‘In Lagos and Nigeria as a whole, we are still constrained by politics, poverty, poor education, and limited infrastructure, which restricts our ability to develop the exact tools and materials that would ensure the spoils of modernist technology without importation. Yet, at the same time, we are rejecting the possibilities within our own history and imagination that would allow us to find new solutions. In his essay, “Towards a New Culture; Rethinking the African Modern (The Architecture of Demas Nwoko),” Giles Omezi discusses how this renowned artist and architect “sought to resolve in his architecture, a crisis at the heart of contemporary Africa; the nature of its modernity”.

 

The questions we are currently plagued with as Nigerian architects are those regarding ‘value’ and what architecture should mean to the average Nigerian, or African. I agree with Omezi on the point that it must first start at the place where art and architecture meet, in terms of the cerebral, this requires contemplation…’

 

Interview extract

FULL PUBLICATION HERE

 

Foreign Affairs is a laboratory of the Institute of Architecture of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, investigating spatial, infrastructural, environmental and cultural phenomena in rural and urban Sub-Saharan Africa. Head: Baerbel Mueller

With the kind support of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the Embassy of Austria in Abuja and the Goethe Institute Lagos.