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| La Foire Internationale de Dakar Dakar, Sénégal news.adakar.com |
Blogger recently came across an article that piqued Blogger's interest. It was a story published in the English newspaper The Guardian titled "The forgotten masterpieces of African modernism," written by Oliver Wainwright. The story looks at efforts by Swiss architect Manuel Herz, who spent the last few years studying the architecture of African Independence with a team at ETH University in Zurich. What caught Blogger's attention was that modern architecture in African Independence in sixties and seventies is not normally part of the regular discourse of late period modernism. Thus, yours truly decided to bring out into the light of day.
The first example of African modern design is La Foire Internationale de Dakar. Oliver Wainwright describes it as "A field of triangular roof..." that rise "...above the horizon on the outskirts of Dakar, like a forest of wigwams that have been baked to stone under the scorching sub-Saharan sun. They sit on a triangular concrete plinth, from which bigger triangular pavilions protrude, accessed by flights of triangular step..."
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| La Foire Internationale de Dakar, interior Dakar, Sénégal news.adakar.com |
The reinforced concrete complex, abbreviated to FIDAK and derided by Mr. Wainwright as Toblerone Town, was built in 1975 in the Senegalese capital as an exhibition center for the country's biennial international trade show. FIDAK was designed by a pair of relatively unknown French architects, Jean-François Lamoureux and Jean-Louis Marin. The architects executed the complex with great attention to detail. Mr. Wainwright writes, "There are facades decorated with coloured pebbles and tiled mosaics, psychedelic sand art murals that evoke the rocky African coastline and azure seas." Yet, beyond the borders of Sénégal, FIDAK is virtually unknown.
This situation is being remedied by Manuel Herz and his team from Switzerland. They are looking at this vibrant period in African history that manifested itself in "bold structures and strident new forms." Oddly enough, when you open a modern architectural history book, there is barely, if at all, any mention of this period. Mr. Herz told Mr. Wainwright, "There was an intense flowering of experimental and futuristic architecture in the 1960s and 70s, which the young African countries used to express their national identities. Manuel Herz curated an exhibition featuring over eighty buildings from the sub-Saharan region at Vitra Design Museum, going on until May. Mr. Herz added, "But we simply don't know about it. When people think of Africa, they think of poverty, misery and violence, while architects fetishise informality and focus on slum-upgrading. But we wanted to show this incredible cultural wealth that also exists.
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| Hotel Ivoire 1962-70 Photography by ©Iwan Baan; © Manuel Herz Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire domusweb.it |
One example of a pet project of Africa's "big man" leader is the Kenyatta International Conference Center in Nairobi, Kenya. The Conference Center was the initiative of the country's first president Jomo Kenyatta and intended as the lavish headquarters of his ruling Kanu party. The pink cylindrical shaft rises
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| Kenyatta International Conference Center Photography by ©Iwan Baan Nairobi, Kenya stylepark.com |
The Kenyatta International Conference Center was designed by Norwegian architect Karl Henrik Nøstvik who came to Kenya as part of his country's aid program and found favor with the late-Mr. Kenyatta, being from a country without a muddled colonial past. Oliver Wainwright reports, "Scandinavian architects loom large in the period for this reason, bringing their mastery of expressive concrete and sculpting with light-but mercifully freed, in the tropics, from pesky northern European necessities and insulation. In Africa, the inside-outside dream could finally be realised-and so European modernist let rip."
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| University of Zambia Lusaka, Zambia Photography by Iwan Baan via The Guardianarchinect.com |
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| La Pyramide Market Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire Photography by Iwan Baan theguardian.com |
Despite its incompleteness, the University of Zambia is still in use. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the equally daring La Pyramide Market in the Côte d'Ivoire capital of Abidjan. La Pyramide was designed by Italian architect Rinaldo Olivieri between 1968 and 1973, currently a testament to its own grand ambitions. The massive concrete pyramid is anchored to a pair of towers, seemingly ready for launch. It was a brave effort to reinvent the covered market for an African city. Rinaldo Olivieri was careful not to duplicate the mistakes of the hermetically sealed glass tower spring up around the city. Mr. Olivieri hoped to capture the the vibrant free-form spirit of the markets near the city. The architect designed a "large central hall full of activity, above which offices, studios and restaurants would step back in a big hollow ziggurat-all sacked on top of a gargantuan basement, complete with supermarket, nightclub and parking for 1,800 cars."
If nothing else, it was optimistic but with high maintenance costs and a grossly inefficient proportion of rentable space, it proved to be a huge failure, empty since the eighties economic crash, now partly gutted and squatted. Its fate remains in the balance.
This is partly what makes this show at the Vitra Museum and the accompanying book so fascinating. The majority of these buildings may not be around for too long. One of Manuel Herz's favorite buildings, a UFO-shaped hovering nightclub in Nairobi was demolished last summer. Mr. Herz said, "We urgently need to make people aware of this fascinating heritage...To put it bluntly, when we think of the futuristic architecture of the 1960s, we think of Oscar Niemeyer first-but a lot of these buildings are so much bette. When you see FIDAK, you can Niemeyer."
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