Invented modernisms: getting to grips with modernity in three African state buildings

Manful, Kuukuwa Oduguamba; Batsani-Ncube, Innocent; Gallagher, Julia

Abstract

This article examines recent attempts to create specifically African forms of modernist political architecture that draw on ‘traditional’ or ‘pre-colonial’ aesthetic forms and ideas. Taking examples of three prestigious structures – the presidential palace in Ghana, the parliament in Malawi and the Northern Cape regional parliament in South Africa – the article shows how vernacular ideas have been incorporated into state-of-the-art political architecture, producing new or explicitly ‘African’ forms of modernism. It explores how such buildings, which draw on ‘invented traditions’, are used alongside conventional, monolithic representations of the state to produce ‘invented modernisms’ that both uphold and question the African state as a project of modernity.

Citation

Manful, K. O., Batsani-Ncube, I., & Gallagher, J. (in press). Invented modernisms: getting to grips with modernity in three African state buildings. Curator: The Museum Journal, 65(3), 569-589. https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12505

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 29, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Jul 10, 2022
• Deposit Date: Jul 1, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 1, 2022
• Journal: Curator: The Museum Journal
• Print ISSN: 0011-3069
• Electronic ISSN: 2151-6952
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 65
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 569-589
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12505
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cura.12505