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CRUCIBLES, VECTORS, CATALYSTS: ENVISIONING THE MODERN CITY

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February 16, 2021
Africa, Conferences, European Transnational, Fry & Drew, Ghana, Global Architecture, Heritage, Historiography, India, MENA, Middle East, South East Asia, transnational, Tropical Architecture
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Explore modern cities and architectural production in the blurred era of the independence and postcolonial period

Join us for three sessions which will bring together scholars, researchers and curators to explore architectural production in the blurred era of independence to the post-colonial period of the mid-20th century, focussing on cities in Africa, Middle East and South Asia. 

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/crucibles-vectors-catalysts-envisioning-the-modern-city-tickets-138966892717

Whether driven by socialist agendas (Nehruvian in India and Nkrumah in Ghana), monarchies (Pahlavis in Iran and Hashemite in Iraq), quasi colonial protectorates, or pan-continental aspirations, architecture (and especially Modernism) was a key apparatus for nation-building, for re-imagining identities and a means to project and invent a new image of the future. The seminar seeks to explore the use of architecture as both physical infrastructure and symbolic expression, as well as its vulnerability to the vicissitudes of changing politics and policies of the times.

The role of cities as crucibles, vectors and catalysts for developing new expressions of identity, change and power is key. Cities in this period saw the emergence of schools of thought, dynasties and collaborations were formed, networks and ideas were shared and publications were disseminated. While the desire of a newly independent nation was often to consolidate a single national collective identity, it was through the urban centres that strands of coherent, yet often multiple identities were formed. The role of figures such as Rifat Chadirji, Mohamed Makiya, Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry were important as they often operated within multiple cities and cross-cultural contexts that spanned the colonial to postcolonial divide. 

These urban centres were either newly built, or they were remade and reimagined through city infrastructure, government buildings, universities, cultural institutions and national monuments. Architecture schools, state sponsored projects and external agencies feed into the discussion and warrant further exploration. The seminar explores the transnational connections, diverse political agendas and complex allegiances which informed architectural development in this period. 

Seminar convenors:

  • Iain Jackson, Professor of Architecture and Research Director, Liverpool School of Architecture
  • Clara Kim, The Daskalopoulos Senior Curator, International Art, Tate Modern
  • Nabila Abdel Nabi, Curator, International Art, Tate Modern

PROGRAMME
TUESDAY 2 MARCH

Session 1: Crucibles, 15:00-16:30 (UTC)

  • Building the Modern City: Expressions of Identity, Change and Power
    • Moderated by Iain Jackson

This panel will explore state-sponsored programmes, planned cities and masterplans in cities such as Lagos, Tehran and Baghdad. It will examine architecture as expressions of nationalism and nationalist political agendas as well as its relationship to big business, corporations and mercantile ventures.

Speakers:

  • Talinn Grigor (University of California, Davis)
    • Building a (Cosmopolitan) Modern Iran
  • Ola Uduku (Manchester School of Architecture)
    • Lagos International Metropolis: A city’s adventure in tropical architecture as an expression of dynamic modernism and growth in the mid 20th century
  • Lukasz Stanek (University of Manchester)
    • Rupture, Transition and Continuity in Baghdad’s Master Plans: From Minoprio to Miastoprojekt

Session 2: Vectors, 17:00-18:30 (UTC)

  • Connecting the Modern City: Networks, Alliances and Knowledge Production
    • Moderated by Clara Kim

This panel will explore the practice of modern architecture through colonial-postcolonial networks and geopolitical alliances. It will explore cities in Mozambique within the context of other Lusophone countries, post-Partition East & West Pakistan, as well as the dissemination of knowledge and technical expertise through pedagogy.

Speakers:

  • Ana Tostões (University of Lisbon)
    • Correspondences, Transfers and Memory: Maputo’s “Age of Concrete”
  • Fahran Karim (University of Kansas)
    • Archaeology of the Future: Constantinos Doxiaidis in East and West Pakistan
  • Patrick Zamarian (University of Liverpool)
    • Global Perspectives and Private Concerns: The AA’s Department of Tropical Architecture

TUESDAY 9 MARCH

Session 3: Catalysts, 15:00-16:30 (UTC)

  • Fragments of the Modern City: Memories, Echoes and Whispers
    • Moderated by Nabila Abdel Nabi

This panel will explore the collaborations, connections and entanglements that developed between art and architecture during a dynamic period of building in Morocco, India and Iraq. It will examine the legacy and afterlives of these projects through the investigation of under-recognised figures and narratives in art and architecture.

Speakers:

  • Lahbib el Moumni & Imad Dahmani (founders of MAMMA, Mémoire des Architectes Modernes Marocain)
    • Initiatives toward saving modern heritage of Morocco
  • Ram Rahman (Photographer/Curator)
    • Building Modern Delhi, The Nehruvian Post-Independence Renaissance
  • Amin Alsaden (Independent Scholar)
    • Syntheses Across Disciplines: Rifat Chadirji and Art-Architecture Liaisons in Modern Baghdad

This event is organised by Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational and Liverpool School of Architecture.

Call for Papers: Twentieth Century Society – British Architecture in the World

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June 16, 2020
Africa, British Colonial Architecture, European Transnational, Ghana, Global Architecture, India, Middle East, South East Asia, transnational, Tropical Architecture
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Call for Papers: British Architecture in the World

As part of its long-running series Twentieth Century Architecture, the Twentieth Century Society is planning a journal for publication on the relationship between British architecture and other countries of the world, particularly those beyond Europe.

Pansodan Street, Yangon, including Chartered Bank, Palmer & Turner, 1939–41.

Pansodan Street, Yangon, including Chartered Bank, Palmer & Turner, 1939–41.

The nature of the relationship may take a number of forms, such as British-based practices working overseas, British architects establishing offices in other countries, architects coming to Britain for training before returning home, or more general issues of how the profession in Britain set standards for education and validation elsewhere, in particular through the RIBA. We tend to favour actual buildings as subject matter in Twentieth Century Architecture, but on this occasion the field may be wider, including town planning, cultural responses, climatic adaptation, administrative histories, professional formations, and relationships to the later period of colonialism and its ending. Accounts of the scope of archival resources could be of interest, and we might also include reports on the current state of buildings, including threats and conservation projects.

Jane Drew, housing in Sector-22, Chandigarh, c. 1954.

Jane Drew, housing in Sector-22, Chandigarh, c. 1954.

The scope outlined above is larger than usual for what is a relatively small collection of published pieces – the journal usually contains about ten articles – but it seems preferable not to place limitations until we are aware of what might be available. Recently, research and publication in this area have grown rapidly, and our aim is to bring together articles that complement each other, but with a spread of periods (anything from 1914 to around 2000), styles and locations. The journal will be the sixteenth in the series, and will probably be published in 2023.

In the first instance, please send your ideas by 01 July 2020 in the form of an abstract of up to 300 words, along with a brief CV and list of publications to date, to elain.harwood@HistoricEngland.org.uk, who will also answer any queries. Abstracts will be reviewed by the editorial committee of the journal, drawn from members of the Twentieth Century Society Publications Committee, and selected for full submission. Completed texts will be peer-reviewed.

Following commissioning, delivery would be 1 March 2022, the length of articles should be between 2,000 and 5,000 words, with up to ten images per article. Contributors are expected to provide and pay for images of publishable quality.

New Paper: Infrastructure between Statehood and Selfhood: The Trans-African Highway

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March 2, 2020
Africa, transnational, Tropical Architecture
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Infrastructure between Statehood and Selfhood: The Trans-African Highway

Kenny Cupers, Prita Meier
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 79 No. 1, March 2020; (pp. 61-81) DOI: 10.1525/jsah.2020.79.1.61

 

Focusing on the 1960s–70s project to build a trans-African highway network, Infrastructure between Statehood and Selfhood: The Trans-African Highway argues for the need to develop a more dialectical understanding of the relationship between people and infrastructure than current architectural and urban scholarship affords. As Kenny Cupers and Prita Meier describe, African leaders imagined infrastructure as a vehicle of Pan-African freedom, unity, and development, but the construction of the Trans-African Highway relied on expertise and funding from former colonial overlords. Based on archival research, visual analysis, and ethnographic fieldwork in Kenya, this article examines the highway’s imaginaries of decolonization to show how infrastructure was both the business of statehood and a means of selfhood.

Map of the Trans-African Highway project, late 1970s (Rolf Hofmeier, “Die Transafrikastraßen: Stand der Planung und Realisierung,” Africa Spectrum 14, no. 1 [1979], 35).

Map of the Trans-African Highway project, late 1970s (Rolf Hofmeier, “Die Transafrikastraßen: Stand der Planung und Realisierung,” Africa Spectrum 14, no. 1 [1979], 35).

From the automobile and the tarmac road to the aesthetics and practices of mobility these fostered, infrastructure was a vehicle for the production of subjectivity in postindependence Kenya. This new selfhood, future oriented and on the move, was both victim and agent of commodification.

Book Review from Planning Perspectives: “Southeast Asia’s modern architecture: questions of translation, epistemology and power”

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July 30, 2019
Global Architecture, South East Asia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, transnational, Tropical Architecture
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Book Review by Robin Hartanto Honggare: “Southeast Asia’s modern architecture: questions of translation, epistemology and power” by Jiat-Hwee Chang and Imran bin Tajudeen, Planning Perspectives.

One to add to the summer reading list….

Full book review is here: Southeast Asia’s modern architecture: questions of translation, epistemology and power

Ng’ambo Atlas: Historic Urban Landscape of Zanzibar Town’s ‘Other Side’

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June 14, 2019
Africa, British Colonial Architecture, transnational, Tropical Architecture, Zanzibar
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Ng’ambo Atlas. Historic Urban Landscape of Zanzibar Town’s ‘Other Side’

Ng’ambo is the lesser known ‘Other Side’ of Zanzibar Town. During the British Protectorate the area was designated as the ‘Native Quarters’, today it is set to become the new city centre of Zanzibar’s capital. Local and international perceptions of the cultural and historical importance of Ng’ambo have for a long time remained overshadowed by the social and cultural divisions created during colonial times. One thing is certain: despite its limited international fame and lack of recognition of its importance, Ng’ambo has played and continues to play a vital role in shaping the urban environment of Zanzibar Town.

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Ng’ambo Atlas. Historic Urban Landscape of Zanzibar Town’s ‘Other Side’ documents the material collected through the heritage-based urban planning project Ng’ambo Tuitakayo! carried out by the Government of Zanzibar in collaboration with African Architecture Matters and City of Amsterdam and under the auspices of UNESCO.

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The goal of the project was to prepare a local area plan (structure plan) for the new city centre of Zanzibar’s capital. The planning exercises were from the beginning grounded in the notions of urban culture and heritage, while the principles outlined in the UNESCO Recommendation on Historic Urban Landscape provided a framework for the subsequent stages of the work.

It quickly became clear that the cultural and historic richness of Stone Town’s ‘Other Side’ merited a wider recognition than a technical planning document would allow for. At the same time presenting the outcomes of the project to a wider public through an atlas was a way to promote the history and culture of the area and contribute to the argument that urban heritage should play a central role in sustainable development of cities.

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The atlas brings together and presents Ng’ambo’s rich planning history and draws attention to the outcomes of the mapping of the material and immaterial cultural landscape.It presents over hundred years of Ng’ambo’s history and urban development through maps, plans, surveys and images, and provides insights into its present-day cultural landscape through subjects such as architecture, toponymy, cultural activities, public recreation, places for social interaction, handcrafts and urban heritage.

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Ng’ambo Atlas was produced by the Department of Urban and Rural Planning, Zanzibar and African Architecture Matters

Editors: Antoni Folkers and Iga Perzyna

Publication year: 2019

Available for free download from:

https://catalogue.leidenuniv.nl/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=UBL_ALMA51336909840002711&context=L&vid=UBL_V1&lang=en_US&search_scope=All_Content&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&isFrbr=true&tab=all_content&query=any,contains,Ng%27ambo%20atlas&offset=0

Available for purchase at:

https://lmpublishers.nl/en/catalogus/ngambo-atlas-historic-urban-landscape-of-zanzibar-towns-other-side/

Sharing Stories from Jamestown: Exhibition Review

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May 23, 2019
Africa, British Colonial Architecture, Fry & Drew, Ghana, Global Architecture, Heritage, transnational, Tropical Architecture
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Thank you to Prof. Ola Uduku of Manchester School of Architecture for reviewing the ‘Sharing Stories from Jamestown’ exhibition. The exhibition has been extended to run until the end of June 2019. Below I’ve uploaded a 360 degree panoramic view – you can ‘click and drag’ the film to have a look around….

ouduku's avatarWARUH: West African Rapid Urbanisation and Heritage Conservation Research Network

Iain Jackson’s exhibition co-curated by Allotey Konuah-Bruce and Joe Addo opened to great acclaim on Saturday evening at the Jamestown Café, venue, near Ussher Fort. Curiously the café it was confirmed by local elders who attended the opening is accurately in Usshertown; the exhibition launch providing a great forum for these questions to be aired and for detailed discussions to be had.

Historic photographs and maps of ‘old’
Jamestown buildings have been placed next to those which show their age,
condition and use, in ‘contemporary’ Jamestown have been displayed in the lower
gallery of the Jamestown Café, which itself features in the exhibition as Tarquah
house, the dwelling and warehouse of one of Jamestown’s wealthy local
merchants, who had originally had it built. The exhibition represents a true
joint collaboration between Iain Jackson and Allotey Konuah-Bruce who have
formed a close and productive working relationship as they have spent the…

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AFRICAN ARCHITECTURE WRITING WORKSHOP 2019 First Call for Applications

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April 25, 2019
Africa, Global Architecture, Heritage, Historiography, transnational, Tropical Architecture
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This is an excellent opportunity for emerging writers and students. Last year’s gathering produced some excellent work, and this year we will have the exhibition at James Town Cafe as a provocation and stimulus for debate….

ouduku's avatarWARUH: West African Rapid Urbanisation and Heritage Conservation Research Network

We are pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for the 2019 British Academy – ASAUK funded 2019 African Architecture Writing Workshops. These workshops are offered for postgraduate students looking to develop their academic writing skills in the areas of architecture, urbanism and related disciplines.

This year there are two workshops. The first to be offered will take place in May 2019

FIRST WORKSHOP DETAILS

“Sharing
Stories from Jamestown and the Creation of Mercantile Accra” Writing Workshop

Monday, May 12 – Sunday, May 18, 2019

This workshop explores the colonial
and mercantile architecture of Jamestown, the British settlement area of
colonial Accra and located in Ga Mashie. This writing workshop is linked to the
May 17 exhibition organized by Professor Iain Jackson (University of Liverpool) and Joe Osae-Addo and Allotey Bruce-Konuah (Jamestown Cafe), which will showcase archival and historical images and
maps of Accra’s…

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Ibadan University Library: front elevation drawing

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February 15, 2019
Africa, British Colonial Architecture, Fry & Drew, Ghana, transnational, Tropical Architecture
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Maxwell Fry, the architect and planner of Ibadan University, considered the campus to be the highlight of his career, although he confessed that he found the Kenneth Dike library elevation too ‘lace-like’.

It is an extraordinary structure and we’ve covered it on the TAG blog previously, as well as printing a 3D sectional model of the structure. Taking a more retro step, I’ve now produced a hand-drawn (rotring, ink wash) front elevational drawing of the building (minus the small reading room on the RHS and smaller structure on the LHS, for clarity).

Kenneth Dike Library at Ibadan University, Nigeria

The drawing stretches over 2 x A1 sheets and has been scanned, pieced together, and the blue ‘sky’ added in Photoshop. I’m going to follow drawing with some additional studies into various libraries in Ghana – especially the Children’s Library in Accra (Nickson and Borys); Sekondi Regional Library (James Cubitt); Koforidua Library (also by Cubitt); KNUST Library (?) and the iconic Bolgatanga library by Max Bond.

Forthcoming Exhibition: Sharing Stories from James Town and the Creation of Mercantile Accra

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February 5, 2019
Africa, British Colonial Architecture, Ghana, Heritage, transnational, Tropical Architecture
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Sharing Stories from James Town and the Creation of Mercantile Accra
Forthcoming Exhibition at James Town Cafe, 17th May 2019

I’ve been working in Jamestown, Accra to start planning an exhibition on the colonial and mercantile architecture of the district. Using archival and historical images and maps the exhibition will celebrate and explore Accra’s rich architectural heritage and urban history. The exhibition will focus on the warehouses, stores, factories and offices of James Town and examine how the city rapidly developed into a vast commercial enterprise.

The images for the exhibition have been generously provided by Unilever, Barclays, UK National Archives, The British Museum and private collections. Most of these images have not been exhibited before and we’re delighted that they will be shown in Accra, and in very close proximity to where they were originally taken.

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Exhibition Promotional Banner outside James Town Cafe with Iain Jackson [L], Joe Osae-Addo [C] and Allotey Bruce-Konuah [R]

There will be a printed/PDF catalogue to accompany the exhibition showing both archival and modern photographs of the buildings, along with historical maps, and we will hang large photographic banners of the archival images directly onto the historic buildings in James Town.

Kingsway Store, 1914
Kingsway Store 2018

The main exhibition (co-designed with architect Joe Osae-Addo and designer Allotey Bruce-Konuah) will be hosted by ArchiAfrika at the James Town Café, from 17th May 2019. We’re also hoping that it will go on tour to University of Ghana (details to be announced). In June there will be an additional exhibition hosted at the James Town Café  curated by Lukasz Stanek and Ola Uduku of Manchester School of Architecture – and we’ll include more on both exhibitions here.

We’ve also started a new project to produce 360 degree panoramic photographs (and films) of some of the key sites and streets in James Town (and its environs). The images have been captured with a Ricoh Theta camera and we’ve taken over 200 photographs/ short films to date. The clips will be pieced together as a series of films and overdubbed with a commentary on the history and significance of the buildings in view. The films may be viewed with a VR headset for a more immersive experience. Allotey Bruce-Konuah already gives tours of James Town, and these films will enable his expertise to reach a wider audience, as well as encouraging new visitors to make the trip to this unique and highly important portion of Accra.

 

A World of Architectural History conference: 10:00 am, 02 November 2018 to 6:00 pm, 04 November 2018

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September 30, 2018
Africa, Conferences, Global Architecture, Heritage, transnational, Tropical Architecture
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A World of Architectural History is the 4th annual conference of the Architectural Research in Europe Network Association (ARENA).

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The conference aims to critique and celebrate the latest global advances within architectural history over the last few decades, by focusing upon the word ‘global’ in two senses: 

  • Geographically – referring to the increasing inclusion of all parts of the world in more complex and multiple discourses of architectural history
  • Intellectually – the ongoing expansion of architectural history into other academic subjects, plus the reception of ideas/themes from those subjects

Recognition will be given to a more inclusive approach to architectural history that seeks to incorporate the histories of all countries/regions, and to the significant contributions now being made through interdisciplinary links with other subjects. As such, the conference will represent the forefront of the field internationally and discuss where architectural history ought to head in the future.

Conference presenters will include those from a wide range of subject areas within The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment and leading figures in architectural history across the world. Both invited speakers and those selected via an open call will contribute their papers.

Conference themes

Eight thematic areas will be presented over the two days of the conference, with these themes also framing the call for papers:

  • Culture and Architectural History
  • Architectural History and Design Research
  • The Expanded Field
  • Colonialism, Post-Colonialism and Beyond
  • History, Environment and Technology
  • Architectural History as Pedagogy
  • Global Domesticity
  • Informalities, Identities and Subjectivities

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/events/2018/nov/world-architectural-history-conference