A few years ago we reported on our Keeping Cool project and included a photograph of the Standard Chartered Bank on Accra’s High Street. The bank had been refurbished, radically changing its passively cooled perforated facade to a sealed glass envelope relying on air-conditioning.
We’ve just received updates from Accra that the bank has now been demolished. No details have been released on what is to replace the bank.
The same site has been used as a banking hall since the late 19th Century. Below are some of the photographs of the site revealing the continuity and change over the last century and the variety of architectural solutions deployed. Joe Addo kindly sent over some photographs of the shock demolition taking place earlier this month.
Accra High Street: Bank of British West Africa shown on the right hand side with the arched loggiaPostcard showing the Bank of British West Africa on the same site of Accra’s High Street, c1900Standard Chartered Bank with passively cooled facade. Architect? unknown, c.late 1950sStandard Chartered with new blue glass facade. Glimpse of Barclays bank on far left.July 2023: Standard Chartered bank being demolished [Courtesy of Joe Addo]
Call for participation Journée d’étude sur l’architecture et l’urbanisme au Maroc après l’indépendance (1956-1986) 20th February 2024, Centre Jacques Berque, Rabat Deadline (french or english): 30th September 2023
The newly established Réseau de recherche sur l’histoire de l’architecture au Maroc – RHAM (rham.hypotheses.org) launches a call for participation to the Symposium: ‘L’architecture et l’urbanisme au Maroc après l’indépendance (1956-1986). Trajectoires d’acteurs et circulations de savoirs’.
“Cette journée d’étude se concentre sur une période spécifique de l’histoire du Maroc : les trois décennies qui ont suivi l’indépendance du Maroc, de 1956 à 1986. Cette période, qui demeure encore largement sous-explorée au regard de la littérature produite sur la période coloniale, suscite désormais un intérêt croissant. Fort de ce constat, la première journée d’étude du RHAM vise à faire se croiser et se rencontrer ces différentes manières d’aborder l’histoire de l’architecture, du paysage, de l’urbanisme et de l’aménagement du territoire au lendemain de l’indépendance, en mettant en évidence des matériaux de recherche inédits“
For more info, see the call for participation here.
Iain Jackson, Ola Uduku, Ayo Olukoju, Claire Tunstall, Sam Ntewusu at Unilever, Port Sunlight
The objective of the visit was to visit and introduce Profs Olukoju and Ntewusu to the Unilever archive collection at Port Sunlight, particularly its subsidiary the United Africa Company’ (UAC)’s extensive holdings on Western Africa covering its various business interests in the region. The symposium which took place the next day involved presentations by Profs Olukoju and Ntewusu on the state of archives and archival research in West Africa, which was attended by Merseyside researchers and PhD students.
Professors Olukoju and Ntewusu at Unilever, Port Sunlight with bust of William Lever
The two-day visit also enabled discussions to be had about future collaborations at various levels, research, knowledge exchange capacity building at Masters degree level, and forms of impact for institutions in Western Africa and also the the UK and NW England in particular. Our thanks to all who contributed to the symposium. Particularly Claire Tunstall, and her team at the Unilever Archives, Dr Abraham Ng’an’ga of the Andrew Walls Centre, Liverpool Hope University, Alex Buchanan, Archival Studies, University of Liverpool History Department, Suzie Goligher, Afrograph Ltd, and all other individual and institutional contributors to the symposium.
MoU signed by the University of Liverpool’s APVC for the Faculty of Humanities Professor Fiona Beveridge, and received by Professor Olukoju, on behalf of the University of Lagos
The visit also coincided with the finalised signing off of the Memorandum of Understanding which has now been established between the University of Liverpool and the University of Lagos. The formal MoU, was signed by the University of Liverpool’s APVC for the Faculty of Humanities Professor Fiona Beveridge, and received by Professor Olukoju, on behalf of the University of Lagos
The event interrogated approaches that challenged the mainstream colonial, nationalist and social-cultural frameworks in architecture, art and heritage management scholarship and practice. It included discussions, talks and activities with a diverse range of speakers whose creative production explore approaches free from referential relationship with inequitable power structures.
A research conversation moderated by Edward Denison, Ievgenia Gubkina, Emily Mann and Shahid Vawda comprised speakers from multidisciplinary fields of research and practice with case studies from Africa, Asia and Europe. The speakers included Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, Dr. Alistair Cartwright and PhD researcher, Adefola Toye – both from Liverpool School of Architecture. Each speaker discussed the limitations they encounter when engaging mainstream sources for scholarship and research-in-practice which erases the agency of populations under study. Furthermore, they shared how they addressed this using participatory action research, public engagement, multidisciplinary methods and utilising crowdsourced open-access archives.
1. Image 1 by Edward Denison
2. Alistair Cartwright Presenting, by Edward Denison
The session concluded with talks from African heritage organizations, including the Direction du Patrimoine Culturel du Sénégal, Swahilipot Hub, and the University of Cape Town. They discussed existing and future initiatives for sustainable and inclusive heritage management on the continent. These included exhibitions, training workshops, public engagement tailored to different age groups and professions, and collaboration with local and global heritage partners.
Afterwards, a student-centered lunchtime activity with architect Sumayya Vally and BSA design tutor Jhono Bennett, explored referentiality in architectural research and practice through co-production and drawings based on the participants insights and experiences.
Image 3 by Adefola Toye
The remainder of the event was spent in conversations with notable speakers in the fields of architecture, art and curatorial practice.
Nana Ocran, founder and Editor of the People’s Stories Project, hosted discussions with multidisciplinary artists Christopher Samuel and Valerie Asiimwe Amani. They explained how their creative works use archives materials to create awareness about the underrepresentation of people with disabilities and colonial subjects.
Performers Peter Brathwaite and Kenneth Olumuyiwa Tharp examine ‘Rediscovering Black Portraiture’s use of domestic material culture to reimagine the historical image of black subjects as well as professional engagement with diverse art and culture foundations in the UK.
We are delighted to be able to host Professor Ayo Olukoju (Institute of African and Diaspora studies, University of Lagos) and Professor Sam Ntewusu (Institute of African Studies University of Ghana) who are visiting the University of Liverpool and also the Unilever Archives to explore the possibilities of future collaborative research and teaching activities across our institutions and others in NW England.
Both Professors are historians who have worked with archival sources in their research in West Africa. They have generously agreed to share, through this seminar, the challenges and issues with working with archival material and sources from a West African perspective and also some of the hopes they have for future collaborations.
Do join us to hear their views and also join the conversation – how do we make the most of archives in the 21st century in different locations and places? Importantly do we need to decolonise the archive, and if so how?
Hosted by the AHUWA Research centre in association with Unilever Archives, School of History and Institutes of African Studies and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Ghana, and the University of Lagos
Transnational Architecture Group 