African architectural discourse, it befalls to the next generation of African architects, designers to use architecture as tool for nuanced investigation as it pertains to delving into the multitude of contesting African identities and narratives that exist in African city. Identity in the African city can be articulated in overt architectural form, as it was in the Modernist era, or through the empowering of the local people and their personal narrative as the shapers of the city’s built future as evidenced by the Human City Project, in Port Harcourt. Architecture in this way is plastic; and in the hands of future African designers who wish to contend directly with the complex histories, traditions, geographies that give shape to and will prescribe new urban visions in Africa, they must fully engage as translator of aspirations and identities. This should be through thorough and immersed investigation that will provide a new script or lingua franca that will eventually clearly reconfigure how we understand and design for the critical future of the African urban realm.
Bibliography
Adjaye, D. (2016). African Metropolitan Architecture. In D. Adjaye, & P. Allison, Adjaye · Africa · Architecture: A Photographic Survey of Metropolitan Architecture (pp. 376-378). London: Thames And Hudson. Adjaye, D., & Allison, P. (2016). Adjaye · Africa · Architecture: A Photographic Survey of Metropolitan Architecture . London: Thames and Hudson Ltd. Appiah, K. A. (2016). Foreword. In D. A. Adjaye, Adjaye · Africa · Architecture: A Photographic Survey of Metropolitan Architecture (pp. 10-11). London: Thames and Hudson. Benimana, C. (2017, August). The next generation of African architects and designers. Retrieved from TED: https://www.ted.com/talks/christian_benimana_the_next_ generation_of_african_architects_and_designers Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The Location of Culture. London - New York: Routledge. Chomette, H. (1964). L’Evolution de l’architecture Africaine. Africa, no.33. CMAP. (2010-2019). Homepage. Retrieved from CMAP: https://www.cmapping.net/ Desjardins, J. (2017, June 23). Animated Map: The 20 Most Populous Cities in the World by 2100. Retrieved from Visual Capitalist: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/animatedmap-worlds-populous-cities-2100/ Diabaté, I. (2015, January 14). Issa Diabaté on designing the future of urban Africa. Retrieved from Design Indaba: https://www.designindaba.com/videos/conference-talks/ issa-diabat%C3%A9-designing-future-urban-africa Herz, M. (2015). Senegal. In M. Herz, I. Schröder, H. Focketyn, & J. Jamrozik, African Modernism: The Architecture of Independence. Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Zambia (pp. 144-145). Zurich: Park Books AG.
Herz, M. (2015). The New Domain: Architecture at the Time of Liberation. In M. Herz, I. Schröder, H. Focketyn, & J. Jamrozik, African Modernism: The Architecture of Independence. Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Zambia (pp. 4-15). Zurich: Park Books AG.
Schröder, I., Herz, M., Jenkins, R. S., & Warnock-Smith, A. (2015, April 30). African Modernism: The Architecture of Independence. London, United Kingdom: AA School of Architecture. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=snVzbGF273c&list=PLJnVGqCPHZwh6C5ECcFeIgPwHlK9gUp8n&index=4
Kamara, M. (2014, November 20). Afritecture and Moving Forward for African Architecture. Retrieved from ateliermasomi.com: http://www.ateliermasomi.com/blog/1
Sudjic, D. (2016). The Language of Cities. UK: Penguin. United Nations, Department of Economic and Population Division. (2014). World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision Highlights. New York: UN DESA.
Kamara, M. (2017, February 20). Being an African Architect in Africa. Retrieved from Atelier Masomi: http://www.ateliermasomi.com/blog/post_id-4 Latief, J. (2018, June 28). Looking to Afrofuturism 3.0. Retrieved from Design Indaba: https://www.designindaba.com/articles/creative-work/looking-afrofuturism-30 Lepik, A., & Enwezor, O. (2013). Architecture that can truly be owned by the people Okwui Enwezor in Conversation with Andres Lepik. In A. Lepik, Afritecture - Building Social Change (pp. 60-68). Munich. Lokko, L. (2019, February 12). Lesley Lokko : All Must Fall. London: AA School of Architecture. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLPSz3ItW78 Malkin, M. (2018, February 28). The Real-Life Possibilities of Black Panther’s Wakanda, According to Urbanists and City Planners. Retrieved from Architectural Digest: https:// www.architecturaldigest.com/story/the-real-life-possibilities-of-black-pantherswakanda-according-to-urbanists-and-city-planners Romick, E. (2018, September 24). Négritude and Afrofuturism. Retrieved from www. prezi.com: https://prezi.com/_ijcgdsw-qee/negritude-and-afrofuturism/ Ronca, I. (1992). Ex Africa semper aliquid noui : The Ever Surprising Vicissitudes of a PreAristotelian Proverb. Latomus , 570-593. Schröder, I. (2015). African Universe: Africa Place at Expo 67. In M. Herz, I. Schröder, H. Focketyn, & J. Jamrozik, African Modernism: The Architecture of Independence. Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Zambia (pp. 624-633). Zurich: Park Books AG.
Walker, A. (2018, February 19). Wakanda is where every urbanist wants to live. Retrieved from Curbed: https://www.curbed.com/2018/2/19/17028794/blackpanther-wakanda-urban-design-architecture-birnin-zana Watson, V. (2013, September 23). Vanessa Watson: African Urban Fantasies - new post colonial frontiers. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt_-IqAJ9mY&list =PLJnVGqCPHZwh6C5ECcFeIgPwHlK9gUp8n&index=2&t=0s Said, E. (1993). Culture and Imperialism York University, Toronto, February 10, 1993 [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-__YU-XmUl0. Lokko, L. (2013). Culture is Culprit TUM Fakultät für Architektur, Munich, November 15, 2013 [video file]. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/82238156. Lokko, L. (2019). School’s Out Lecture: Look Back in Anger. Rotterdam, March 29, 2019 [unrecorded lecture] Udoko, O (2019) Amsterdam Academie van Bouwkunst - African Realities: Modernism in Africa, Amsterdam, March 6, 2019 [unrecorded lecture]