Shopping Emporiums of West Africa: The Kingsway Stores

This week we installed our new exhibition: Shopping Emporiums of West Africa: The Kingsway Stores, at Lever House, Port Sunlight.

Following on from our research project into the architecture of the United Africa Company we’ve curated an exhibition that focuses on the department stores and their contribution to design, urban development and retail throughout the 20thC.

The exhibition has been co-curated with archivist Claire Tunstall, and developed from the research undertaken during the last 4 years with Ewan Harrison, Rixt Woudstra, Paul Robinson, and Michele Tenzon.

The exhibition includes images from the Unilever Archive arranged across two freestanding pavilions along with archival films, and a set of newly commissioned 3D printed models beautifully crafted by Liverpool School of Architecture students. The pavilions were fabricated using CNC routers with the expert help of LSA’s technicians.

The catalogue is available here. This is just the start – the next step is to tour the exhibition from their current home in Port Sunlight to Birkenhead, Liverpool, Accra, and Lagos.