African Modernism: The Architecture of Independence: Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Zambia ed. by Manuel Herz et al. (review)

Manuel Herz and his team of researchers and photographers have put together a stunning collection of material on Africa’s little-known modern architecture. The book’s 640 pages covering Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, and Zambia—countries chosen for practical, geographic, and architectural reasons—contain hundreds of photographs of the modernist office towers, schools, parks, private residences, and hotels that shot up throughout the continent during the buoyant era of independence. These structures were often constructed of minimally adorned industrial glass, steel, and concrete, yet adopted “African” inspired forms, patterns, and climatic considerations (especially an emphasis on shade and air circulation), resulting in a distinct physical record of the triumphs, contradictions, and disappointments of decolonization and independence.

Herz’s introduction, “The New Domain: Architecture at the Time of Liberation,” considers what scholars might learn from studying Africa’s robust—yet quickly disappearing—modernist archive and considers what “independent” and “modern” mean in an African context. Drawing on the work of James Ferguson and Frederick Cooper amongst others, Herz discusses the audacity and ambiguities of the independence project as states with colonial borders sought to quickly establish national identities and sovereignty. Modernization provided a tool for both tasks as African leaders commissioned abstract (non-ethnic but still vaguely “African”) symbols of nationhood through architecture and claimed their place amongst established nations by constructing world-class hotels, airports, and government facilities in the international style of the time. However, as the authors comment throughout the book, the fact that predominately non-Africans designed “African modernism” points to the limits of independence and continued circuits of neocolonial influence.

Hundreds of pages of photographs from the five countries profiled follow Herz’s introduction and are spliced with six short additional essays examining specific architects and projects, along with summaries of each country’s political-architectural history. The selection of countries covers a slice of both Francophone and Anglophone Africa and spans the continent geographically, but we can only hope for a second volume covering Nigeria (which is mentioned throughout the essays) and Mozambique (including the work of Pancho Guedes, who is also mentioned in the book).

The photographs of each country are simply unmatched in the field of African architecture. David Adjaye introduced modern African architecture to a broader audience several years ago with Adjaye, Africa, Architecture, but the book’s images were so small that they served as little more than peepholes into the unknown. Here Iwan Baan and Alexia Webster provide the full-page resolution Africa’s architecture deserves. Each country’s chapter includes an introductory set of photographs depicting daily city-life before moving onto specific sites of African modernism. The renowned architectural photographer Baan, along with the equally talented Webster (who recorded Ghana), have captured African cities in a light rarely seen beyond the continent. Thankfully, they made the decision to include people in their photographs, thereby illustrating how the buildings are in a sense living structures—lived and worked in, adapted, and worn. Gems include Kwame Nkrumah University (James Cubitt and Partners, Kumasi, 1951), Ministry of the Interior (year and architect unknown, Dakar), École Nationale D’Administration Ena and Hotel Independence (BEHC Henri Chomette with R. Depret and T. Melot, Dakar, 1970s), Immeuble Kebe (architect unknown, Dakar, 1973), La Pyramide (Rinaldo Olivieri, Abidjan, 1968–1973), Kenyatta International Conference Centre KICC (Karl Henrik Nøstvik, Nairobi, 1966–1973), Faculty of Architecture, Design and Development Add, Uon (Poul Kjaergaard and Partners, Nairobi, 1972), and Evelyn Hone College (architect unknown, Lusaka, ca. 1962).

The additional essays expand on important themes and provide overviews of several seminal architects who worked in Africa. Hannah de Roux, who has published widely on African modernism, discusses four “sites” of postcolonial architectural experimentation: the...