The legacy of colonial and postcolonial African architecture.
This edited collection of essays and image-driven pieces by anthropologists, archaeologists, architects, and historians examines the legacies of African architecture from around the time of independence through examples from different countries. Drawing on ethnography, archival research, and careful observation of buildings, remains, and people, the case studies seek to connect the colonial and postcolonial origins of modernist architecture, the historical processes they underwent, and their present use and habitation, adaptation, and decay.
Deriving from a workshop in connection with the 2015 exhibition “Forms of Freedom” at the National Museum in Oslo and the Venice Biennale, the volume combines recent developments in architectural history, the anthropology of modernism and of material culture, and contemporary archaeology to move beyond the admiration or preservation of prized architectural “heritage” and to complicate the contemplation—or critique—of “ruins” and “ruination.”
List of Figures Introduction Recognizing African Modernisms Paul Wenzel Geissler, Johan Lagae and Nina Berre PART 1: AFRICAN MODERNISM Karl Henrik Nøstvik: Remnants of Nordic Aid Nina Berre Africa’s ‘Lone Star’: Building ‘New Liberia’ in the Context of Post-war Africa Iga Perzyna Countryside Reconstruction in Postcolonial Africa: The Ujamaa Experience Karl Otto Ellefsen Technocratic Colonial Housing Policies and Reductive Modernism in Eastlands, Nairobi Peter Makachia Transnational Exchanges in Postcolonial Zambia: School Buildings at the Intersection of Architectural, Political and Economic Globalization Kim De Raedt Forms of Freedom: Soviet Gifts in Postcolonial Kenya Ruth Prince Georg Lippsmeier and His Tropenbau: Salesmanship and Pragmatic Modernism Antoni Folkers Israel/Africa: The Laboratories of (Post)colonial Modernity Haim Yacobi ‘Tout le Congo est un Chantier’: Notes on the Archive of a (Post)colonial Construction Firm Johan Lagae and Robby Fivez INTERLUDE Remnants of Nordic Aid in Africa: The Zambia World Bank Educational Projects Mette Tronvoll Remnants of Nordic Aid in Africa: The KICC & Fishery Station by Architect Karl Henrik Nøstvik in Africa Iwan Baan PART 2: AFTERLIVES ‘Kenya Grew from Here’: Property and History in a Nairobi Housing Estate Constance Smith Grave Reservations: Nigerian Literature and ‘European Reservations’ during Decolonization Tim Livsey The Legacy of Nordic Expertise in Postcolonial Housing Schemes in Nairobi Tom J. C. Anyamba Privatization and the Reshaping of the Recreational Landscape of the Industrial Zambian Copperbelt Patience Mususa The Ruins of Turkana: An Archaeology of Failed Development in Northern Kenya Samuel F. Derbyshire and Lucas Lowasa The Brand New Ruins of Public Health: A Tale of Two Buildings, Kinshasa, DRC Guillaume Lachenal ‘Is This Anthropology Really a Modern Subject?’: Kenyan Students’ Experience of Nairobi’s (Changing) University Architectures Ida Skjong Grøvik Laboratory Unbuilt: An Architectural Biography of Postcolonial Science in East Africa Paul Wenzel Geissler Epilogue Buildings and People: Interdisciplinarity, Juxtaposition and Experimentation Paul Wenzel Geissler and Johan Lagae Notes on Contributors
Paul Wenzel Geissler teaches social anthropology at the University of Oslo. With Lachenal, Manton, Tousignant and other scholars and artists he published Traces of the Future (2016). With Ruth Prince, he is currently studying remains and afterlives of epidemics in East Africa, revisiting their book on AIDS in Kenya, The Land Is Dying (2010). Nina Berre is an architect and architectural historian, and Professor and Head of Institute of Form, theory and history at the Oslo School of Architecture and design. She was director of Architecture at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and design in Norway from 2010 to 2018. Johan Lagae is Full Professor in 20th Century Architectural History at Ghent University. His research focuses on colonial and postcolonial architecture and urbanisation in Central-Africa.
Reviews for African Modernism and Its Afterlives
'Tracing concrete connections between architecture and anthropology, African Modernism and Its Afterlives offers glimpses of past futures, half-remembered dreams and enduring structures. Engaging and ever clear-eyed, its chapters provide a trenchant guide to 20th century efforts to alter African social life through building, along with the artefacts they left behind.' Peter Redfield, University of Southern California
