Talk: Reflections on the "Architecture of Independence"
NNAMDI ELLEH

In conjunction with our current exhibition, Architecture of Independence, architectural historian Nnamdi Elleh will discuss the sociopolitical conditions and modernist architecture of Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, and Zambia following independence, exploring how the collective and the individual fit in the post-colonial experiences of these countries. Elleh asks: Why did these countries fall into different states of violence following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, an era that has been seen as the rise of neoliberal economy in the world and in Africa in general?  Elleh will draw from the exhibition to address the various challenges facing these countries and different parts of the continent today.

Nnamdi Elleh is associate professor of architecture, history and theory at University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning. He was trained as an architect and received his PhD in art history from Northwestern University. He was a Fulbright Teaching-Research Scholar at the University of Cape Town, where he studied post-apartheid nationalist inspired architecture in South Africa. His research focuses on modern and contemporary architecture as diverse, multi-centered, regional, and localized experiences in different parts of the world. Elleh’s selected publications include African Architecture, Evolution and Transformation (McGraw Hill, 1996); Architecture and Power in Africa(Praeger, 2001); and Reading the Architecture of the Underprivileged Classes: A Perspective on the Protests and Upheavals in Our Cities (Ashgate, 2014).

Image: Photomontage of Bernard Nivert and Robert Boy’s Building for the Fund for Stabilization and Support of Agricultural Produce Prices (CAISTAB), 1970, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, featuring the country’s primary agricultural produce. Originally published in the national magazine Fraternité Matin, November 1981.

To learn more about the exhibition Architecture of Independence: African Modernism, click here.