SAH Conference, Chicago, 2027: The call for papers has been announced – and there are some fascinating and timely panels planned. This one caught our eye….
Session Chairs: Zhijian Sun and Qingyun Lin
Session Title: Cooling the Tropical Built Environment: Discomfort, Decolonization, and
Decarbonization
Session Description:
Tropical climate and building problems related to heat and humidity have long troubled
professionals both within and beyond the tropics, who resorted to various climatic
techniques around (late-)colonial networks to tame the tropics. During the Cold War, the
tropical world became a contested arena in the name of development aid. Despite relying
on a globally circulated climatic knowledge, thermal comfort norms and cooling
technologies, these state and non-state actors from socialist, capitalist and non-aligned
countries who engaged in postcolonial development, often produced discourses of
“tropicality” that deviated from Euro-American templates.
The stakeholders in the Global South were never merely passive recipients of
technological expertise, however. Rather they were often active mediators of multi-
directional global exchanges of “architectural resources”, in Łukasz Stanek’s (2020) term.
We invite papers interrogating global, transnational and local dynamics through
marginalized cases in the long-twentieth centuries across any (sub-)tropical areas,
including Asia-Pacific region, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East
and elsewhere. We particularly welcome the nuanced perspective of “seeing from the
South,” especially how Southern institutions and individuals negotiated external
interventions around “collaborative” frameworks filled with heterogeneity, competition and
contingency. By examining processes, consequences and legacy of local reimagination
and reinterpretation of climate, built spaces, thermal (dis)comfort, labor and body, this
panel speaks to what Daniel Barber (2019) calls “decarbonization as decolonization.”
Drawing on Nicole Starosielski’s (2021) critical temperature studies, we view tropical built
environment’s (uneven) management of heat and cold as means of “enacting racialized,
classed and gendered forms of power.” We encourage proposals that engage the
interdependence between architecture’s climatic techniques, human body, non-human
actors, and exercise of socio-political power, focusing on the underappreciated roles of
marginalized people, suppressed knowledge, neglected practices, or ignored things.
I’ve been visiting buildings in Accra that I don’t know much about today.
SSMIT Pension House: super bit of brutalism near the ministries. This building looks after the state pensions – but who designed it? Perhaps a forgotten Nickson & Borys? Rather nice open staircase and precise brise soleil…. I can’t find any references to it in my collections or at the RIBA library catalogue. I’ll have to check WABA Journal again, but don’t recall ever reading about this significant building?
Accra Technical Institute. My reliable sources say it’s designed by none other than James Cubitt. Could be – it resembles his early work at KNUST, Kumasi. OR should I have gone to the Accra Technical College? But the dates for that institution don’t seem to add up.
Then there’s a delightful commercial building in Jamestown. It resembles the UAC Kingsway Store in Sekondi. It definitely wasn’t a Kingsway, but perhaps was linked to the UAC?
Finally “Betty House”. A rather large house in what was a prestigious neighbourhood in Jamestown at Korle Wokon. Historically important as the residence of Nana Akufo-Addo’s father and served as HQ for Ghana’s first political party, the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) after its formation in 1947.
Bringing the Kingsway Stores Home: Our Exhibition Opens in Accra15 Jan – Easter
On 15th January, we celebrated the opening of “Shopping Emporiums of West Africa: The Kingsway Stores” at Jamestown Cafe and Gallery in Accra, marking a significant milestone in our ongoing research into the architectural and commercial legacy of the United Africa Company. The launch evening brought together an engaged audience including President of the Ghana Institute of Architects Tony Asare, Dr Abena Busia, and Ronnie Micallef, the incoming High Commissioner of Malta in Accra, for what proved to be a thought-provoking discussion about retail modernism, colonial commerce, and architectural heritage in West Africa. David Kojo Derban gave a wonderful opening talk to contextualise the exhibition, along with a wider welcome from cafe and gallery owner architect Joe Owusu Addo.
The exhibition represents the culmination of over 5 years of collaborative research examining the Kingsway department store chain, which operated across West Africa throughout much of the twentieth century. Working alongside Unilever archivist Claire Tunstall and colleagues Ewan Harrison, Rixt Woudstra, Paul Robinson, and Michele Tenzon, we’ve traced the fascinating story of these iconic shopping emporiums from their inception through the independence periods of West Africa and beyond.
This work forms part of our broader investigation into the United Africa Company, published last year by Bloomsbury as “Architecture, Empire, Trade.” In our recent Journal of Design History article, co-authored with Ewan Harrison, Irene Appeaning Addo, and Oluwaseun Muraina, we wrote that “Kingsway responded to independence by instrumentalizing a particularly modernist domesticity through a series of didactic marketing efforts and the construction of boldly modernist new stores.” The article reveals how these stores weren’t simply places of commerce but architectural statements where “modernism is here revealed as complexly imbricated with colonial and neocolonial profit-seeking.”
The exhibition itself has journeyed from Liverpool to Ghana, carefully packed and stored at Jamestown Cafe before being installed in early January. Two freestanding pavilions display archival photographs from the Unilever Archive, accompanied by newly commissioned 3D-printed models created by Liverpool School of Architecture students and archival films that bring the stores’ bustling atmosphere to life. The pavilions themselves, fabricated using CNC routers by our expert technical team at Liverpool lead by James Galliford, echo the modernist architectural language of the stores they document.
What makes presenting this exhibition in Accra particularly meaningful is the opportunity to share this research in the very city where the first Kingsway store stood. The ruins stand next door to the gallery – a poignant reminder of this commercial and architectural heritage. Through collaboration with Allotey Bruce Konuah, we’ve extended the exhibition beyond the gallery walls with vinyl street banners installed on both the gallery exterior, creating a dialogue between past and present. The banners also contain QR codes so visitors and passers-by can freely download the catalogue.
Our commitment to sharing this research extends beyond this single exhibition. We were interviewed on Asaase Radio morning show and it was great to share our work with a broader audience across Ghana. Following the exhibitions run in Accra through to Easter, we hope to tour the exhibition to other venues, continuing the conversation about how retail modernism, colonial commerce, and architectural heritage intersect. This exhibition reminds us that architecture is never merely about buildings; it’s about the economic, social, and political systems that produce them.
China’s Two Tropical Architectures: Climatic Regimes, Socialist Reconstruction, and Global Maoism in Guangzhou and Dar es Salaam, 1955-76, by Sun Zhijian, National University of Singapore, supervised by Prof Jiat-Hwee Chang.
Abstract:
In the contexts of decolonization and the Cold War, the tropical world became a contested arena with fierce competition among various old and new donors in the name of development aid, of which the infrastructural construction constituted the backbone. In the past decade, a growing body of literature on postcolonial tropical architecture has challenged current accounts weighed towards the built environment produced by either the former metropolitan powers or the Soviet-bloc, by shedding new light on the role of a third category of emerging aid donors, especially socialist China. Following the Sino-Soviet Split (1960), the Chinese attempted to promote an alternative socialist development path in newly-independent African states to that proposed by their Soviet-allied rivals. However, despite the allegedly age-old Sino-African solidarity, as latecomers in the unfamiliar tropics, the Chinese struggled against many challenges, among which the most crucial was the hot-and-humid climate as well as building problems it caused. This process almost coincided with their domestic socialist reconstruction through coping with the scorching heat and humidity in subtropical Guangdong under the Great Leap Forward (1958-62) and subsequent revolutions.
Based on archival materials from China, Tanzania and the UK, this thesis is a transnational history of China’s two tropical architectures in relation to both domestic politics and global geo-politics in the mid-to-late 20th century, i.e. China’s overseas architectural aid in decolonizing Dar es Salaam, Tanzania under Nyerere’s Ujamaa socialism, which was the largest sub-Saharan African recipient of China’s assistance in the Cold War, and China’s domestic subtropical modern architecture in Maoist Guangzhou, which has long been the stronghold of China’s subtropical knowledge production. Through case studies of sample projects of industrial and agricultural infrastructures in Guangzhou and Dar es Salaam, it answers two overarching questions: Since China’s two tropical architectures took place concurrently, were there any transnational interactions between their knowledge production and practice? (If so, how did they happen?) How did the Chinese socio-cultural construction of the tropics give rise to a distinctively “anti-imperialist” mechanism of tropical architecture from that of the West and socialist North?
Moving beyond traditional architectural historiography relying primarily on stylistic analysis, it draws on theories of “techno-political regimes” and “critical temperature studies” to develop the notion of “climatic regimes” to capture the interdependence between tropical architecture’s climatic management and the exercise of socio-political power. As the socio-technical arrangements of an interlinked body of climatic knowledge, thermal comfort norms, sanitary discourses, urban typologies and architectural expertise transcending Cold-War rivalries, climatic regimes render intelligible a certain set of climatic parameters, trigger remedial strategies dealing with environmental concerns and normalize people’s thermal sensation for certain political goals. It argues that China’s two tropical architectures were not only concurrent, but more importantly, were co-constitutive with each other through a highly-centralized bureaucratic network of socialist state-run institutions rather than the genius of certain individuals, in which not only architects and planners, but also building physicists, meteorologists, physiologists, ventilating engineers and technocratic Party cadres were all active mediators of global flows of resources and expertise. Divergent from the Soviet-bloc’s climatic regimes paying particular attention to former colonial thermal segregations of mass housing in Africa, the Chinese endeavors driven by the Sino-Tanzanian common appetite for rapid industrialization and self-reliance under the principle of “Production First, Livelihood Second” resulted in the uneven distribution of climatic considerations between industrial and non-industrial spaces in the work-unit typologies both within and beyond China. By revealing how the Chinese tropicality worked from within and vice versa, it contributes to existing literature on the histories of both modern Chinese architecture’s transnational influence and global tropical architecture, as well as recent scholarly attention to thermal comfort in the built environment against the Anthropogenic climate change.
As Hardly Found: Art and Tropical Architecture centres artists and artworks that have so far been overlooked by histories of ‘tropical architecture’. In this collection of essays, historians, artists and archivists address works of art connected to epicentres of teaching and practice within the movement – focusing on the Department of Tropical Architecture at the Architectural Association and its collaborators such as Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology – which emerged in the mid-20th century alongside anticolonial struggles that dismantled the British Empire.
Here, authors use creative, critical and speculative methods to inhabit the gaps in archives of tropical architecture, highlighting artworks in Nigeria, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Singapore, Costa Rica, Cuba and the UK. Their contributions trace connections within a network of relations between art and architecture; one which recentres the rich and diverse forms of environmental knowledge, social values and material cultures contributed by artists working in these contexts.
We are delighted to welcome the editor, Albert Brenchat-Aguilar, and the team from AA Publications, who will give a short introduction to the book. A small installation will accompany, food and refreshments will be provided.
Hector Othon Corfiato (1892 – 3 May 1963) was a Greek architect (although some claim Egyptian). After studying at École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he established the firm of Corfiato, Thomson & Partners and was professor and director at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL from 1946 to 1959 (emeritus from 1960). He worked on various ecclesiastical projects including https://c20society.org.uk/c20-churches/notre-dame-de-france and https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/grade-ii-listing-for-rare-corfiato-church and after his retirement the Church at Debre Libanos, Ethiopia (circa 1961).
Church at Debre Libanos, Ethiopia
He also completed some further projects in Burma, and in West Africa for the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology (NCAS&T) in Zaria. Whilst in Nigeria he established an office at the collage and took on further projects including for the Manchester based firm G B Ollivant.
G B Ollivant (GBO) was bought by the United Africa Company in 1933 and transitioned from cotton and fabric trading into general retail, office supplies, and building management. Corfiato designed several bungalow types for the firm as well as a large retail store in Onitsha (1959) selling cottons, hardware, provisions, and fancy goods. The store was to connect to an existing Cosley store – which we suspect were hardware/builders merchants.
The building provided showroom spaces as well as retail and was probably used more for wholesaling than general retail. The exposed concrete frame of the building supported the overhanging roof to provide solar shading to the upper level whilst the ground floor had a further projecting canopy over pavement. It’s utilitarian and straightforward – but more than a mere warehouse and a considerable aesthetic departure from GBOs usual building style found elsewhere in West Africa. It’s looking more towards the ‘high end’ retail stores being built at the same time across Nigeria, and was part of the construction boom in Onitsha that saw the new cathedral (by Richard Nickson) and market hall (see Nigeria magazine no65, 1960).
Archive snaps of the GBO premises in Onitsha, 1959, designed by Corfiato and partners, from originals in the Unilever Archives, UAC/2/10/a1/4/4/1/5/2
Corfiato collaborated with various other architects about whom we know very little. They’re listed in Nigeria Magazine as just “Avis” and “Horner” and are given credit for designing the Dispensary at Zaria College and a store for Gottschalck in Kaduna. The Gottschalck store closely resembles the GBO store and was also part of the UAC group.
Above Gottschalck Store at Kaduna. BEAM on the right hand side was another UAC subsidiary, ‘Business Equipment And Machines’. From Nigeria Magazine no73, 1962.
These projects raise a number of questions: Did Corfiato ever visit West Africa? Was he responsible for obtaining these commissions in the UK and then establishing a satellite office in Nigeria? Who were Avis and Horner? They were clearly a capable team and delivered some significant residential, educational, and commercial projects across Nigeria.
After the Global Turn: Current Colonial, Decolonial and Postcolonial Perspectives in Architecture
What is the status of postcolonial and decolonial discourse in architecture?
How has the “global turn” in architectural discourse evolved from histories of contact, conquest and colonization?
Forty years ago, the influential essays of “‘Race,’ Writing and Difference” appeared in Critical Inquiry (Gates, 1985, 1986). Essays by Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Hazel Carby, Jacques Derrida, Abdul R. JanMohamed, and others created new critical models that interrogated how difference had been inscribed as “race” and explored the complex interactions of race, writing and difference, which influenced architectural history and theory for several decades.
That same year, Spiro Kostof’s textbook A History of Architecture (1985) spurred a “global turn” in architecture that has complicated the field’s canon. The new global discourse seeks to understand contemporary globalization as manifested in the built environment, exemplified by the foundation of the Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative (GAHTC) and the publication of multiple volumes on global architecture.
The global turn has attempted to close the dichotomies of East and West, North and South imposed by earlier colonial and postcolonial theories, such as Edward Said’s formulation of Orientalism as the Occident’s “other” (Said, 1978). Perspectives from the “Global South” have emerged as important correctives to the hegemony of Northern Hemisphere-centered scholarship and practice. What has resulted from this “turn” has been ambiguous, however, as it often focuses on architects from the Global North operating in the Global South or developments modeled after Western architecture and urban design, without a concomitant innovation in truly global approaches and subject matter.
This Special Issue aims to explore the field’s development from colonial, decolonial and postcolonial theory to the global turn and beyond. We encourage papers that take innovative approaches to the colonial, postcolonial, decolonial and global in architecture, including such topics as:
Transnational connections and flows in excess of political boundaries;
Decentered models of global architecture;
Race and architecture;
Feminist, subaltern and minor perspectives on architecture,
Critical Inquiry: Autumn 1985 (vol. 12, no. 1) and Autumn 1986 (vol. 13, no. 1); Henry Louis Gates, ed. “Race,” Writing, and Difference. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
In 1958, the Ghana Arts Council and the Rockefeller Foundation provided the necessary funding to set up ‘the Experimental Theatre Players’ spearheaded by Efua Sutherland and Joe Degraft. Architects Gerlach and Gillies-Reyburn were commissioned to design the structure which was based around two performance stages – one ‘in the round’ and the other a proscenium arch theatre. It was Sutherland who generated the design strategy,
“Conceptualized by Sutherland, the dominance of traditional motifs in the architectural design of this theatre edifice was a statement of cultural renaissance, independence, and nationalism because she believed “political independence suggested cultural autonomy”
(Anku, S. S. (2022). (Post) Colonial Ghanaian Attitudes Towards Ibsen: An Overview of Ibsen Reception in Ghana Between 1930 and 1966. Ibsen Studies, 22(1), 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/15021866.2022.2063977).
The stages are enclosed by a series of interlocked rooms built from sandcrete and providing changing, offices, and other ancillary functions. The project received a full write up in the West African Builder and Architect journal in 1962.
Images from West African Builder and Architect, 1962
“It was a small structure, unpretentious but handsome, traditional in inspiration yet modern in design. The dazzling whitewashed walls with their dark trim resembled a village compound and were meant to. Inside, at one end, a platform stage was covered by an overhanging roof; but the auditorium, with its seats of carved Ghanaian stools, was open to the night sky. It stood in a rough, weedy place approached by dusty footpaths, its simplicity contrasting sharply with the gaudy grandeur of Accra’s nearby Ambassador Hotel. The crowds were gathering at the entrance that was shaped like a huge traditional stool and flanked by two massive Akuaba dolls, sculpted male and female symbols of fertility”
(Anku, S. S. (2022). (Post) Colonial Ghanaian Attitudes Towards Ibsen: An Overview of Ibsen Reception in Ghana Between 1930 and 1966. Ibsen Studies, 22(1), 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/15021866.2022.2063977)
Anku further notes that the theatre was “replicated and relocated to the School of Performing Arts premises at the University of Ghana” – it’s unusual for a building to be entirely remade in a new location. The old site, as Anku notes, was near the Ambassador Hotel – this is now where the Mövenpick Hotel is located. Was the structure physically demolished, moved, and rebuilt? Perhaps the old site is where the National Theatre is located today?
The new Drama Studio at University of Ghana, Legon. Photograph by Phanuel Parbey
The July-August 2025 edition of the Architectural Review has published an extended 9-page feature article written by Lois Quartey and Julia Gallagher on the Accra Community Centre, Ghana. The building designed by Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, with Theo Crosby as the lead assistant, opened in 1951 and quickly became an important educational, cultural, and social hub in the city. It was paid for by the United Africa Company in an attempt to foster local support after its ‘Swanmill’ HQ was looted and burned following the 1948 Accra riots. TAG provided some drawings and photographs that accompany the article.
The primary thrust of the piece is to raise awareness of this significant historic structure – especially how it was used in the independence campaigns and beyond – and to stress just how vulnerable this building is. Currently being used as a mere store and at risk from the Marine Drive development plan – the article expands on what we covered here https://transnationalarchitecture.group/2022/06/22/accras-renaissance-fishing-harbour-marine-drive-and-a-new-cathedral/ back in 2022.
It’s a deceptively simple and even ordinary building at first sight – but after spending time exploring it’s two interconnected courtyards and assembly hall it quickly begins to feel at home, climatically comfortable, and a nice place to be. It’s also a significant structure because of its design pedigree and especially because of its political significance – so many important speeches, gatherings, and events took place here in the advent to independence and beyond. It’s also home to one of the largest installations by leading artist Kofi Antubam – that alone should secure its future. Our model that replicates one made by Fry and Drew featured in the recent V&A Tropical Modernism exhibition too.
If foreign and leading agencies such as the V&A museum and Architectural Review are prepared to give this seemingly humble building exposure, critique, and cause for preservation – surely the case can be made to restore this heritage structure and to weave it into the wider Marine Drive masterplan. Champions of Ghanaian culture https://www.design233.com/articles/in-trust-for-the-people are behind saving these works and raising awareness, but much more needs to be done.
To deliberately allow a ‘managed decline’ and slow demolition is a tragic waste and short sighted view of the building’s rich political history.
Transnational Architecture Group 