An exhibition that we’ve been very much looking forward to opens this week at the V&A Museum in London. We’ve got a few of our models on display at the exhibition, and have been involved behind the scenes. There’s a large contingent from the Transnational Architecture Group making their way to various opening events this week and you can expect a series of reviews and critiques here shortly.
There’s also an article out today by Oliver Wainwright in The Guardian that discusses the exhibition concept – and some of our favourite buildings.
One day in January at Trocadero Square, Lekki, Lagos...
On our last day in Nigeria we planned to meet Nifemi Marcus Bello, a remarkable Nigerian product designer who has had his work shown to great acclaim at the Sharjah Triennale. Joining us was Associate Prof Seyi Akerele who had just completed a Virtual Fellowship at the University of Liverpool with Ola Uduku.
Seyi Akerele and Ade Shokunbi (photo O.Uduku)
It also seemed an ideal chance to meet up with some other creatives too, and we invited Adeyemo Shokunbi to join us. Shokunbi is a fascinatingly creative architect, whose Abijo Mosque received the Abdullatif Al Fozan Award for Mosque Architecture for the fourth cycle 2020 – 2023. Most recently Shokunbi has also made waves with his shipping container formed MAD (Make A Difference) Project at the University of Lagos and he will shortly be a taking up a Teaching Fellowship offered by the Obel Foundation in Denmark. James Inedu George also made time to join the party. George was one of Joe Owuso-Addo’s ‘New Blood’ from the 2021 Venice Biennale. A phone call from Shokunbi summoned Chuka Ihonor – writer art curator, impresario and activator extraordinaire.
Iain Jackson and Nifemi Marcus-Bello (photo O.Uduku)
The discussion which followed we felt lucky to have been allowed to listen in and occasionally contribute to. The key theme unsurprisingly was the dearth of the linking of academic teaching with the realities of practice. We heard tales of the assembled team, unsuccessful attempts at reaching out to the academy who either were disinterested or actively ignored these linkages. James Inedu-George was more direct in his criticism of relationships and links between practice and gown.
L – R Nifemi Marcus-Bello, Ola Uduku and Ade Shokunbi (photo I. Jackson)
The pre-eminence of the expatriate architect from South Africa, and in particular SAOTA was expressed. It was felt that Nigerian’s found it difficult to feel pride in local architecture and creative practice. Wealthy clients garnered a sense of prestige by hiring architects from overseas. It was a throwback to Demas Nwoko’s struggle for acceptance by the Nigerian architectural profession despite his clear brilliance as a creative designer whose roots were in his initial ABU architecture training. Collaborative practice and design also needed a wakeup call as the discussion critiqued the ‘lone architect-creator’ syndrome where collaboration was actively discouraged and firms struggled to scale their enterprise to deliver large projects.
Ade Shokunbi and James Inedu-George(photo O.Uduku)
With Chuka we’d like to ‘bring’ highlights of Sharjah Triennale to Nigeria. Nigerian creatives featured so strongly in this exhibition, and it seems appropriate to share this work with a Nigerian audience.
Back clockwise, Nifemi Marcus-George, Chuka Ihonor, Seyi Akerele and James Inedu-George (Photo O.Uduku)
Something special happened at this informal and chance encounter. From this gathering of creatives, educators, authors, makers, and architects a refreshing and encouraging discussion flowed. We shouldn’t stop here. We would be honoured to host the next platform for what might be termed an African Creative Awakening, and present below what we might call the Trocadero Call to Action (TCA) in deference to this auspicious meeting at the Trocadero Square in Lekki – the place to have been on Thursday 18th January inLekki, Lagos.
The TCA Participants and Observers:
L – R. Nifemi Marcus-Bello, Chuka Ihonor, Ola Uduku, Iain Jackson, Ade Shokunbi, Seyi Akerele and James Inedu-George (Photo Nifemi Marcus Bello Studios)
The future of Architectural Education in and around Western Africa
Practice Building and the process of commissioning, designing, and making architecture.
The purpose, shape, and expression of architecture within the Western African context, and how this is communicated and shared.
Erhabor Ogieva Emokpae (1934-1984) and the timber carving at Unilever
The largest item in the Unilever archive at Port Sunlight is a carved timber mural by the Nigerian artist Emokpae. Stretching to over 4m x4.5m and made up of 35 individual panels, it depicts the story of palm oil harvesting and the production of palm oil.
The panels also show William Lever visiting Africa and his famous Sunlight soap brand. It’s a vast piece of history and story telling revealing that behind ever bar of Sunlight soap was a vast system of extraction, production, logistics, and international trade stemming from Western Africa. The work was commissioned for the refurbishment of Unilever House in London in 1979. As well as being an influential and important artist Emokpae was a Creative Design Director for the design agency Lintas (also one of Unilever’s subsidiary companies).
I produced a measured drawing of the carving to help me to study it more carefully and because it’s almost impossible to photograph the original work in a single frame whilst capturing the detail. Together with Unilever’s Global Head of Art, Archives, and Records Management Claire Tunstall, we began discussing using the drawing to produce an animation that would help to explain part of the work and also make it more accessible. We shared our ideas with the agency Stone and Glow and commissioned them to develop an animation based on our text, keyframes, and artistic direction. We’re delighted to be able to share this with you here and hope you enjoy it:
I wanted to know more about Emokpae’s work and found some fascinating material in the Nigeria Magazines. Emokpae had worked on some major projects in Lagos and I’ve been eager to view them ever since. At the National Theatre (designed and constructed by the Bulgarian Techno Exporstroy in 1976) Emokpae was commissioned to produce the friezes that wrap around the lower parapet of the theatre as well as a series of mosaic murals at the entrances.
He also won a competition to design a concrete installation at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs – a significant building designed by Design Group. Here Emokpae’s ‘The Art of Understanding’ is composed of a large concrete mural with mosaic backing. The project also featured in Nigeria Magazine no.96 1968 with an extended article written by Alan Vaughan-Richards.
We are delighted to be able to host Professor Ayo Olukoju (Institute of African and Diaspora studies, University of Lagos) and Professor Sam Ntewusu (Institute of African Studies University of Ghana) who are visiting the University of Liverpool and also the Unilever Archives to explore the possibilities of future collaborative research and teaching activities across our institutions and others in NW England.
Both Professors are historians who have worked with archival sources in their research in West Africa. They have generously agreed to share, through this seminar, the challenges and issues with working with archival material and sources from a West African perspective and also some of the hopes they have for future collaborations.
Do join us to hear their views and also join the conversation – how do we make the most of archives in the 21st century in different locations and places? Importantly do we need to decolonise the archive, and if so how?
Hosted by the AHUWA Research centre in association with Unilever Archives, School of History and Institutes of African Studies and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Ghana, and the University of Lagos
The Transnational Architecture Group is 10 year’s old this year. Thank you for supporting the blog and to all of our excellent contributors over the years for enriching the content and generously sharing their work. We’d also like to thank the communities in the places in which we work, the archivists and librarians for making material available to us and sharing their expertise, our respective institutions for supporting our research, and to the research funders who make travel, time, and resources available to us.
The blog started as a means to share our work-in-progress ideas and to promote events – and that is still at the core of what we do. We continue to add updates from our ventures into the archives, travel reports, and to share interesting events and innovative papers. These small reports and updates have compounded into something of a large resource and repository, and we’re delighted so many people have been able to make good use of (and to correct and expand upon) our work and attempts at writing these histories.
To celebrate the 10 year anniversary we held a small gathering at the Liverpool School of Architecture on Wednesday 8th March, curated and organised by Dr Alistair Cartwright. Our speakers were all PhD students, post-doctoral researchers, and research associates at the school. You may watch the proceedings here:
The speakers and titles of the presentations are below, with timings if you’d like to skip to a particular talk:
Rixt Woudstra, “Sapele and Samreboi: Building Company Towns in British West Africa” 5:25
Excy Hansda, “Indigenous Modernities in the Twentieth Century Architecture of Bombay” 20:00
Adefola Toye, “Tropical Modernism in Nigeria’s First Universities: Accessing Sources Beyond the Archives.” 37:00
Ewan Harrison, “Planning for Post/Neo Coloniality: the Paramount Hotel in Freetown” 1:11
Iain Jackson, “Erhabor Emokae and the curious case of the UAC Mural: tropical modernism and decorative arts” 1:31
Daneel Starr, “How and why has the vernacular architecture and intangible cultural heritage of the Akha people changed in the face of globalization: Using the village of A Lu Lao Zhai, Xishuangbanna (sipsongpanna) China, as a case study.” 1:50
Paul Robinson, “Freetown, the UAC and urban design” 2:20
Alistair Cartwright, “Ecologies of Vulnerability: Post-Cyclone Reconstruction in Mauritius, c. 1945” 2:35
We also heard an excellent paper from Razan Simbawa, “The Effects of Demolish-based Urban Regeneration on Displaced Residents in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia” – which cannot be shared on the video recording at the moment.
Thank you again to all of the speakers for their wonderful talks, presentations, and work-in-progress. There was such variety and richness in the topics and methods, and at the same time numerous connections and cross-overs between the work.
Please do get in touch if you’d like to know more, or to share your work on the blog.
The first architectural journal in West Africa, The West African Builder and Architect (WABA) was published in 8 volumes between 1961 and 1968, and covered the field of architecture and building in the region. Nation-building programmes had started in newly independent West African nations by the early 1960s. These projects were centred on large-scale infrastructure projects for national development, which sparked a boom in design and construction. In contrast to earlier architecture journals on colonial Africa that were published for a metropolitan readership,i WABA was founded by and for professionals based in West African countries to share information on practice in the developing industry and encourage cooperation among practitioners. ii
The journal began with an editorial panel of British architects: Kennett Scott in Ghana, and Anthony Halliday and Robin Atkinson of Fry & Drew and Partners in Nigeria.iiiOluwole Olumuyiwa, one of the few Nigerian architects who studied abroad and established practices upon their return, was the only West African on the panel. Among the WABA’s target audience was the modest number of engineering and architecture students studying in West Africa. It aspired to equip them with valuable information regarding their future careers that were specific to their environment.
Published articles included news on new projects finished in Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, and Sierra Leone as well as articles by skilled professionals discussing contemporary design and building methods in West Africa. Regular publication features included technical reviews of new products, updates on development work in the countries covered, and advertising placements.
At that time, British practices operating since the 1940s dominated the architecture field in the region. They completed late colonial buildings using tropical modernist designs. This group of foreign architectural firms, including James Cubitt & Partners, Kennett Scott Associates, Architects’ Co-Partnership, Fry, Drew & Partners, etc., produced a significant number of the new structures published in the WABA journal. The projects of the general contractor, Taylor Woodrow and the engineering consultant, Ove Arup & Partners were also listed. Buildings for government organisations, corporations, and residences, constituted the bulk of the reported projects. Facilities for telecommunications, transport and healthcare were also mentioned.
The WABA journal served as a reference for the purchase and sale of building supplies and services through advert placements, advertisers index and buyers’ guides. Advertisements in volumes 1 and 2 of the journal reflect the state of the construction industry in the early 1960s independent West Africa. As the region’s manufacturing industry was in its cradle, building supplies and equipment were primarily imported and distributed by West African-based agents. Most of the distributors’ advertisements in the journal were from multinational corporations that were at the forefront of trade in colonial West Africa such as United Africa Company, GBO (G.B. Ollivant) and CFAO (Compagnie Française de l’Afrique Occidentale). GBO Building Department for example was a former subsidiary of British merchant GB Ollivant and had been operating in Nigeria since the late 19th century. Vivian, Younger & Bond Ltd and John Holt Technical were among more well-known suppliers with numerous locations throughout West Africa.
By constructing new facilities and forming partnerships with public and private organisations, foreign manufacturers also expanded their presence in West Africa. In their various local factories, International Paints (West Africa) Ltd., Dorman Long (Ghana) Ltd., and Nigerite (in Nigeria) produced paint, steel, and asbestos sheets respectively. The headlines of these corporations’ advertisements in WABA highlighted the launch of new plants and their support of the local economy. Additionally, advertisements for locally produced goods included the clause “made in Ghana” or “made in Nigeria.”. There was a minimal presence of indigenous manufacturing companies. NIGERCEM-Nigeria’s first locally owned cement factory was the only producer to include this feat in its advertisement.
Some organizations used their advertisements to highlight their importance and reputation in the sector. Advertisements for general contractors and subcontractors were designed to appear as portfolios of completed and continuing projects. The advertisement pages for the metal component company Henry Hope & Sons Ltd always showed an image of a brand-new building fitted with their curtainwalls and/or sun breakers. This was displayed alongside a brief overview of the building including its location and architect’s name.
The journal adverts reflected companies’ recognition of their role in nation-building. Multinational corporations boasted of their delight and pride in partaking in the “progress” and “growth” of the economy and the future of new countries. Was this marketing approach merely chosen to appeal to the development-oriented nature of the new market, or was it implemented to emulate previous advertisements by foreign businesses (like UAC) in response to criticism of neo-colonialism? iv
Companies targeted their advertisements not only at professionals but also at citizens in West Africa. These advertisements directed at building occupants first appeared in the 1962 issues and frequently alluded to modernity. Adverts for flooring, sanitary fittings, and appliances included large texts with phrases like “gracefully modern” and “modern living.” This contrasted with building supplies adverts-directed at professionals-which hardly referenced modern living. The late colonial era’s ‘africanization’ programmes aided the growth of the middle class by giving priority to the education and employment of Africans by public and private sector organisations. Likewise, housing initiatives launched by government agencies like the Ghana Housing Corporation and the Nigerian LEDB (Lagos Executive Development Board) in the 1950s attracted this demographic. They were characterised by their higher economic and educational status, as well as a household lifestyle distinct from the traditional communal family structure.v Was the reference to a modern lifestyle a marketing strategy to attract the West African middle class who had adopted a western-oriented lifestyle?
The WABA journal provides an account of the building sector’s development in independent West Africa. The journal advertising demonstrated how companies promoted their products to appeal to both individual and national ideals of growth while navigating the shifting socio-political landscape.
i See Hannah le Roux and Ola Uduku, ‘The Media and the Modern Movement in Nigeria and the Gold Coast’, NKA (Brooklyn, N.Y.), 2004.19 (2004), 46–49.
ii ‘Introduction’, The West African Builder and Architect, 1:1 (1961), 1.
iii In 1961, the Nigerian office of Fry, Drew and Partners became Fry, Drew, Atkinson Architects Nigeria under the leadership of Robin Atkinson. ‘Nigeria Developments’, The West African Builder and Architect, 1.4 (1961), 108.
iv Bianca Murillo, ‘“The Devil We Know”: Gold Coast Consumers, Local Employees, and the United Africa Company, 1940–1960’, Enterprise & Society, 12.2 (2011), 317–55
v Daniel Immerwahr, ‘The Politics of Architecture and Urbanism in Postcolonial Lagos, 1960-1986’, Journal of African Cultural Studies, 19.2 (2007), 165–86 (p.175)
PhD Research Title and Summary: Development and National Identity: Tropical Modernism in Post-Independence Nigerian Universities
The aftermath of the Second World War brought a shift in the policies of the British Empire towards the infrastructural development of colonies in West Africa. Massive projects ranging from transportation to healthcare and including education went underway in Nigeria, the largest colony in West Africa. Various commissions from the 1940s and nationalist agitations eventually led to the establishment of the first university in West Africa in 1947- the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Colonial architects such as Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, who specialised in modernist designs for the tropics, were hired for this and other major projects.
Ibadan University
With the country’s independence from colonial rule in the foresights in the late 1950’s, a new desire for a unified national identity arose. This aimed to erase dividing ethnic lines and create a collective identity in the culturally heterogeneous new nation. Infrastructural projects were commissioned, ranging from public buildings to higher education institutions. These projects designed and built following the tropical modernist architecture of the colonial were used in developing a new built environment for Nigeria. I am interested in examining the tropical modernist architecture of Nigerian higher education projects in the 1960s and their role in the country’s development and representing the national identity for the newly independent Nigeria.
Ibadan University
Aims and Objectives:
-examine the position of higher education projects in creating a new sense of identity and nation building
-explore the first universities established in post-independent Nigeria within the social and political context of the 1960s
-highlight the roles of Nigerian actors who championed, designed, and built higher education projects
-compare tropical modernist style of higher educational buildings before independence and post-independence
What did you do before the PhD Research?
I recently completed my master’s degree in Environmental Design at the University of Lagos, Nigeria where I also obtained my undergraduate degree in Architecture. I also worked part-time at A3: Archives of African Architecture, an organization based in Lagos that documents architecture of practices in the country and promotes documentation of endangered built environments in Africa.
Why did you pursue a PhD, and what made you choose the University of Liverpool?
I first made a choice to purse a PhD in the third year of my undergraduate degree. Research satisfied my curiosity and I found it interesting and fulfilling to investigate the unknown and/or under researched areas in architecture (that I could relate to) and share it to the public. I think I also had enough time to weigh the pros and cons and honestly question my reasons and be certain for my interest in undertaking a PhD.
I chose the University of Liverpool for a few reasons. The research area was of great interest to me. I was surrounded by tropical architecture in the University of Lagos and studied some of the buildings only as case studies for studio projects. It was exciting to do a PhD on this topic that didn’t study these buildings in isolation but within the wider context of the period they were designed and built.
The programme also provided me with the opportunity to gain experience outside academia at the National Archives in London which caught my interest. I was also confident in the calibre of my supervisors and the wealth of experience they had in their fields. It also helped that Liverpool is a coastal city with beaches and waterfront views just like Lagos.
What have you found the most fun part of the PhD, and the most challenging?
I am at the beginning of my PhD, and I find learning more about my research area interesting. There is something new to learn everyday and that alone excites me.
I think the most challenging part for me is managing the scale of my research. It is still a new experience and managing my project myself is still very unfamiliar.
Post-PhD? Any ideas of what you’d like to do next?
I do not yet have a clear path post-PhD but I am sure my programme will enable me try new opportunities within and outside academia. I think this will help me make a more informed choice.
Any advice for others interested in doing a PhD?
It is particularly important to like what you want to research. When it becomes challenging, it helps to know that you are working on something that you chose and genuinely enjoy.
You also don’t have to be very excellent in research, although experience in research helps. A PhD is a learning process, and it gets better.
In the UAC archive amongst the Public Relations files is ‘Nigeria Magazine‘. From within the mat brown cardboard of the archive box springs a collection of beautifully designed and printed set of publications. The magazine was a Government sponsored venture, published by the Cultural Division of the Ministry of Information in Lagos. It was issuedquarterly from around 1937 until the mid-1980s “for everyone interested in the country and its peoples”. The focus of the editorial was varied and wide ranging, covering topics across the arts, history, architecture, literature, and culture in Nigeria. There was a strong commitment and celebration of ‘local’ art, as well as extensive articles on planning, housing, and architecture from across the ages. The contributing authors were often experts and highly regarded scholars. Ulli Beier was a frequent writer, and the quality and tone of the editorial was consciously accomplished, supplemented by some striking images and high quality graphics.
Covers of Nigeria Magazine from the 1960s, held in UAC archive
Articles were published on the history of cities, including “Ibadan, Black Metropolis” in 1961, relishing in the city’s longevity and traditions, as well as welcoming its position as a new centre for finance and media (see Design Group’s Finance building below). Other sections included biographies on key personalities, such as June 1966 with its feature on architect Alex Ifeanyichikwu Ekwueme (1932-2017).
Ekwueme studied at Washington University on a Fullbright Scholarship in 1952, and went onto to work at Nickson and Partners in London (is this Nickson and Boris?) before setting up a firm in Nigeria that grew to 16 offices. He designed the United Christian College at Apapa, Universal Insurance Building Enugu, and the Administration Building for the Nigerian Petroleum Refinery Company, amongst others. Ekwueme’s architectural career ended when he was elected Vice-President of Nigeria in 1979.
Architect and Vice-President of Nigeria, Alex Ifeanyichikwu Ekwueme (1932-2017), from Nigeria Magazine, June 1966.
Whilst there was a lofty desire to promote local art, culture, and history, other articles appear to focus on trade and industry, presenting what are effectively op-eds or public relations pieces as historical accounts. In 1960 there was a special report on The Niger River Transport Company and Burutu, “Nigeria’s Timber Industry” featured in December 1962, focusing on the work and settlements of the African Timber and Plywood company – both subsidiary companies of of United Africa Company (UAC). Again, the Company features in various other articles, such as “The UAC in Nigeria’s economic growth” in December 1965. It’s a thorough and detailed account, going to some length to stress how the company is ‘inseparable’ from Nigeria’s economic growth. The article was also eager to stress the restructuring of the company and how it now operated as a series of smaller locally managed entities ‘to encourage the growth of industry and trade in local Nigerian hands’.
It seems that the magazine had a mandate beyond art and culture, and sought to shape opinion (particularly in the emerging and educated middle classes) on business and trade matters. The seductive and authoritative format of the journal gave these opinions validity, and allowed a particular and curated message to be carefully presented. The advertisements within the journal also reinforced these messages and narratives of progress through industry.
Front Cover of Nigeria Magazine, June 1963UAC: New Industries, New ProsperityAdvertisement for Kingsway, showing the new Ibadan store in the background
At the same time, ‘traditional’ and ‘local’ practices were celebrated and discussed. There is something disarming in this technique. An ahistorical image was usually shown on the front cover, often a decontextualised figure in traditional dress sometimes playing an instrument – followed on the inner leaf by an advertisement for the latest fashions from Kingsway department store. The advertisers tended to belong to, or were in partnership with, the UAC group (e.g. Taylor Woodrow, Guinness, Kingsway Stores), and it seems likely their extensive patronage held some sway over the editorial content. The adverts were not geared towards selling specific products, but were there simply to bolster public opinion and shift attitudes towards modernity, progress, and societal advancement alongside a romanticised nationalist sense of history and culture.
The articles on architecture were also propagandist and concerned with presenting Nigeria as a place of rapid progress and impatient ambition. Again, the UAC story is followed with interest, and their newly proposed offices in Lagos (by Watkins and Gray) demonstrates the Company’s commitment to ongoing business in the newly independent country, and also the shift in its focus from import/export to real estate and property development.
Artist impression of the UAC’s Niger House in Lagos. Designed by Watkins Gray and Partners.
John Godwin, wrote an article entitled, “Architecture in Nigeria” in December 1966. It’s a potted history that starts with the regional building types, local materials, and climatic responses before moving onto the impact of corrugated iron sheeting (pan) and its limitations. Godwin sets out this story to demonstrate the sudden change in scale, building types, and growth of the construction industry in West Africa post-1945,
“Tower cranes were on the scene in 1955 and by 1961 two twenty-five-storey buildings had been completed in Ibadan and Lagos built by Italian firms who thirty years earlier were struggling with their labour force to build small houses”
Whilst acknowledging this rapid growth and exciting possibilities, he also goes on to caution that more ‘research’ is required, greater collaboration should exist between architects, and that building components and materials were still being imported at prohibitive costs. Overly extravagant “prestige building” was also targeted whilst low-cost housing problems remained unresolved. Whilst the claims and hopes for air-conditioning now seem somewhat out-dated, his desire for a civic pride and community spirit, tree planting, and care of the environment is pertinent and all the more urgent. Godwin’s approach was to propose an “architecture of ventilators and sun breakers”, a lexicon that he viewed as, “increasingly identifiable as West African.”
Offices and Flats in Kaduna, designed by Godwin and Hopwood, 1964
Contributing to this West African style was the Design Group’s “Nigerian Institute of International Affairs” (located on Lagos’s Kofo Abayomi Street). It was discussed at length by Alan Vaughan-Richards in the March/May 1968 edition of the magazine, where he particularly admired the sculptural mural, ‘The Art of Understanding” by Erhabor Emokpae in tooled concrete that revealed the granite aggregate. Inside the Institute are further sculptural elements, including a bronze figure representing Knowledge by Ben Enwonwu and positioned hovering above an evaporation pool. The interior includes some grand double-height spaces, dramatic cantilevered spiral staircases and travertine marble cladding (donated by the Italian contractor). At the rear of the plot there is an octagonal conference room with a dramatic star-shaped roof (still visible on Google maps).
Interior of Institute of International Affairs, LibraryInstitute of International Affairs, sculptural muralConference Room, viewed from Lagoon Side.
The Institute was to promote peace and progress (the internal conflict taking place in Nigeria at that time was not mentioned), and was to operate as a centre for learning, research, and debate on global affairs.
June 1962 edition included an article on “Contemporary Nigerian Architecture” by D. J. Vickery, the former Head of Department at Singapore Polytechnic (did he then go on to work in Nigeria?). This is an exceptional article covering some of the latest construction in Nigeria, and Lagos in particular. As a gazetteer of the latest building work – including the work from recently qualified Nigerian architects – it formed one of the most detailed architectural surveys of the country. Although the crude categorisation of the works under three types; ‘Climate’, ‘Traditional Spirit’, and ‘Skyline’ is somewhat limited, it gets the message across, and more importantly illustrates what the Independence Boom meant to the towns and cities across Nigeria.
Oluwole Olumuyiwa’s school at Suru-LereJames Cubitt, Regional Library at EnuguGodwin and Hopwood, Hanbury House, LagosNickson and Boris, offices in ApapaJames Cubitt, Library in Port HarcourtWalker, Harwood and Cranswick, Barclays Bank, LagosACP, Investment House, LagosTaylor Woodrow – Build for it now!Contemporary Nigerian Architecture, June 1962
In addition to the speculative offices, headquarters and banking halls there was an impressive array of schools and libraries (many designed by James Cubitt who had also designed similar works in Sekondi and Koforidua, Ghana), but the focus here was undoubtedly on real estate and speculative construction.
Nigeria magazine illustrates how UAC and other global companies shifted their approach and emphasis during the early Independence period. UAC was presenting its suite of businesses as nationalist, pro-development, and key partners in the country’s future. They rapidly placed an emphasis on real estate, finance, and industrial development, whilst curating a sophisticated advertisement and public relations campaign, through an arts and culture journal, to bolster their local credentials and legitimacy in the history of Nigeria.
For the past months, we have been exploring the vast United Africa Company (UAC) archive held at Unilever in Port Sunlight. The archive documents decades of commercial activity in West Africa, which left a significant imprint on the built and natural environment. The UAC extracted raw materials such as palm oil and timber, but also exported finished goods such as cars, building materials, and refrigerators. The UAC also sold British products in its department stores across Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. Meanwhile, it operated its own shipping line, named Palm Line, that ferried goods between the UK and West Africa. We have come across a variety of different materials, ranging from maps documenting the company’s palm oil plantations in the Congo and architectural drawings showing the modern Kingsway stores in Lagos and Freetown, to detailed notes related to the design of the UAC’s port, Burutu, in the Niger Delta.
Tropical hardwood at Sapele, NigeriaAfrican Timber and Plywood Concessions in Ghana, ca. 1955
One aspect of the UAC I have been focusing on these past months is the company’s timber operations in Ghana and Nigeria. In the early twentieth century, the UAC founded the African Timber Company (later the African Timber and Plywood Company), located in Sapele, Nigeria. Through a range of concession agreements with local chiefs, they managed to consolidate vast areas of territory around Sapele from which they extracted a wide range of different tropical hardwoods for export to the UK. At the same time, the company began operating in Ghana (then still the Gold Coast), in Samreboi, a hundred miles inland from the port of Takoradi. After World War II, they also built a plywood factory in Sapele—the first of its kind in this area and described as ‘the largest industrial plant in West Africa’—and began producing plywood at a large scale. Using photographs and written documentation, I have begun to explore the construction of these two company towns and their wider infrastructure. While the factories and processing plants were built using prefabricated steel sheds made by Arcon (also responsible for prefabricated houses in the UK during the postwar period), the bungalows for the company’s British employees can be described as traditional. Later, a Timber Research Laboratory was added, as well as showrooms, and several local facilities such as a (plywood) cinema and clubhouse. Through felling hundreds of thousands of logs every year, the company irrevocably left an imprint on these two areas in Ghana and Nigeria and had a devastating impact on the natural environment.
The plywood factory in Sapele, NigeriaSapele, Nigeria, in the 1950sThe Timber Research Laboratory at Sapele, Nigeria
What is interesting is how the work of the African Timber and Plywood Company aligns with the British government’s focus on ‘empire timber’, or the push to use timber in Britain from different parts of the empire for furniture as well as architecture and interior design. While the government attempted to promote empire timber through a variety of exhibitions in the first decades of the twentieth century, the UAC archive reveals how widespread the use of tropical hardwood and plywood produced in Sapele and Samreboi was during the postwar period. Often marketed as giving ‘a feeling of warmth’, it was used for modern furniture made by the Conran Design Group, doors, window frames, and outside paneling for a variety of council housing, but also as interior decoration and flooring in buildings such as the Commonwealth Institute in London and the Commonwealth Royal Pool in Edinburgh. The former headquarters of the UAC in London, United Africa House at Blackfriars, is another case in point: the building’s interior functioned as a display of tropical timber, ranging from mahogany to African walnut and Sapele hardwood—all produced by the company.
Modular furniture designed by the Conran Design Group, made of African walnutDifferent types of tropical hardwood used for the interior of United Africa House, London, 1960s
Another fascinating aspect is the shift to production for the local, West African market in the 1960s and ‘70s, after Independence. Aside from furniture, one innovation was ATP Systems Building, a prefabricated building system using tropical hardwood and plywood. The company promoted this as an affordable, quick, and flexible way to build without requiring much technical knowledge. Documents I found in the archive point out that ATP Systems Building was widely deployed in, for example, Warri, a rapidly growing oil town in Nigeria, to build houses, offices, and schools.
The ATP Showroom in Benin City, Nigeria (originally built for the Lagos Trade Fair of 1962)An ATP employee selling an ATP Systems Building bungalow in Nigeria, ca. 1970
Overall, the archive of the African Timber and Plywood company demonstrates, once again, how (modern) architectural construction in Britain was shaped by colonialism and, conversely, how British companies continued to impact design in the former colonies after independence. Many questions, however, are still unanswered. How, for example, was the work of the timber companies related to the colonial government’s efforts to promote empire timber from Nigeria? How should we understand the widespread use of (colonial) timber in postwar Britain? What prompted the shift to focus on the Nigerian market after Independence? How successful was ATP Systems Building? Over the coming months, we will continue to explore these issues.
Online Modernist University Campus Architecture Writing Workshop: A Ghana-Nigeria-UK collaboration
The third iteration of the African Architecture Writing Workshop has involved multi-disciplinary teams of young students and Early Career Researchers (ECRs) from Universities in both Ghana and Nigeria in developing a series short written articles focused on personal views of university campus buildings in Ghana and Nigeria. The ECRs worked directly with the young students as mentors to encourage and develop their writing style.
The ECRs have also been tasked with compiling and editing student work to create a series of gazette entries for the Modernist University Campus Buildings in West Africa project. Aside from the written component the ECRs and students have also taken a set of photographs which will form the basis for a future planned photography workshop to be run in association with the International Documentation of Modern Buildings and Landscapes, (Docomomo) team Germany.
The British Academy-funded workshop took place over two weeks starting at the University of Ghana, Legon led by Co-I Dr Irene Appeaning Addo, with support from ECRs Kuukuwa Manful, Emmanuel Ofori-Sarpong, Dr Ayisha Baffoe-Eshun, and Yaw Asare; as well as guest mentor Dr Joseph Oduro-Frimpong. There was a guest lecture from Professor Lesley Lokko. Students from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University of Ghana, and Central University College took part in the workshop. Arc Ruth Anne Richardson, Arc Tony Asare, Dr Edem Adotey, and Professor Iain Jackson reviewed the students’ final written pieces that were focused on three buildings on the University of Ghana Campus; Commonwealth, Volta and Legon Halls.
After a hand over day the Nigeria team’s workshop was led by Co-I Dr Nnezi Uduma-Olugu, and involved three institutions, the University of Lagos, University of Jos and the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus. Each institution had a number of ECRs who worked at mentoring the interdisciplinary group of students who had enrolled at each of the workshops. As with the Ghana workshop a number of guest speakers including Prof Bogdana Prucnal-Ogunsote, (University of Jos) Kofo Adeleke (Legacy-92 organisation Lagos) and Dr Onyekiekwe Ijeoma, Nigeria commission for Museums. For the Nigerian final critical reviews attended by Prof Lukasz Stanek (University of Manchester) and Dr Joseph Oduro-Frimpong (Asheshi University Ghana) the ECRs presented their edited summaries of the student-written work and views on campus buildings in the three cities.
ECRs then presented their workshop experience at the Lagos Studies Association International Online Conference at a roundtable panel on conservation challenges in Africa chaired by Profs Uduku and Lawanson, Manchester School of Architecture, Manchester Metropolitan University, and University of Lagos respectively.
Whilst students and ECRs met in covid secure ways at their respective campuses all lectures and reviews took place entirely online, with students and ECRs able to work from ethernet-wifi equipped room spaces at the University of Ghana, and all three Nigerian collaborating Universities.
Currently ECRs are working on the editing and production of the initial phase of the Modernist African University Campus Buildings Gazette, this will be critically reviewed by Prof Miles Glendinning, Docomomo Scotland and Director SCCS University of Edinburgh. Watch this space…
Transnational Architecture Group 