Sans titre-1 1 04/06/13 09:15

Samba beatInside brazil’s Carnival.

T h E i n - f l i G h T m A G A z i n E o f E T h i o P i A n A i r l i n E s

sEPTEmbEr/ocTobEr 2013

Contributors

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| Aboutselamta

claire rigby is the editor-in-chief at Time Out São

Paulo. As a freelance journalist, she has written for Art

Review, Frame and Mark, The Guardian, Telegraph, Buenos

Aires Herald and South China Morning Post. Follow her

on Twitter @claire_rigby, and go behind the scenes of

Carnival with her in “Samba Beat” on p. 24.Rooted in: São Paulo, Brazil

Typical breakfast: Milky coffee, a tall glass of freshly

squeezed orange juice and some pão na chapa — grilled bread with butter.

michele koh morollo is a writer and frequent

contributor to architecture and design titles,

including Dwell Asia, Surface Asia, Singapore Architect,

Design Quarterly, In Design, LOFT and Perspective Global.

Her favorite buildings are those where modernist

forms meet traditional local styles. In “The Rise of

African Architecture” on p. 42, she looks at the talent

arising from and returning to the continent.

Rooted in: Hong Kong, ChinaTypical breakfast: Weetabix with soy milk, and half a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich on whole-wheat bread.

behailu shiferaw is a freelance journalist

and independent media-and-development-

communication consultant based in Ethiopia. He

is currently working with the Children's Radio

Foundation, a youth-media organization that’s

active in several African countries. See his story on

Ethiopia’s agricultural transformation on p. 64.

Rooted in: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Typical breakfast: Chechebsa — an Ethiopian delicacy made of flatbread broken into pieces and then lightly fried with liquid butter and berbere (a spicy red pepper powder).

andré klotz is a photographer and compulsive

traveler who recently returned to his hometown of

São Paulo after many years abroad. He has col-

laborated for such magazines as National Geographic

Traveler, the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Trip, GQ

and Casa Vogue, among others. See his images of São

Paulo’s Carnival on p. 24.

Rooted in: São Paulo, Brazil

Typical breakfast: “A cup of coffee and a couple pieces of toast, and I’m ready to go. Simple is good.”

8 selamtamagazine.com

42 selamtamagazine.com

he mention of 20th-cen-

tury architecture brings to

mind Europeans such as Le

Corbusier and Antonio Gaudí,

or Americans such as Frank

Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry.

The 21st century sees a more

international crew, includ-

ing Shigeru Ban from Japan,

Moshe Safdie from Israel and

Wang Shu from China. But where is Africa

in architecture’s hall of fame?

Powerful colonial influences, coupled

with a history of political and economic

turmoil, left the people of Africa with less

time to ponder the aesthetics and ergo-

nomics of houses, malls and skyscrapers.

But the tide is turning. According to

Tanzanian-born British architect David

Adjaye, a growing number of organizations,

architectural contests and architects them-

selves are placing African architecture on

the world’s stage. “Through initiatives such

as these — awards, events and peer group

support,” Adjaye says, “this decade will see

a striking new horizon for African architec-

ture and its global impact.”

The history of African architectureIn the 1940s and ’50s, experiments in

architecture and urban planning were

carried out across the African conti-

nent, but mostly by Western architects

such as Le Corbusier and Aldo van Eyck,

who were particularly influential in the

creation of mass housing schemes in

Morocco and Algeria.

When African nations started gain-

ing independence, between the 1950s and

’80s, colonizers used “International Style”

to show their good intentions of leading

colonies toward the future. This style is a

modernist approach developed in Europe

and America in the 1920s and ’30s and is

characterized by the use of concrete, steel

and minimal ornamentation.

In May 1981, the new African Union of

Architects began uniting architects of all

races, religions and nationalities across

the continent. Other national architect

associations and action networks — such

as Adventurers in Diaspora, Casamémoire,

Doual’art and ArchiAfrika — were created

to stimulate the debate on the quality of

the built environment and the value of

Africa’s artistic and architectural heritage.

With the fast pace of economic growth

in Africa from 2000 to 2008, these organi-

zations kept a concerned eye on valuable

architectural assets in African cities —

the historical buildings in the city center

of Dar es Salaam, for example, and the

National Museum in Ghana. Architects

and academics alike within the continent

began paying more attention to the build-

ings in their countries.

“Up to now, important projects on the

continent were designed by foreign ar-

chitects,” says Jean Charles Tall, architect

and founder of the College Universitair

d’Architecture de Dakar.

“When you go to a bookshop, even in

Africa,” he continues, “all the books writ-

ten on African architecture are written

by people from outside of the continent,

with an anthropologist perspective or

for tourists.”

So Tall is urging further discussion

and research about architecture across

Africa. Forums of discussion between

practicing architects, students and aca-

demics, he says, will allow this generation

to further voice its own opinion and move

African architecture onto the global stage.

T

The Rise of AfRicAn ARchiTecTuReThe continent’s talents are speaking up. B y M i c h e l e K o h M o r o l l o

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43september/october 2013

liBrAryBurkina Faso

Diébédo Francis Kéré

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44 selamtamagazine.com

increasing awareness through dialogueEncouraging the rise of indigenous archi-

tecture across the continent is ArchiAfrika,

an organization founded in 2001 as a plat-

form to put African architecture on the

world map. ArchiAfrika offers an online fo-

rum for the exchange of news and expertise

in the region, and initiates and facilitates

research, projects, and conferences.

In addition to ArchiAfrika’s influence,

there are now more than 50 universities

in Africa offering architecture programs,

and students are approaching the disci-

pline with greater confidence.

Up till now, architecture in Africa was

driven primarily by the Bauhaus principal

of functionality, but today’s architects

are much more innovative, incorporating

sustainability and intelligent aesthetics

into their designs.

One such professional is Burkinabé

architect Diébédo Francis Kéré, 48. Kéré’s

first project — a primary school in eastern

Burkina Faso, built when Kéré was still a

student at the Technical University of

Berlin — was designed on the principles

of climatic comfort and keeping construc-

tion costs low. Kéré used local construction

materials such as compressed earth blocks

and metal shutters to create a streamlined,

contemporary form that is often observed

in modern German architecture.

“I think that giving value to traditional

building techniques,” Kéré says, “is the way

we can unite tradition and modernity.”

consider climate and topographyPart of generating new concepts involves

appreciating historic architecture. Coun-

tries with stronger economies may have

more noteworthy modern buildings, yet

places such as Mali and Ethiopia have

much to offer in the way of traditional her-

itage buildings — like the mud mosque of

Djenné and the rock churches of Lalibela.

As the birthplace of dozens of ancient

civilizations, Africa enjoys a rich and var-

ied artistic heritage that has informed

modern European artistic techniques as

well. Twentieth-century artists such as

Picasso and Modigliani were inspired

by the lines and forms of tribal masks

and sculptures. European architects Le

Corbusier and Theo Van Doesburg used

well-organized geometric and cubical

forms from African art in their works.

One of the earliest African architects

to value the continent’s artistic wealth

is Pierre Goudiaby Atepa, former presi-

dent of the Association of Architects of

Senegal and a pivotal figure of African ar-

chitecture during the 1970s and ’80s. Atepa’s

most well-known projects include Dakar’s

Millennium Gate, Gambia’s Banjul airport

and the bank of the Economic Community

of West African States in Lomé, Togo.

“I don’t want to bring Africa into mo-

dernity,” Atepa says, “but rather to use

modernity with what is profoundly Afri-

can in order to create a kind of symbiosis,

or metissage, in architecture.”

At 66, Atepa says he’ll have to think

about taking a rest soon. But he is “sure

that the new generation will revolutionize

modern African architecture.”

Indeed, this new generation has

already stepped up. David Adjaye, 47, at-

tained international fame for such works

as the Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo, Norway,

and the Smithsonian National Museum

of African American History and Culture

in Washington, D.C.

He has published numerous books on

African architecture and says he learns

something every time he goes to a new

place — whether it’s a slum community

like Kibera in Nairobi or the business dis-

trict of Luanda.(AL

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45september/october 2013

liBrAryBurkina Faso

Diébédo Francis Kéré

46 selamtamagazine.com

priMAry schoolBurkina Faso

Diébédo Francis Kéré

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47september/october 2013

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48 selamtamagazine.com

“Within the context of [world] en-

vironmental challenges,” he says, “the

building practices of traditional African

architecture offer some useful lessons in

working with climate, topography and

cultivating a sense of place.”

For example, as he explained in an

August 2012 interview with Architectural

Record: “You can’t understand Africa until

you realize that it has six extraordinary

geographic zones — each one very pre-

cise and extreme. In the northwest you

have the Maghreb, then to the east you

have the desert, and to the south the Sa-

hel, which is between the desert and the

forest. Other parts of the continent are

forestlands or savanna or the mountains.

“Each place, of course, has its own

particularities, but culture grows from

climate. . . . How do you respond to this

extreme climate and make an architec-

ture that becomes African?”

homeward bound This growth in contemporary African ar-

chitecture has led several distinguished

African architects who have lived and

worked overseas to return to their home

countries. The most well-known is

Ghanaian Joe Osae-Addo, 42, who moved

back to Accra in 2004.

Although Osae-Addo had run a thriv-

ing architectural practice in Los Angeles,

he hoped to better align himself with his

beliefs on sustainability, and Ghana was

the place to do so.

At that time, most urban homes in

Accra, the capital of a former British colony,

were concrete-block houses made with im-

ported English Portland cement. Dissatisfied

with this drab approach to living, Osae-

Addo was determined to find ways to build

his home with locally sourced materials.

“I wanted to explore ideas of light,

cross-ventilation and lightness of

structure,” he says. As a result, Osae-

Addo designed his home to stand 3 feet

off the ground on a wooden deck, so that

under-floor breezes would cool the space

naturally. He also incorporated slatted-

wood screens and floor-to-ceiling jalousie

windows for cross-ventilation.

“Interstitial spaces and landscape are

what define tropical architecture,” he says.

“It is not about edifice but rather harness-

ing the elements — trees, wind, sun and

water — to create harmony, not the per-

fection that modernism craves so much.”

Osae-Addo applied these sustainable

building principles to other projects,

too, such as the Oguaa Football for Hope

Centre in Cape Coast, Ghana, which was

constructed with reclaimed scaffolding,

donated shipping containers, and indig-

enous bamboo and adobe bricks. “Africa

is not just a place of inspiration,” he says,

“but a place to live, grow and create.”

The new African architect“The next generation of architects is our

future,” Osae-Addo says. “They have all

the tools and technologies at their dispos-

al and a growing awareness of their own

roots. The old guard must recognize this

and nurture and support them.

Atepa shares Osae-Addo’s focus on the

next generation, believing that all Africans,

no matter where they live, should participate

in the development of African architecture.

“The wealth of tomorrow is in Africa,”

he wrote in a June 2008 interview with

the African art blog Unseen Art Scene.

”I received everything from Africa. So I

must give something back. . . . Africa is

the cradle of art. If African architects suc-

ceed one day in making the symbiosis

between African art and modern archi-

tecture, the result will be magnificent.”

oguAA fooTBAll for hope cenTreCape Coast, Ghana

Joe Osae-Addo