Archive

Tag Archives: Dakar

Banjul, The Gambia: From Kingsway to Pierre Goudiaby

By
May 6, 2024
Africa, AHUWA, United Africa Company
3 Comments

As part of the Architecture of the United Africa Project I wanted to visit Banjul to investigate if there was any surviving buildings remaining from the UAC era. There was surprisingly little material in the UAC archive relating to the town and wider country – and we knew that the business focused its efforts elsewhere in West Africa. Despite this – there was a Kingsway Store, Palm Line Offices, and possibly several other European trading companies operating merchant stores, warehousing, wholesaling, and produce export businesses.

Kingsway Stores
UAC warehousing
Possibly African and Eastern Trading Corporation?

Banjul is a compact capital and we were able to quickly locate the old trading spots located around the Albert Market area. Here there are many traders importing fabric and textiles from China and India and it remains a thriving port. The Kingsway Stores and associated wholesaling lockups are still there, along with a series of other colonial period structures. Some of the older trading villas are now complete ruins and urgent documentation is required if rehabilitation isn’t possible.

Old Trading Store now ruined and overgrown

There are a number of Modern structures that we couldn’t identify, and some experimental architecture amongst the more restrained trading stores. There’s clearly a need for a mapping and documentation project to list and identify the history of these structures.

One of the highlights was the number of banking offices, including a design by Pierre Goudiaby (b 1947), the Senegalise architect responsible for Gambia’s airport, the National Theatre in Dakar, and the gigantic 49m tall African Renaissance Monument, also in Dakar.

Bank in Banjul by Pierre Goudiaby, 1985
Banjul Airport, Pierre Goudiaby, 1997
African Renaissance Monument, Pierre Goudiaby, 2008

Bibliothéque Centrale de l’UCAD and archivist department

By
May 5, 2024
Africa, AHUWA
Leave a comment

The old university library was completed shortly after Independence and located at the terminus of a long ceremonial avenue that cuts through the campus. By the late 1990s further space was required for study and new book acquisitions, but rather than build an extension or separate block, the solution was to partially wrap the old library with new segments and entrance portico to create additional room and atriums. The older structure is still clearly visible (see the rectilinear mosaic elements) but these forms are now joined by more playful additions whilst observing the strict symmetry. The inverted scoop of the entrance portico references Corbusier’s Assembly at Chandigarh (and is similar to Wilford’s Lowry Centre in Salford), but here it runs perpendicular to the main building with a zig-zag motif on the exposed gable. The addition was designed by Tétreault Parent Languedoc and Oscar Afrique in 2001.

The flanks of the avenue include the University Conference centre buildings and the Archivist Department. On top of ornate red brick podiums, where the bricks are laid in soldier bond and proud of the building line, sit curved forms clad in sea shells that add subtle texture and shadow. The buildings were designed by Henri Chomette and Roland Depret in 1976.

International Trade Fair, Dakar, Senegal

By
May 4, 2024
Africa, AHUWA
Leave a comment

A visit to the international  conference centre in Dakar is a must for late ‘modern’ architecture aficionados. The approach sets the scene, as one passes through the triangular entrance gates.

A creation of architect Fernand Bonamy designed and built following an architectural competition in 1974  its triangular programme is clear from the outset. This trade fair complex, which remains in working use, was designed to incorporate the triangle both in elevation and functional section. This has been a largely successful exercise in which the triangle is pre-eminent in all aspects of design. 

Walking around one feels the eerie nature of triangular space. Broken by long walkways with circular-cylindrical fulcrum points where the direction changes and the gradual slope continues upwards or downwards to the final traverse destination. 

A series of exhibition pavilions are the centrepiece of this much recorded and photographed campus, whilst the main exhibition hall provides a glorious 70’s interior complete with psychedelic wall designs . The dogged following of the triangular programme does provide a coherent set of buildings – which also feel part of a giant Alice in Wonderland setting where the triangles are here there and everywhere. There are a few breaks as the HVAC external ductwork terminate in lozenge- and not triangular shaped flues . 

As we walked around, the campus was being prepared for yet another exhibition / expo. This helps highlight the ongoing use and  versatility of the exhibition space format, democratically giving each exhibitor the same space, shape and form to engage with, triangular in every way. 

As I walk away from triangular wonderland  I wonder what else this amazing set could support? A parkour and skate park for the suburban kids whose flats look down on the complex? A contained mini athletics course, it could certainly hold a 200m track circuit and many triangular spaces could provide storage for track and field equipment. Or could it indeed be a film set for the next James Bond Action or Hammer Horror movie – The return of the Triangles.

Dakar: Senegal visit

By
May 1, 2024
Africa, AHUWA, Heritage, transnational, Tropical Architecture
Leave a comment

We’re making a visit into Dakar in Senegal this week. It’s mainly an exploratory trip as we’ve not ventured into Francophone Africa before and are eager to meet up with some architects here and friends from MOHOA .

Today was all about pounding the streets and exploring some of the everyday commercial architecture, public buildings, docklands, religious buildings, museums, and streetscapes of downtown Dakar. It didn’t disappoint and using our trusty Vol2 of the Sub-Saharan Africa guide we were quickly able to track down some of the classics (and many more that don’t feature in the impressive guide).

Chamber of Commerce, 1926.
Kermel Market, 1910, Charles Pleyber

The Kermel market sits amongst an array of colonial era structures. It was destroyed by fire 1993, but rebuilt in 1997 to match the original design.

Dakar railway station with faience ceramic facade detailing. The newer interior structure provides control to the tracks and adds further commercial space.

Commercial structures, residences, markets, and banks by the docklands of Dakar. I thought the images top left and top middle were the Sandaga Market – but not sure now. There’s going to be a lot of further research and investigation required after this trip….

Museum of Black Civilisation
Grand National Theatre, 2011, Pierre Goudiaby Atepa

Just beyond the Train Station are two vast civic structures – the National Theatre [the largest in Africa] and the Museum of Black Civilisation, built by the Shanghai Construction Group in 2018.

Institut d’Hygiène Sociale was a highlight today – designed by Henry Adenot around 1932 attempted to introduce more regional or local interpretations to the colonial architecture canon. This building has been described as Sudano-Sahelian but it borrows liberally from across Western African architecture, as well as introducing zig-zag motifs, sunbursts, and playful interiors.

Most of the downtown area it set out according to a grid plan, with buildings reaching 4 or 5 stories in height. There’s a variety of commercial structures some bearing the name of the old trading companies and families, others depicting bas relief decorative panels or double-skin solar breakers.

New Research: Bubonic plague, colonial ideologies, and urban planning policies: Dakar, Lagos, and Kumasi

By
October 5, 2015
Africa, British Colonial Architecture
Leave a comment

Bubonic plague, colonial ideologies, and urban planning policies: Dakar, Lagos, and Kumasi, by Liora Bigon, in Planning Perspectives, DOI:10.1080/02665433.2015.1064779

The Third Plague Pandemic originated in Southwest China in the mid-nineteenth century, reached Africa’s shores around 1900, and spread globally for about a century. This article examines three plague loci in colonial Senegal (Dakar, 1914), Nigeria (Lagos, 1924), and the Gold Coast (today’s Ghana; Kumasi, 1924). A tripartite comparative analysis is made of French and British doctrines of colonial rule, colonial urban planning policies, and anti-plague practices. While some common features are demonstrated in the policies and practices of the colonizing forces such as the implementation of rigorous measures and embracing segregationist solutions, divergent features can also be distinguished. These relate to the methods of implementation of planning and anti-plague policies, in accordance with colonial ideology (assimilation, direct and indirect rule); and to the very nature of autochthonous communities, responses, and levels of agitation. Our both comparative and more nuanced site-related view is also based on a large collection of archival and secondary materials from multilateral channels.

The full article may be viewed here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02665433.2015.1064779