Distributed for Intellect Ltd
African Modernism and Its Afterlives
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.”
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.”
Table of Contents
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
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