C. Sabih and Sons, Accra

I’ve always liked this building on John Pagan Road in Accra – but couldn’t find anything on its history…. Until I saw the @james_barnor_festival @james_barnor_archives exhibition at @sccatamale in Tamale, Ghana. There was a great photo of Kwame Nkrumah driving in his distinctive car with the building in the background displaying the signage “C. Sabih & Sons”. It’s a start. Who was Sabih? Where they part of the Indian trading community in Accra perhaps? It’s a very distinctive building with a prominent brise soleil carefully directed towards the angle of the sun and modified to wrap around the corner plot. Whoever designed it knew the principles of ‘tropical modernism’ and also had some skill in supervising complex concrete construction.