The future of African Architecture: Progressing with history

     The article, Building for "l'Authenticité": Eugène Palumbo and the Architecture of Mobutu's Congo, by Johan Lagae and Kim De Raedt explores the problem of maintaining authentic African architecture while weathering the storm of modernity. In this article we see the Italian-trained architect, Palumbo, undertake this mission. In this instance, the president of Congo from the 1960s till the 1990s, president Mobutu Sese Seko, ordered the construction of new architecture to replace the colonial Belgian architecture present in the country. Here we see an example of a case where extreme measures are being taken in this mission to "return to tradition". In this effort to return Congo to a pre-colonized state, president Mobutu enforced “cultural” rules and codes in people’s daily lives, and in return, this allowed for little room for other cultural agents or artists to work.

    While the intentions behind president Mobutu's attempt to eradicate colonialism's effects on the country, it is pursued in a destructive and unprogressive manner. Palumbo's work in Congo was able to honor Mobutu's wishes to rebuild Congo using pre-colonial Congolese architecture, but he was also able to embrace modernism. 

This is an outline of one of Palumbo's architectural reconstructions in Congo.

This same matter of “not returning to but drawing upon” traditional architecture is central in the Yoruba architectural works I'm studying for my final research. Within current-day Nigeria, we can see this same interaction between traditional architecture and colonial imports. This is evident in the afro-Brazillian architecture present with Nigerian homes, and other common Nigerian architectures.  

These are examples of modern homes in Nigeria, the architectural style displays colonial European style and traditional Nigerian architecture.

    Unlike Mobutu's mission to completely eradicate Belgian's colonial presence in Congo, modern-day Nigeria comprises largely of both colonial and pre-colonial influence on the country. This has allowed for numerous creative architectural explorations within the country. Modern-day Nigeria also uses this combination of colonial and pre-colonial influence in other aspects of their lives and culture, like burial rituals entailing traditional and Christian practices.