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Abstract(s)
The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed a silent and unabated trend among architects in Africa to create architecture that reflected their modern identities and changing political situations. Modern nations states emerged, unhooked from European colonial masters. Architects reacted to the new post-colonial situations of these new nations by creating buildings that embodied their feelings about who modern Africans were and what they could own. In other words, these designers erected structures that they wanted to empathize with. Nonetheless such efforts were not coordinated on a continental scale and hence occurred in fits and starts, owing partly to the hegemonic power of the International Style to be applied to municipal and educational buildings on the continent. That was to change with ArchiAfrika, an African not-for-profit organization that organizes conferences to discuss the future of architecture in Africa. It decided to convene another meeting in 2014 in Lagos, Nigeria. The occasion was to mark the first time that architects such as Sir David Adjaye, Kunle Adeyemi, Francis Kere and the founder of ArchiAfrika, a Ghanaian named Joseph Addo, would participate in a panel discussion about what forms the built environment should take in the twenty-first century.
All four architects have continued to create architecture on the continent that has explored the place of empathy, identity, architectural form and critical regionalism on the continent. A forerunner was the Nigerian artist turned architect, Demas Nwoko who has largely remained unknown in other parts of Africa, not to mention the Western world. This paper will explore how some of their buildings (including Nwoko) have contributed to a discourse that has not taken place in a conference setting. In other words, the presentation will investigate how their commissions have replaced words some deemed necessary for future debates about modern architecture in Africa.
Description
Keywords
Empathy Identities Performative Locale Aesthetic
Citation
TERIBA, Adedoyin – Buildings Instead of Discourse. Empathy and Modern Architecture in West Africa in REGIONALISM, NATIONALISM & MODERN ARCHITECTURE. Proceedings. Porto: CEAA, 2018, p. 437-448