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Archival Urge: Collecting Histories of Architecture from Africa, May 26 2022

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April 22, 2022
Africa, Conferences, Ghana, Historiography, Nigeria
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‘Archival Urge’ is the second part of the symposium ‘Document Fever’ organised by the Architectural Association in collaboration with the Architecture Space & Society Centre, Birkbeck School of Arts on 25 February 2022. This time in partnership with KNUST, this panel aims to celebrate three projects that ‘collect’ histories of architecture in very different ways. We will think, amongst other questions, about the archival impulse/fever that made these projects coincide in time and space; the archival need to collect histories that are missing in architectural history; and the diverse formats of archive-making that these projects have taken or are taking.  


1. Aalii to Zygomorphic (2020) by Rexford Assasie Oppong (KNUST) 
2. Accra Architecture Archive (ongoing) led by Kuukuwa Manful (SOAS) 
3. Sub-Saharan Africa: Architectural Guide (2021) Edited by Philipp Meuser and Adil Dalbai, with Livingstone Mukasa. 

Adil Dalbai 
Adil graduated from Humboldt University of Berlin with a master’s degree in modern history and cultural theory, specializing in the architectural history of Eurasia and (post)colonial contexts. He worked as an editor and author for DOM publishers, focusing on architecture and urbanism. He went on to study architecture at the Technical University of Berlin and worked at Meuser Architekten on architecture projects in Western Africa. He researches and writes about architecture in Central Asia and Africa and its global interconnections. Additionally, he is a guest critic and lecturer, as well as (co)editor and author of several articles and books on architecture, including Theorising Architecture in Sub-Saharan Africa (DOM publishers, 2021). Since 2014, he has been managing editorial director of Architectural Guide Sub-Saharan Africa (DOM publishers, 2021, with Philipp Meuser and Livingstone Mukasa), a seven–volume documentation of the architecture of all 49 African countries south of the Sahara. 

Kuukuwa Manful 
Kuukuwa is a Doctoral Researcher at the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS, University of London. Her research examines the sociopolitics of West African nation-building and citizenship through a study of the architecture of educational institutions. She has a Master of Architecture and a BSc Architecture degree from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), and an MSc in African Studies from The University of Oxford. Her previous research has explored the positioning of Ghanaian architects in the modernist movement; Asante architectural identity; and social acceptance of earth building in urban areas. She has published in Al Jazeera, Burning House Press, Africa Is A Country, and The Metropole. Kuukuwa curates Adansisɛm— an architecture collective that documents Ghanaian architecture theory, research and practice, and runs accra archive— an architecture archives digitisation project. She also co-founded and runs sociarchi— a social architectural enterprise that advocates for, and provides architectural services to people who ordinarily cannot afford architects.

Philipp Meuser
Born 1969, Managing director of Meuser Architekten GmbH and head of DOM publishers. From 1991 to 1995, studied architecture at the Berlin Technical University. From 1995 to 1996, editorial work for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Switzerland. Part-time postgraduate studies in the History and Theory of Architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zürich), graduating in 1997. PhD on the Soviet Mass Housing (Berlin Technical University, 2015). Federal Cross of Merit for cultural and scientific exchange with the states of the former Soviet Union (2018). From 1996 to 2001, policy advisor to the Senate Department for Urban Development as part of the Stadtforum Berlin. Visiting Professorship at the Kazakh National Technical University, Almaty (2015). Tutor at the Strelka Institute Moscow (2016/2017) and the Architectural Association London (Easter Island Visiting School 2017). Since 2018 Honorary Professorship at the O.M. Beketov National University of Urban Economy in Kharkiv, Ukraine. 2022 Visiting Professor for Public Humantities at Brown University in Providence/Rhode Island. 

Livingstone Mukasa
Livingstone Mukasa’s career has included architectural practice, urban design, master planning, real estate development, and sustainable development consulting. He founded and managed Archability, an online architectural crowdsourcing start-up, and Afritecture, an online platform on architecture in Africa. He is currently principal of Mahali, a collaborative design studio focused on cultural and contextual architectural engagement, and a frequent guest reviewer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s School of Architecture. Passionate about architecture in Africa, he is coauthor and associate editor of Theorising Architecture in Sub-Saharan Africa (DOM publishers, 2021), and Architectural Guide Sub-Saharan Africa (DOM publishers, 2021, with Philipp Meuser and Adil Dalbai), a seven–volume documentation of the architecture of all 49 countries south of the Sahara. Born in Kampala, Uganda, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from New York Institute of Technology, and graduate certificates from the Graduate School of Architecture, Harvard University in Urban Housing and Mixed–Use Developments.

Rexford Assassie Opong 
Rexford Assassie Opong (PhD) is currently a Full Professor of Architecture and Dean of International Programmes Office of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi. He is a practicing architect of over twenty years’ experience. He obtained his Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture from the premier Liverpool School of Architecture — University of Liverpool; Masters in Urban Planning and Management from University of Rome-La Sapienza; Postgraduate Diploma in Architecture, KNUST; and Bachelor of Science in Design, UST, Kumasi. He researches and has widely published on the following topics: Architectural Identity, Metamorphosis and Disorderliness, Ecological Aesthetics and Architecture, Architecture and Fractals, The Built Environment and Climate Change,Urbanism and Architectural Modernism in Africa, Architecture and Health, Architectural Habitus, Architecture and land, Taste in Architecture, Architecture; Science and Arts Debate, and Kinship, Land, and Architecture in Urban Ghana. 
 
Organiser and chair: Albert Brenchat-Aguilar 
Albert is a Lecturer (teaching) at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Previously, he co-curated the public programme and publications of the Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL, edited the digital platform Ceramic Architectures and worked as an architect in Bombas Gens Arts Centre. He is a CHASE-funded PhD student at Birkbeck and the Architectural Association with the project ‘Resource: Humans Matter and the Patterns of International Planning c. 1957-76’, whilst cataloguing the archive of educator, architect, and planner Otto Koenigsberger. His coedited volume ‘Wastiary: A bestiary of waste’ will be published soon he hopes. He has published in Architecture&Culture, Espacio Fronterizo, and The Scottish Left Review, curated shows at UCL and the Polytechnic University of Valencia, and exhibited his artworks at Museu Nogueira Da Silva. He is currently a visiting researcher at the Department of Architecture, KNUST. 

Full event details and booking

This event is held as part of Arts Week 2022, a festival of the latest creativity and research from Birkbeck’s School of Arts

Keeping Your Cool: Does ‘tropical modernist’ architecture work, climatically?

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November 30, 2020
Africa, Climate, Ghana, Heritage, Tropical Architecture
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The aim of this project is to investigate if, and to what extent do ‘tropical modernist’ structures modify or mitigate climatic conditions to create more ‘comfortable’ interiors. 

Most of these structures were designed to be passively cooled and as such have a permeable façade composed of concrete screens or louvres to facilitate cross ventilation air-flow, and to create shade. A good example is the Children’s Library in Accra, designed by Nickson and Borys in 1957.

Mainly built during the 1930s-70s, these buildings are now at an age when they require refurbishment and rehabilitation – although this is mainly superficial and does not involve structural correction. There are various options pursued, many involving the installation of air-conditioning units. For the AC to be effective it ideally requires a sealed interior volume, rendering the existing permeable façade unsuitable. 

Standard Chartered Bank: as built and passively cooled
Standard Chartered Bank: refurbished, clad in glazed panels and reliant on AC

One solution being increasingly used in Ghana is to externally clad the façades with a glazed screen, as seen on the Standard Chartered Bank on Accra’s High Street. 

The glazing cuts out street and traffic noise and reduces dust infiltration, as well as enabling the interior to be mechanically cooled. But in terms of energy usage (consumption of AC and in the fabrication of the glazed units) it is far from ideal. Furthermore, there is the financial cost of cooling what is now effectively a greenhouse in a hot and humid climate. Architecturally the building has also been dramatically altered. It is now a bland non-descript block, and lacks the patterns, shading effects, and references to the floors behind the façade. I’m not suggesting that this example is a prestigious heritage monument, but rather using it to illustrate what is becoming an increasingly common approach to refurbishment. Fortunately, in this case glazing can be easily removed and the older structure has been preserved inside.

Our project has several objectives, including to:

  1. Recognise and promote the significance of these 20thC modernist structures.
  2. Determine if the passive cooling approach does create sufficiently comfortable interiors.
  3. Investigate what conditions are comfortable for the occupants of these buildings.
  4. Investigate alternatives to AC that provide low cost and low energy comfortable interiors without detrimentally impacting upon the architectural quality.

To test both inland and coastal conditions we’ve selected a case study at KNUST in Kumasi, and another at the University of Ghana, Accra.  Both buildings are university libraries, and as such have a large number of daily visitors that we can consult. The library at KNUST was designed as a louvred screen wall, fully adjustable from the interior, and also has a later brutalist extension with a twin façade arrangement and partially air-conditioned interior. 

KNUST Library: a facade of adjustable louvres

At Accra, the Balme Library takes a more colonial/traditional approach with a series of courtyards, loggias and high ceilings. Some of the rooms have been retro-fitted with air-conditioning, whilst at the same time naturally ventilated. Both libraries are large institutional buildings and have the potential to consume large amounts of energy should they be refurbished with full AC and cooled to ASHRAE recommendations. Furthermore, it is important for the health and education of the staff and students that these buildings are comfortable places to spend time in, and to study. 

Balme Library at University of Ghana

In each building we’ve installed a number of Hobo data-loggers that record the temperature and humidity at regular intervals. Whilst this data allows us to determine whether the internal temperature/humidity is different to the external condition, it does not tell us if the conditions are comfortable to the inhabitants. To establish this, we’ve consulted the library users and staff to enquire how comfortable they feel in the various library spaces. The respondents also recorded their attire, age, sex, and how long they have been in the library prior to completing the survey.  Over 250 people completed the survey at KNUST in January 2020. We will repeat this in the ‘rainy season’, and conduct similar surveys at Accra. When we’ve gathered this data we can correlate the data-logger findings with those of the user surveys. We’re also constructing 3d computer models of the buildings to test various refurbishment scenarios and cooling options.

Our partners in this project are Dr. Haniyeh Mohammadpourkarbasi at University of Liverpool; Dr. Irene Appeaning-Addo and Dr. Dan Nukpezah from University of Ghana; and Prof. Rexford Assasie-Oppong at KNUST. We’re also indebted to the library staff and students at each institution. Funding has been generously provided by the University of Liverpool ODA Seed Fund 2019-2020.

Updates to follow when we have more data and findings to report.

New Paper: Tracing the Non-Aligned Architecture: Environments of Technical Cooperation and the Work of Croatian Architects in Kumasi, Ghana (1961-1970)

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November 25, 2020
Africa, Ghana, Tropical Architecture
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Mojca Smode Cvitanovic, ‘New Paper: Tracing the Non-Aligned Architecture: Environments of Technical Cooperation and the Work of Croatian Architects in Kumasi, Ghana (1961-1970)’ Histories of Postwar Architecture, 3(6), 34-67. Full paper available here: DOI: https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-0075/10450

Unity Hall, KNUST, designed by Miro Marasović and John
Owusu Addo, 1968.

Focusing on the work of a group of Croatian i.e. Yugoslav architects in Ghana, the paper explains the nature of technical cooperation as a model of temporary international contract work in relation to the specificities of the environment built consequently. It focuses on the engagement of Miro Marasović as the head of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Development Office from 1961 to 1964. As its contextual framework, the paper addresses bilateral technical cooperation as a form of international communication and exchange, the practices of the Non-Aligned Movement, and the interrelations of the pre- and post-independence generation of modern architecture in Africa.

[See also KNUST archival drawings here ]

KNUST Senior Staff Club House and Archives in Danger

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September 26, 2016
Africa, British Colonial Architecture, Ghana, Tropical Architecture
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As part of our British Academy Internationalisation and Mobility grant Iain Jackson and Ola Uduku visited Rexford Opong at KNUST in March (we included some brief updates here: Notes from Kumasi and Notes from Kumasi: part 2 and also Notes from Kumasi Part 3). We were fortunate enough to visit the Estate Planning Department and drawing offices and photographed some of the original drawings made of the university estate and buildings. Whilst every effort is being made to carefully preserve these drawings they have been subject to the ravages of time, humidity and vermin attack and many are in a poor state of repair. They are unlikely to survive for much longer.

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Drawing of the First Floor Senior Staff Club House, KNUST

In an attempt to remedy and counter this we are putting together an ‘Archives in Danger’ grant that, if successful, will enable these important artefacts to be digitally scanned/carefully photographed and then carefully preserved and archived for future scholarship.

In the meantime we’ve used the photographed drawings to produce a series of new CAD files. Pedro Bittencourt, a student based at Liverpool School of Architecture, has worked dilligently on translating the imperial scales into a metric format and has produced all of the new drawings. He has then used these drawings to construct a beautiful scale model of the Club House, utilising a laser cutter as to form the delicate components.

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Pedro with the completed scale model

We’re hoping to produce additional models of other buildings on campus that can be used in exhibitions and as part of our lecture series.

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Notes from Kumasi Part 3

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March 4, 2016
Africa, British Colonial Architecture, Fry & Drew, Ghana, Tropical Architecture
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Notes from Kumasi Part 3

At the KNUST campus the library and Great Hall complex work very well within their elevated landscape setting. The Gerlach and Gillies-Reyburn’s muscular grey abstract ‘kente’ cloth brutalist hall and library extension is arranged in a ‘quad’. The complex overlooks the campus, facing a formal axis that leads to the administrative and teaching blocks. The composition is completed on its south flank by an architectural gem, which we discovered is the original KNUST library block. Is this James Cubitt’s riposte to Fry and Drew’s Ibadan Library?

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The Old Library Block

The ‘old’ KNUST library presents an essay in tropical architectural design. Still sitting on its cast, fluted piloti this four storey structure employs screen walling, operable louver windows, and shading devices to both demonstrate and celebrate the possibilities of creating a successful architectural resolution to the needs of passive design. Its forlorn main entrance, clad in travertine, and superseded by the Gerlach and Gillies-Reyburn entrance to the East, shows the quality of materials employed in specific areas of its design.

 

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Administration Offices and Meeting Room

Inside, much of the Library building seems frozen in time. Reading carrels lie empty whilst the daylight filled reading spaces, with custom built, empty journal shelves have few readers, and ageing academic book collections. The e-resource room however has been kitted out with desktop computers and seems to be the most used student space in the building. A second “IT” floor was being planned, and the new desktop computers were just being commissioned, in spaces flooded with artificial light, closed to the exterior with floor to ceiling fabric curtains – only this space in the building needed fans for cooling. Meanwhile the offices at the top floor with their no longer used spiral staircase took one to another world of naturally cross ventilated office space, and custom designed insect screens – demonstrating that climate responsive design in the tropics still works. One hopes its on-going transformation doesn’t forget this idea.

Notes from Kumasi: part 2

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March 3, 2016
Africa, British Colonial Architecture, Ghana
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Notes from Kumasi Part 2

The KNUST campus continued to delight as we explored its many building types, landscape and wildlife. The staff housing [over twenty different types], is generally low density bungalows generously positioned along the sweeping roads to the west of the campus. The Vice-Chancellor’s lodge is also set amongst the staff housing, its pierced screen providing shading to the verandah-cum-corridor behind.

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Vice-Chancellor’s Lodge

At Unity Hall, the two high-rise accommodation blocks dominate the arrangement, but they also frame the quadrangle that contains badminton courts, refectory and other social spaces. The space is also commandeered for laundry drying and we observed architecture students surveying the landscaped elements with their drawing boards set up under the shade of the loggia. Just a short walk from Unity is the sports track and Paa Joe Stadium. The seating is set within the raked landscape and the grandstand has a graceful concertinaed concrete roof that reduces in depth as it cantilevers over the seating.

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Unity Hall

We were fortunate enough to view the architectural drawings of these buildings – but sadly, the climate has rendered them in a poor state and plans for digitization must be urgently progressed to preserve this important archive of material.

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Paa Joe Stadium

Off campus we visited the Manhyia Palace built in 1925. Upon returning from exile the Ashantehene Nana Prempeh 1 was offered the building by the British (the former palace having been destroyed in the ‘War of the Golden Stool’ in 1900). The palace is now a museum with some excellent artifacts and collections. The palace grounds also contain the Manhyia archives, managed by the West African Studies department of Legon University. The archives contain records dating back to 1926 including many documents on land development, sanitation, state buildings and town planning. We’re looking forward to seeing what this archive holds – an initial inspection revealed many plans and previously untapped material!

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Manhyia Palace Museum

Notes from Kumasi

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February 29, 2016
Africa, British Colonial Architecture, Ghana, Tropical Architecture
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Notes from Kumasi

Leaving Accra we departed for Kumasi– there was a change of pace in this dusty Ashanti city. Flying in, the low-rise collection of housing and settlements spreads across the horizon. The city has a hotter, inland climate, but the KNUST campus has this relieved somewhat by its lush mature vegetation. A visit to the recently restored KNUST Staff Club and walk around the campus to the ‘central area’, gave a good feel, and introduction to KNUST.

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KNUST Senior Staff Club House, designed by Cubitt

The following day united us with more visiting staff from University of Edinburgh and we set off on an extended excursion to various buildings in Kumasi city. Fry and Drew’s Prempeh College and Opoku Ware schools, are visited first and present us with a first hand view of this couples’ best exemplars of institutional tropical modernism. Visits followed to Nickson’s Anglican Cathedral, a towering structure, with less external architectural sophistication than F+D’s educational oeuvres, but provided interiors that successfully captured the spirit of high Anglicanism in its light-filled interior.

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Anglican Cathedral, Kumasi, designed by R. Nickson from 1950

A dusk-tinted view of the campus concluded the day’s visitations, its welcome calm was a good antidote to the ‘busy-ness’ of the town. The buildings at the ‘Tech’, as it is colloquially called, sat sedately in their lush tropical setting, showing off Scott and Cubitt’s earliest university campus in Africa.

The historic ‘central’ administrative area of Kumasi formed the focus of the next day. The post office and Ghana electricity building suggest they are examples of late ‘PWD’ post war architecture, whilst the historic memorial to the West Africa Frontier Force, soldiers who fell in WW1 in Abbysinia (Ethiopia) and Burma (Myamaar) give us pause for remembrance. Walking up towards the military museum we find that although it is closed, we can still pay officially for a visit and take the chance. More than an hour later, we are overwhelmed with the sheer military-related history this deceptively small former garrison fort contained. As a colleague commented, “this gave [me] the context” to this city.

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Kumasi GPO, designed by PWD?

Visits to the Asawasi and Fanti Town districts, the latter adjoining the Cathedral area, gave good examples of early housing layouts in Kumasi designs by known planners in some cases. At Fanti Town we inadvertently came across the’ coffin district’, and attempted a stop at the Bantana district of the town to photograph circular hut housing we had identified the day before. The military museum guide had confirmed that these historic huts still provided accommodation for the army. As the garrison was still camped at the site we could not investigate this much further.

Current Research: West African Modernism & Urbanism Research Conference and Workshop

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May 19, 2015
Africa, British Colonial Architecture, European Transnational, Fry & Drew, Global Architecture, Historiography, Tropical Architecture
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West African Modernism & Urbanism Research Conference and Workshop, 13-14 July 2015, KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana

You are invited to a workshop and conference which will focus on developing the conservation of modernist buildings and urban landscapes in West Africa.

This development strategy will be tackled at two levels. Firstly, at urban and edifice level, through the development of the KNUST Architecture Department as a Centre for public engagement with, and professional expertise in, contemporary urban conservation training and research; in West Africa, this discipline is currently not taught at institutional level, despite the existence of a network of architecture and planning schools, and architectural institutes for whom this would be beneficial.

Secondly, with support from DOCOMOMO International’s African group and Urbanism-landscape specialist committee, the workshop will develop a physical archive of modernist buildings in West Africa, using digital technology to scan and record building photographs and plans of the postwar modernist era. The data will be made available both to researchers linked to the proposed urban conservation training project, and, equally importantly, to the local public, as a visual resource of contemporary West African Modernist history.

The workshop will feature outreach presentations from junior secondary school pupils and talks from the eminent keynote speakers and research associates involved in the workshop and archive programme.

Keynote Speakers: Prof. Miles Glendinning [University of Edinburgh] and Prof. H. N. A. Wellington [Emeritus and Former Head of KNUST].

Kumasi_Conference_poster

We acknowledge the support of this event by the Universities of Edinburgh, and of Liverpool, and by the Royal Africa Society.

For more details on the event please contact Dr. Rexford Assasie Oppong [assasie2003@yahoo.co.uk] / Dr. Ola Uduku [o.uduku@ed.ac.uk] for more details.