During the 1960s, Accra stood at the center of the anticolonial world. As the capital of Ghana—the first independent country in sub-Saharan Africa following European colonization—the city drew revolutionaries, intellectuals, and artists from across the continent and the Cold War divides. Ghana’s first leader, Kwame Nkrumah, envisioned Accra as a showcase of African statehood and invited architects to help shape its future.
Exhibition Photograph, courtesy of Łukasz Stanek, 2025.
Intersections traces the collaboration of two architects who responded to that call: Ghanaian Victor Adegbite (1925–2014) and Hungarian Charles Polónyi (1928–2002). Polónyi arrived in Accra as part of Eastern European technical assistance programs supporting Ghana’s transition to socialism. He worked for the Ghana National Construction Corporation (GNCC), where Adegbite—a Howard University graduate—served as chief architect. In their work at the GNCC they mobilized architectural resources from the socialist, capitalist, and non-aligned countries and designed buildings that responded to Ghana’s needs, means, and aspirations.
The exhibition centers on the housing projects designed by Adegbite and Polónyi, which embodied the many dimensions of independence—from representing a new elite to the state’s provision of housing for all social groups. By juxtaposing family archives from the United States and Hungary—preserved by the architects’ daughters—the exhibition both reconstructs and reenacts an encounter from sixty years ago. By recording how the buildings designed by Adegbite and Polónyi have been appropriated by their inhabitants, it shows how the architects’ work continues to impact Accra’s urban landscapes.
Curators: Michael Dziwornu and Łukasz Stanek, in collaboration with Dana Salama.
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.
Accra’s James Fort is an iconic monument for Ghana and modern Africa. This lecture explores the fort’s evolution -from its role as a trading post in the early European-African encounters, through its significance during the trans-Atlantic trade and enslavement, to its later use as a modern colonial prison in the post-independence era. It also explores its connection to Ghana’s liberation movement, particularly its role in imprisoning Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and other political leaders during their resistance to British rule. Today, this monument represents the resilience, talent and creative potential of a sustainable future for Ghana and its youthful population.
The latest edition of e-flux contains an interview with Joe Osae-Addo by Kwabena Appeaning Addo where they discuss Joe’s passively cooled house in Accra, Ghana.
Joe Osae-Addo in 2018 with architecture studentsInterior of Joe Osae-Addo’s house, AccraVerandah Exterior of the house with tree canopy, 2020
Kwabena Appeaning Addo: What inspired your design for the Inno-native House in Accra, Ghana?
Joe Osae-Addo: My first thought was “How do I create a building that responds to the weather better than most,” so that I don’t have to use air conditioning? That was my primary focus. I then began thinking about the landscape, about how trees can be used as the first line of defense against heat, and also about how to position a building so that there is no direct solar gain. I was working in Los Angeles at the time, and I learned that the worst heat comes not from the sun, but through conduction from the earth, through the floor slab. So I thought to raise the building by about a meter, removing all direct contact between the floors and the earth, and insulating the building with a pocket of air. Those were my design parameters.
KAA: What happened when you took those principles onto the building site?
JOA: The site and the climate drove the initial layout of the building. After pouring the raised foundation, the first thing I did was to plant mature trees. I didn’t want to plant seedlings, because I wanted the trees to cover the roof by the time construction was done. So, I took a drive out of Accra to the area between Tema and Shai Hills, where there is a natural forest of trees. I went on a rainy day when the soil was wet, with a truck and laborers, and dug out mature—but not fully grown—trees, approximately three meters tall. We brought them back and planted them immediately. A year later, when the house was done, the trees had fully grown in. The ground also had a high water table, so I planted papyrus plants, knowing that they would suck up water. But even so, the site is very wet. On a rainy day, the concrete walkway in front of the house gets wet both from above and below. For the driveway, I used gravel, not concrete, to allow water to flow through and absorb into the ground when it rains. The landscape was integral to the design from the beginning. It is what allowed me to create a cool building.
KAA: What about in the design of the building itself?
JOA: Glass louvres are typically undervalued in contemporary Ghanaian architecture, but they are fantastic at creating cross-ventilation. Many of the exterior walls include glass louvers, at times from floor to ceiling. The rest are made either of laterite blocks or of timber frame walls joined with a tongue and groove system. The interiors of these wood walls are covered with stucco plaster, which makes it feels like a typical cement block wall, but on the outside it is clearly wood. This construction technique, known as Type V construction, is how most buildings in California are built: a 2×4 timber stud frame, 24 inches on center. In my case, however, since there is no air conditioning, there is no need for insulation. The third type of wall in the house, which I am very proud of, is made of wooden slats with a mosquito net attached. The wooden slats have a half-inch gap between them so that air can come through, but because of the net, insects can’t. The interiors are therefore always aerated.
KAA: So does it work?
JOA: Yes, it works! If we had air conditioning, the timber studs would let out so much cold. But because the diurnal temperature variation in Ghana is not significant, designing for cross ventilation works so much better.
KAA: Can you further explain how the walls were designed?
JOA: At the entrance, for example, there is a wall that looks like it is painted concrete block, but it’s actually just plastered. To do this, we placed half-inch plywood against the timber studs, and then placed chicken-wire mesh over the plywood as the support for the plaster.
KAA: So on the inside, it looks like a normal wall, but on the outside, it has a wooden finish. What is it like to maintain the house?
JOA: Well, I haven’t touched it in twenty years.
KAA: Really?
JOA: Well, there was some damage to the surface of the wood deck in the back, but that was because of poor detailing—I shouldn’t have used galvanized nails, which can rust and rot the wood. I haven’t had to repair any of the vertical surfaces.
KAA: That means that it must have been really well constructed.
JOA: Yes, it was. I built it myself, so I made sure everything was right.
KAA: It also means that the wood was treated very well.
JOA: At that time in Ghana, kiln-dried wood wasn’t available. All of the wood we used had to be air dried, so I picked the hardest wood available, which was called “Odanta,” or iron wood. It’s expensive, but I knew that maintenance would be a big issue if we did not use quality wood.
KAA: Does the fact that it doesn’t touch the ground also help?
JOA: Yes! Termites are often an issue if you use wood in Ghana, but this was solved by elevating the building off the ground.
KAA: At the Presbyterian Boys’ Secondary School I went to, some of the teachers’ bungalows were made of wood and they sat on the ground, so I can attest to this! Can you speak further about the laterite walls?
JOA: The laterite walls are composed of compressed earth blocks. I made the blocks myself with the standard cement block formwork. They are stacked and kept together using cement mortar joints, and then finished with stucco. To make the render, we filtered laterite through a sieve to get the finest particles, and added a bit of cement and water. After it dried, we applied clear masonry sealer to protect it from the rain. This generally works, but direct rain can still create damage. So I placed some vertical and horizontal wooden fins on the balcony, so that water does not hit the building directly.
KAA: Is there any benefit to using laterite blocks over sandcrete, which is more typical in Ghana?
JOA: I don’t know the physics of it, but sandcrete seems to conduct more heat than laterite.
KAA: In the middle of the living and dining space, the roof material changes to a translucent acrylic panel. Why is that?
JOA: I wanted to bring in some light. Most of the roof is made of long span corrugated metal, so it serves as a kind of skylight. I didn’t use Perspex because over time it would melt. This is about twenty-years old, and it’s still in perfect shape. Though it occasionally needs cleaning from above to make sure the light doesn’t get too blocked.
KAA: What about the floors?
JOA: The house has polished concrete floors. But the flooring is actually timber, because the house is raised. At the bottom is the timber frame, then, on top of that, plywood, then roofing felt, then chicken wire, and finally concrete, which is primarily made of quarry dust to get as smooth of a finish as possible.
KAA: I also noticed that the kitchen and dining room are lower than the rest of the spaces.
JOA: Yes, they are lower because I was following the topography of the site, which slopes downward. If they were kept at the same level, it would have been very inefficient. Besides, it makes for a nice transition from living room to dining area.
KAA: What about the spatial organization of the rooms?
JOA: Well, the house has no corridors. So you either move from room to room, or use the wraparound deck to avoid disturbing people in adjacent rooms. The reason for this is that when you have an interior corridor, it is difficult to maximize cross ventilation.
KAA: What were some of the challenges with the project?
JOA: Well, one challenge was finding the right carpenters. In Ghana, we don’t often use wood to construct buildings, so getting workers to understand the details and the drawings was difficult.
KAA: How did you address this?
JOA: I wanted to complete everything in twelve months. Since the laborers and artisans were getting paid a daily rate, the longer the process lasted, the more I would have to pay. But since I was the contractor, I could set up systems to speed construction. After we built two bays of columns, for instance, the carpenters I hired to build the timber frames started prefabricating columns, so that we could erect them whenever we needed them. After a certain point, the process of construction became one of assembly.
KAA: Based on your experience, what advice would you give someone who wanted to create a similar design?
JOA: Designers need to make sure that they’re not putting materials in places where they’re going to be compromised very quickly. And, in general, the use of metal should be avoided. Rust is a big issue, particularly in coastal zones. The marine air is corrosive. I used louvres with plastic frames because the metal would have rusted by now. And if you use wood, after it rains, it should be cleaned. No matter how high quality the wood you use is, keeping it dry is best.
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]
Have a look at the latest article from Design233 on Community Centers in Ghana, including the Accra Community Centre (paid for by the UAC) and Tarkwa Community Center (paid for by the Manganese Mining Company) – both designed by Fry and Drew. In addition to these modernist works the more formal and classically inspired centre at Kyebi is discussed – this centre is more of a mystery… We know it was funded by the Consolidated African Selection Trust (CAST)- but who designed it, and why did CAST commission such a lavish project?
Accra Community Center PlanTarkwa Community Center articleKyebi Community Center
The George Padmore Library: A Potential Attribution
Text by Dr Ewan Harrison
George Padmore Library in Accra ,Ghana
The George Padmore Library in Accra is a dynamic composition. Its principal block houses a fan-shaped reading room that extends from an apsidal end wall. This is raised up on pilotis, and is entered via a delicately wrought cantilevered staircase that itself springs from a fan-shaped expanse of terrazzo floating above a reflective pool. Externally, the facades are defined by horizontals of louvred glazing which allow for free air circulation, keeping the reading room at a comfortable temperature, and a strongly modelled canopy with sculpturally expressed rain water outflows. The building was established by the first president of the republic of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, in memory of the pan-Africanist writer, journalist and activist George Padmore. Padmore, who was born in Trinidiad, Nkrumah during the 5th Pan Africanist Conference, held in Manchester in 1945, and on Ghana’s independence, Padmore moved to Ghana to work for Nkrumah’s government as a diplomatic adviser. Sometime following Padmore’s death, Nkrumah’s government built the library in his memory, to house Padmore’s archive and a growing African studies library collection. The Library continues to function as Ghana’s primary deposit library to this day.
Reflecting Pool and staircase of George Padmore Library
Before visiting, I had assumed that the building was likely designed by Nickson & Borys. Responsible for the design of both the Accra Central Library complex and the nearby Ghana National Archives building in the late 1950s, the practice might have seemed the natural fit for a commission to design a bespoke library in Accra at this date. However, on visiting the George Padmore Memorial Library, after having recently spent time in both of Nickson & Borys libraries in the city, the manifest differences in both spatial planning and design between those and the George Padmore Memorial Library became clear. Whilst both the Accra Central Library and the National Library are simple, cubic buildings, the architect of the George Padmore seems to have rejected the rectilinear in their handling of the main reading room. The Nickson & Borys buildings use brise-soliel and pierced concrete walls to dissolve the wall plane: creating lightweight buildings. In contrast, the George Padmore is a heavier, starker, more sculptural composition: much of its drama comes from strongly modelled canopies and sculptural concrete rainwater outflows, and its main facades feature long planes of unbroken concrete.
Curved gable and reflecting pool of George Padmore Library
This points to another possible attribution, a design by Max Bond Jnr (1935-2009). The scion of a prominent African-American family, Bond studied architecture at the Harvard School of Design before working at Le Corbusier’s Paris atelier (1958-61) and the New York practice Pedersen and Tiley (1961-64). Bond believed that African-American culture should ‘hark back to Africa,’[1] and thus in 1963 wrote to Nkrumah asking for a job. By 1964 Bond was established in Accra as an employee of the Ghana National Contracting Corporation, the state’s contractor, working on designs for buildings at the government complex at Flagstaff House. Two of the precepts he outlined as central to his practice in Ghana were a ‘responsiveness to climate,’ and ‘modern buildings for new institutions.’[2] Bond’s most famous commission for the GNCC, the design of a public library at Bolgatanga, in the country’s arid northern region, strongly evidences these concerns. The Bolgatanga library project, which features four discrete volumes – two library reading rooms, a lecture hall and an administration block – under a free-standing roof designed to maximise cooling air circulation throughout the complex, is very different in its massing to the George Padmore Memorial Library. But there is something in Bond’s heavy roof at the Bolgatanga Library, in his handling of the oval wall of the Lecture Hall, and the sculptural treatment of the rainwater goods which show clear affinities with the George Padmore Memorial Library. And there are reasons beyond the stylistic to suggest Bond’s authorship of the building. Padmore’s intellectual project, and, it can be argued, much of Kwame Nkrumah’s political one, resolved around drawing attention to the shared heritage and struggles of Africans and the African diaspora throughout the Atlantic world. In this context, a design by an African-American architect, resident in Ghana, might have seemed especially suitable.
Neither the Accra Town Planning archives, the papers of the Ghana Library Board or the archive of the Padmore Memorial Library itself shed much light on the building’s authorship, although a letter in the National Archives of Accra politely rebuffing an offer from Nickson & Borys to fund a memorial plaque to Padmore is certainly suggestive that the building’s patrons didn’t think a practice headed by European emigres a suitable one to design a memorial to a titan of Pan-Africanism (dated 1961, this letter makes no mention of the project for the Library, suggesting that it predates the library’s construction). Questions remain, however. The Bolgatanga Library was extensively published, if the Padmore is by Bond, why wouldn’t he have seen that it too received attention in architectural publications? Why wouldn’t he accord it a central place in his Ghanian oeuvre? Was this perhaps a collaborative job, an awkward collaboration with one of the expatriate architectural practices that Nkrumah wished to side-line, practices like Nickson & Borys? Or with Eastern European or Yugoslavian architects employed by the GNCC? The last might be the most likely, given Ghana’s political culture in the early 1960s, and Padmore’s own long, if increasingly fractious, association with the Communist Party. Conclusive answer may well lie in the collections of the Avery Library at Columbia, which holds Max Bond Jnr’s archives, or in the private papers of Kwame Nkrumah. For now, a tentative attribution will have to suffice.
George Padmore Library Interior: Photo Iain Jackson
[1] J, Max Bond Jnr and the Approproation of Modernism in a Library Design in Ghana
[2] J, Max Bond Jnr and the Approproation of Modernism in a Library Design in Ghana
Returning to Accra after a 30 month break, I was expecting there to be changes, but not on the scale I witnessed. Three major projects have commenced – the new cathedral; the Marine Drive project; and the new fishing harbour. When completed they will have a drastic impact on the city and how it is experienced. Marine Drive, in particular, promises some spectacular changes to the much neglected and large sea front. For a port city Accra has never really utilised its enviable position overlooking the sea with its refreshing breeze, until now. The scale of the Marine Drive project is vast and incorporates the set design piece of Independence Square as its focal point.
The New HarbourMarine Drive SiteHoardings around the new Cathedral
The project for Marine Drive initially commenced back in 1958 with Geoffrey Jellicoe as lead designer, and various other projects have been mooted since. Jellicoe’s proposal centred around the Community Centre, and also utilised the cricket stadium and polo pitch on the current site of Black Star Square, as well as a golf course and series of club houses.
1958 plan for Marine Drive: source PRAAD
After so many other false starts it looks like Marine Drive is finally going to happen this time, with Sir David Adjaye as the lead architect. Whereas Jellicoe’s design was mainly concerned with providing sport facilities to the Colonial residents, the new proposal includes provision for other leisure facilities including beach bars, shopping, a promenade, and a series of residential and commercial towers. Sir David’s practice is also designing the new Accra cathedral and initial ground works have also commenced, with the site hoarded off and clad with architectural renderings explaining the project’s concept.
A rendering of the new Marine Drive project: towers around Black Star Square.Current view of Black Star Square
The fishing harbour project has resulted in an extension of the old breakwater wall along with some major engineering works linking the shore to the harbour, as shown above.
It’s impressive that the city is conducting works of this scale, ambition, and vision. We’ll continue to record the developments here and to document the changes.
We also revisited the classic modernist constellation of the law court, library, and community centre. Whilst the library is still in use the community centre is not, other than as a store. It’s looking particularly tired, and the building fabric is beginning to deteriorate. Its future is uncertain, and as it sits within the Marine Drive development area discussed above it isn’t clear what, if any, it’s role will be. Even the beautiful Ghana Club is potentially at risk from the new development. It’s been mooted that the club might have to be physically moved to a new site. It’s not an impossible solution as the upper level is a timber structure with louvred facades. It could be jacked up and rolled to a new location, but equally it’s also disappointing that these older structures were not incorporated and woven into the new plans.
Community Centre / Store?Abandoned Christmas decorations in the Community CentreThe Ghana Club – potentially at risk of demolition / being moved elsewhere?
The 1951 victory for Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’sParty resulted in some major shifts in the procurement of new infrastructure and housing. For the electorate, housing was one of the most important issues and Nkrumah’s government was quick to recognize this potency.
His plan, announced in 1952, was to build a new port city, complete with innovative and improved housing at the highest standards. Located only 18 miles from the centre of Accra, the new city of Tema would demonstrate Nkrumah’s commitment to industrial development and that Ghana was at the centre of a pan-African vision.
Tema under construction: female labour force transporting blocks and cement
Tema was part of a wider industrialization project that included a new aluminum smelting plant and hydroelectric power station on the Volta River. It was a major project involving international financial backing and set out the major ambition Nkrumah had for the nation during the advent of independence. For such a major project, very little is known about the first team of architects and planners responsible for the execution and delivery.
Transnational Architecture Group 
