Stephanie G. Mathis In Europe, architects used large expanses without shading glass and flat roofing in the early 20th century. In contrast, practitioners in humid, warmer climates such as Africa and Asia had to adapt designs to cope with heavier rainfall and higher temperatures. This style was known in colonial Africa and later as “tropical modernism” during independence.
This is the most researched and documented architectural movement in the African context. However, when it comes to discussing it outside of Africa, the discussion is largely framed through a white lens. The focus is mainly on the work of European architects in these areas – Africans from that era are mostly overlooked.
Daniel Sydney Kpodo Tay designed the Museum of Science Technology, Accra. Mun85/Wikimedia, CC BY-NC-ND
Placing Europe at the center of African stories is an eerie choice, as it echoes colonial histories that are meant to be elucidated when European architects acted as if the continent was a blank slate devoid of any pre-existing architecture worthy of note.
My research reveals how architects in Ghana, in particular, aligned themselves with, adopted, or rejected Western Colonial ideas. They designed modernist buildings to reflect their visions of their nation, experiences, and global outlook.
Ghanaian expertise
John Owusu Addo was the first black director of Ghana’s very first architecture school. Samuel Opare Larbi is another prominent architect and educator who embodies what I call the dominant Ghanaian Tropical Modernism. Their practice was similar to and aligned with the tradition of white British tropical modernists.
In 1954, the British husband and wife team of Jane Drew Max, well Fry, and James Cubbitt established the former Department of Tropical Architecture at the Architectural Association in London. Fry may have described Kano in present-day Nigeria as “a complete realization of urban harmonics,” but he and Drew still claimed to have “invented architecture” in West Africa. Their work was colored by imperial, sexist, and racist notions at the time.
Kano city, Nigeria, in 1911. Digital Collections of the New York Public Library
Owusu Addo, Larbi, and other AA graduates have all been trained in the AA. The German architect Otto Koenisberger and the Australian-born British Kenneth Mackenzie Scott were among their peers. They faced discrimination both in Europe and at home, but their UK education gave them a relative advantage in Ghana.
Many of the corporate and institutional buildings that they designed, such as Cedi House (a high-rise building in Accra that now houses the Ghana Stock Exchange), featured tropical modernism elements, including solar shading devices and rhythmic facades.
Cedi House in Accra. Simon Ontoyin/Wikimedia, CC BY-NC-ND
It is the interior of their homes that shows their deep understanding of those they are designing for. In 2015, when I interviewed Owusu Ado and Larbi, they told me how they considered Ghanaian society. They also spoke about their pride in being African architects.
Owusu Addo designed a shaded outdoor area with courtyards and verandas for the Unity Hall student’s accommodation at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. He said: “We rarely stay in our bedrooms during the day.” In the daytime, if anyone was in the bedroom, then they were sick.
Unity Hall, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi. Lukasz Stanek CC-BY-NC-ND
Creative dissent
They sought to create a style that was distinct from the European tropical modernism. They accepted the climatic controls and other material and technological aspects of the class. In terms of aesthetics, however, they were distinctly expressive.
Daniel Sydney Kpodo Tay, a native of Anyako, was confident because his family had been involved in building construction for centuries. This, along with his anticolonial politics and his desire for recognition, informed a style that the Ghana Institute of Architects called “revolutionary” upon his death in 2018
Kpodo Tay was fascinated with symbolism. His designs reject ornamentation. He wanted to make buildings themselves sculptures. He often built projects that weren’t as ambitious as those he proposed, blaming the lack of funds and conservatism among clients in Ghana.
Kpodo-Tay drew inspiration from the bowl shape to create the headquarters of the Economic Community of West African States in the early 1990s. The bowl was a symbol of community and unity. In his design, Kpodo-Tay used bold conical shapes with radial internal spaces to create a complex that would house offices, a banking facility, and a conference space.
Daniel Sydney Kpodo Tay’s proposal to the ECOWAS Headquarters. Kuukuwa Manful, Author provided
Owusu Addo Kpodo-Tay and Larbi were not the only Ghanaian Architects of their generation whose work was influenced by tropical modernism. There are still many stories to be told, particularly those of women.
The Kwame Nkrumah Science University’s School of Architecture only trained a small number of women. Some left the industry because of sexism. Others, such as the late Alero Olympio, who designed Accra’s Kokrobitey Institute, took bolder steps. They challenged Eurocentric assumptions about tropical modernism, particularly through the use of materials.
