Provides an extraordinary account of the evolution, transformation and development of architecture across this continent. It is examined and evaluated from a wide range of ethnic, climatic, political economic and religious factors.

Beschrijving van leefgewoonten, bouwkunst en gebruiksvoorwerpen van verschillende stammen

"The dwellings of hundreds of African ethnic groups offer a variety of ideas and construction practices which contradict the widespread image of the primitive huts comonly atributed to rural Africa... The cultural dimension and its application using different architectural practices are illustrated in this work."--Book jacket.

This book offers unique insights into modern African architecture, influenced by modern European architecture, and at the same time a natural successor to existing site-specific and traditional architecture. It brings together the worlds of traditional site-specific architecture with the Modernist Project in Africa, which to date have only been considered in isolation. The book covers the four architectural disciplines: urban planning, building technology, building physics, and conservation. It includes an introduction with a historical outline and an analysis and comparison of a number of projects in various countries in Africa. On the basis of examples drawn from practice, the author documents and describes the hybrid architectural forms that have emerged from the confrontation and fusion with (pre)modern Western architecture and urban planning, and in so doing he also narrates the history of African architecture.

A new edition of the most comprehensive survey of modern architecture in Africa to date. When the first edition of African Modernism was published in 2015, it was received with international praise and has been sought after constantly ever since it went out of print in 2018. Marking Park Books' 10th anniversary, this landmark book becomes available again in a new edition. In the 1950s and 1960s, most African countries gained independence from their respective colonial power. Architecture became one of the principal means by which the newly formed countries expressed their national identity. African Modernism investigates the close relationship between architecture and nation-building in Ghana, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, and Zambia. It features one hundred buildings with brief descriptive texts, images, site plans, and selected floor plans and sections. The vast majority of images were newly taken by Iwan Baan and Alexia Webster for the book's first edition. Their photographs document the buildings in their present state. Each country is portrayed in an introductory text and a timeline of historic events. Further essays on postcolonial Africa and specific aspects and topics, also illustrated with images and documents, round out this outstanding volume.

"Handsomely illustrated with many color photographs, this book . . . offers a massive amount of data on the technologies, styles and designs, as well as the symbolic and ritual meanings, of women's tent and related architecture in (various African) cultures".--WOMEN'S REVIEW OF BOOKS. 24 color, 66 bandw photos. 148 line drawings.

Since the end of Apartheid, there has been a new orientation in South African art and design, turning away from the colonial aesthetics to new types of African expression. This book examines some of the fascinating and impressive works of contemporary public architecture that 'concretise' imaginative dialogues with African landscapes, craft and indigenous traditions. Referring to Frantz Fanon's classic study of colonised subjectivity, 'Black Skin, White Masks', Noble contends that Fanon's metaphors of mask and skin are suggestive for architectural criticism, in the context of post-Apartheid public design. Taking South Africa's first democratic election of 1994 as its starting point, the book focuses on projects that were won in architectural competitions. Such competitions are conceived within ideological debates and studying them allows for an examination of the interrelationships between architecture, politics and culture. The book offers insights into these debates through interviews with key parties concerned - architects, competition jurors, politicians, council and city officials, artists and crafters, as well as people who are involved in the day-to-day life of the buildings in question.

Housing has changed in Sub-Saharan Africa since the Europeans arrived. Africans no longer live in traditional homes. This historical transition from "hut to house," from traditional to Western style, reflects slavery, colonialism and other social influences. This book focuses on Cameroon, known as "Africa in Miniature" because of its geographical and cultural representation of the continent at large. Architectural styles, materials and construction techniques are discussed within a larger context, examining how lifestyle changes and architectural trends influence each other. This work is a rich examination of the challenges and opportunities for a new generation of African architects to integrate the lessons of the past and create a future more responsive to the region's needs.

Based on almost ten years of applied research of Paolo Cascone and his CODESIGNLAB practice in Africa, the book investigates the potential role of indigenous and spontaneous architecture in the contemporary debate on sustainability in architectural design. How to respond to climatic changes reconciling nature with tekné? What is the social role of technology? How architects would reconsider their practices supporting community-oriented projects? These questions are discussed through a number of paradigmatic projects and conversations between the author and a panel of experts from different backgrounds in order to shape an interdisciplinary approach that bridges different knowledges. The theoretical assumption for this investigation is based on the observation of cause-effect relations, between different urban and architectural configurations and their performances: social, environmental, structural etc. in both pre-colonial and informal cultures around Africa. The diachronic approach intends to generate, after many years of post-colonial studies, an operative agenda of possible strategies, which is in accordance with different contextual conditions starting from the anthropological and the climatic ones. Such an agenda responds to a global cultural need for an ecological shift in the contemporary design and manufacturing processes, which should bridge high and low-tech cultures. Therefore, the book is conceived also as a sort of manual that is articulated around emergent principles inspired by traditional and informal African practices and architectures: self-similarity and diversified typologies, material optimisation and circular economy, self-sufficiency and responsive dwellings. Each principle is confronted also with the work of pioneers such as Hassan Fathy, Fabrizio Carola etc. with the aim of sharing and evolving such tremendous heritage by introducing the case studies realized in the frame of the [AF] African Fabbers project over the last decade.