THE ARCHITECTURE OF INDEPENDENCE

Modern Architecture in Independence-Era Nigeria

Lydia Fulton Brian McLaren Arch 442 A Winter 2013

The story of Nigerias transition from traditional to modern architecture is not simple or linear. It cannot be separated from a long history of European and African architectural

traditions influencing each other mutually, not one-directionally. As it was everywhere else in the world, modernism in Africa did not allow the past to stay stagnant. However, modernism in Africa was often realized in different forms for ethnically Africans than it was for their European colonizers. British and Nigerian architects, as shown through the works of Maxwell Fry, Jane Drew, and Oluwole Olumuyiwa, had different approaches to designing in modern and independence era Nigeria. These approaches cannot be separated from the short but telling history of the invasion and colonization of Nigeria by the British. Nigerias ambitions to find a new architecture are in many ways parallel to their struggle to gain independence. The Britishs presence in what became Nigeria has a relatively short but unusually varied history. The colony of Nigeria started with a bloody and treacherous takeover by the British but ended with a bloodless path to independence. This can be explained by the creation of a small, Westernized elite and the urbanization of a large part of Nigerias population. British invasion came slowly, starting with the surrender of Lagos in 1851 and extending into the early 1900s. Invasion happened in two stages. The southern half, which included the indigenous Yoruba people, was conquered from 1850 to 1897. The more remote northern region was conquered from the turn of the century until 1914. indigenous Hausa as well as a by a small Muslim caliphate. Various forms of resistance were used. Male secret societies that existed in Western Africa long before the presence of Europeans, known as the Ekumeku, turned into protest groups against the British. The indigenous people also turned to their gods and charm-makers. Charms The North was occupied by the

and sacrifices offered encouragement to soldiers or protection to villages and communities. Stories of battles won because of sicknesses conjured on the opposing army were common. Islam offered ideological ways to resist the colonists. When physical force failed, Muslims could accept the colonization with the mouth but not with the heart. At the same time that victories were being attributed to charms and sacrifices, an alreadyemerging small elite of native Nigerians was beginning to embrace Western means of resisting the colonists by using pamphlets and running weekly anti-British writings in newspapers. Some of these elite Nigerians in coastal towns resigned themselves completely to colonization because they wanted it to bring elements of modernization to Nigeria, like roads, industry, and Western education. The areas in Northern and Southern Nigeria that were conquered separately eventually became amalgamated in 1914. In the early decades of the colony, the Westernization of

indigenous Nigerians spread through education, creating an elite that gradually became more and more anti-colonial. The south benefited more than the north from this modernization, but many Nigerians in the hinterland moved to cities to avoid being considered primitive. A desire for freedom from the colonists became the most common expression of nationalism, and the main instrument of nationalism was anti-colonial sentiment, not history, culture, or language. Economic depression and World War II also lead Nigerians to realize that the Europeans modernism was not necessarily the solution to their problems. Despite nationalism and anti-colonist sentiment, Nigeria maintained a good relationship with Britain. In 1948 the British expanded the University of Ibadan at the insistence of the Nigerians. The 1950s became an era of optimism in Nigeria, as it did in much of the world, and in the 1956, at the brink of independence, the Queen still received an enormous welcome. In

1960, Britain decided that it would be easier to grant Nigeria independence rather than to have to control a modern nation-state, suggesting that Britain thought that Nigeria was capable of emerging as an operable nation. Nigeria was colonized for about sixty years, or for a shorter time than it took to invade. Though the British thought they would be in Nigeria to stay, they had unintentionally created a Westernized elite who, by interacting largely among themselves, had grown more and more nationalist. The British had taken Nigeria from a traditional elite, from chiefs and kings whose most powerful weapons had been spears, bows, and charms, but relinquished Nigeria to a Westernized elite, who were ready to use the modernization given to them by the British to reclaim their country. Not surprisingly, some of the most significant modernist buildings came from the university towns of Ibadan and Lagos, where the nationalist and Westernized elite was the most active. Interestingly, both British and Nigerian architects have a similar motif in there

architecture: a strong response to the climate. While not all of the works are post-independence, they are all from the period when Nigeria was pushing for independence and, more importantly, they all try to make a new Nigerian identity. British architects Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew were responsible for many of the original buildings on the University of Ibadan campus. One, the Sultan Bello Dining Hall, is important because it is a perfect example of compromising the modern and the traditional to make a building perfectly suited to the climate. The building consists of a dome on elliptical ribs that extends to the ground at four corners. The walls are semi-enclosed screens that allow for further air movement throughout the building. While a unique building in Nigeria in its time, the dining hall was a success, because it was designed around the heat, humidity, sunlight, and the insect

population particular to Ibadan. The interweaving elliptical ribs and the positioning of the building towards the prevailing wind so successfully helped keep Sultan Bello cool that Western tourists would ask if it had air conditioning.
Sultan Bello College Dining Hall, Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, 1948.

In this aspect, Fry and Drew were loyal to indigenous Nigerian architecture, because this natural cross-ventilation is characteristic of traditional African architecture. In choosing

imported materials, they were also loyal to their modernist roots. Here, it is important to mention the similarities between Fry and Drew and their American contemporary, Eero Saarinen. Sultan Bello is almost identical in gesture to Saarinens Kresge Auditorium at MIT, except that Kresge connects to the ground at three points, not four; and in section, Sultan Bello is also very similar to the Saarinens Ingalls Hockey Rink at Yale. Saarinen was criticized during his career for never finding a stylistic consistency, and this can be seen in Fry and Drews work in Africa. Even on the University of Ibadan campus, their designs range from the hut-like form of Sultan Bello to the rectilinear form of the Kenneth Dike Library. Saarinens multiplicity is now praised, and attributed to how he responded to the particular needs of the project.

Fry and Drew also responded to the particular needs of the project at the University of Ibadan. They designed a building that was comfortable and made use of superior, exported materials at a time when most Nigerians were interested in modern conveniences. Like many architects in Nigeria at this time, the organic form of Fry and Drews design may have been inspired by the huts of the Yoruba, an indigenous group in Southern Nigeria. Any architect who has a chance to build on a university campus, especially the first completely accredited University in a country that had been pushing for one for decades, had the difficult task of representing the values of the people for which they designed. Fry and Drew made an incredible building: with their understanding of air circulation and modern materials, they designed a building that cleverly accounted for the climate. At the same time, they create a form that is an acknowledgement to the history and traditions of Nigeria. They follow one of Saarinens

principles for modern architecture: that it has to have an awareness of time. The Sultan Bello Dining Hall is as much a presentation of modern architecture as it as a representation of Nigerias traditional past.

Yoruba traditional dwelling. Similar organic form to many example of modernist architecture, including Sultan Bello College Dining Hall.

However, Sultan Bello can be seen as a one-dimensional idea of a traditional form articulated with modern materials. Fry and Drew do not account for any of the history or dimension that came between the traditional past and the modernist present. This is not

multiplicity or plurality, this is duality. Saarinen, who mostly designed in the United States, did not have as difficult a task as Fry and Drew. The United States had only a few centuries of recorded history and mostly left the history and traditions that had come before them unacknowledged. On the other hand, Nigeria and much of Africa had thousands of years of history and cross-pollination, in addition to a persistent presence from Europeans beginning in the nineteenth century. It is almost as if they are ignoring the years of colonization, crosspollination, and conquest, indicating that the years between the traditional and the modern are unimportant. In another work on the same site, Fry and Drew account for this duality by expressing how modernism can take over the traditional. The Kenneth Dike is a rectilinear concrete

building that is noteworthy because of the texture on the skin of the building. The strong, geometric patterns are reminiscent of the texture on the mud structures of the Hausa, an indigenous ethnic group from Southern Nigeria. This building is not unique because of its modern form with its traditional ornamentation. In fact, buildings of this nature are found all over Nigeria and can be considered naturally occurring. Typically, modernization of traditional architecture in Nigeria started by changing buildings from circular to rectangular. For this reason, it is not uncommon to see colonial-inspired houses with the ornamentation of traditional Yoruba or Hausa architecture. Designing a building with a contemporary form but with

traditional decoration is an acknowledgement to the time period unacknowledged by Sultan

Bello, the time between the traditional and the modern when Europeans were influencing what could still be considered Nigerian vernacular architecture.
Kenneth Dike Library, 1948. In contrast to Sultan Bello, shows the multiplicity of Fry and Drews designs.

House in Nigeria with colonial and specifically Brazilian influences that includes a Yoruba pattern in the railings. From the middle of the 20th century.

While Fry and Drew were able to capture a sense of cultural transition in the Kenneth Dike Library, they took away a lot of its cultural significance. These patterns, traditionally done in mud, would wash away and be replaced annually. This allowed the buildings to capture time and change in a unique way. For the most part, the patterns were not that different from each

other: they were either curving, organic forms or geometric forms that fit well inside each other. Oftentimes, the designs would make a reference to the time. One Hausa house is renowned for the depiction of a bicycle on its cladding. The power of this type of decoration is that it literally became an annual record of what was in the Hausa peoples lives. Pre-colonization or before the invention of the bicycle, this pattern would not have been made: this pattern specifically reflects the eclecticism that was becoming a part of colonial African society at the time of its creation.
Bicycle in Hausa decoration.

Fry and Drew take much of the significance of the Hausa decoration away by making it out of concrete, turning it into a cladding frozen in time with the interpretation of just a few artists. It gives it a specific, unchanging significance, rather than a dynamic, heterogeneous one. It almost denies Nigerians the ability to choose what aspects of their diverse culture they want to display. Realistically, the cladding on the library is a good commentary on the modern culture that they Nigerians were beginning to live. It reflects a move toward a modern Nigeria, in which Nigerians do not have time to redecorate their buildings annually, but do have the money to clad

them in imported materials. Its the transition from traditional to modern: an acknowledgement of the traditional in the modern before the modern renders the traditional completely insignificant. Fry and Drew did use these patterns for practical purposes, too. In some of their buildings on the campus, the shapes cut through the walls, creating breathing windows. Much like the Sultan Bello Dining Hall, Fry and Drew adapted a traditional form with practical purposes to fit a modern building. The use of this texturing can also be explained by a desire to turn towards a more naturalistic form. The patterns are similar to the patterns traced by chimpanzees in straw, or perhaps can be likened to the subtle curvature in the Arabic alphabet. They are natural shapes, comfortable for the hand to make and for the eye to appreciate. In parallel to the works of Saarinen and to their own Sultan Bello Dining Hall, perhaps Fry and Drew chose that kind of cladding because they believed that an organic form can be an important element to modern architecture. In an important contrast and comparison to Fry and Drew is Oluwole Olumuyiwa, a Nigerian architect who was educated and practiced in Europe and then became one of the first ethnically Nigerian architects to set up a practice in Nigeria. Like Fry and Drew, his buildings work to establish a new architecture for Nigeria, though he used subtly different approaches. As established by the works of Fry and Drew, one of the most important aspects of buildings in the tropical zone is their ability to stay cool in the humid climate. One of

Olumuyiwas works, known as the Crusader House, took advantage of full tilt windows on the first floor to allow for cross-ventilation in much the same way as the concrete slabs of Sultan Bello. However, Olumuyiwa surreptitiously inserted air-conditioning vents into the upper

stories; but he had a harder task than Fry and Drew. Fry and Drew designed for a large college

campus where the buildings were spaced far apart and many of the natural breezes could be caught, whereas the Crusader House was designed for a busy city street. Though the climatic adaptation of the Sultan Bello Dining Hall might have been more pure because it did not use airconditioning, it did not have to adapt to modern Nigerias dense urban grids as the Crusader House did. In order to fit into the rectilinear character of the city block and the small footprint of the site, Olumuyiwa could not design a broad, hut-like structure, so he had to adapt his rectilinear building as best as he could to catch breezes.
The architect Olumuyiwa standing next to the full-tilt windows of his Crusader House, 1958.

Other works by Olumuyiwa show his commitment to a modern lifestyle in Nigeria. His house, called the Architecture House, displays how important the plurality of his background is to him. First of all, the house had a large living area, showing Olumuyiwas adherence to West African traditions in which houses had to be able to hold large family functions. In addition, according to the tradition of a more Western and capitalist culture, the house also was designed to suit both his social and business lives. The name suggests that the private and work lives of Olumuyiwa were intermixed, and this was also expressed in Architecture Houses section. The

different levels in Architecture House are staggered in such a way that the business and social areas of the house interact. This allowed Olumuyiwa to network at his house and to let it impress potential clients with displays of his achievements and experiences. Olumuyiwa did not display only European artifacts that showed his association with Europe, nor did he display traditional Nigerian artwork out of a European-learned fetishism or a congenital solidarity with his home-country. Instead, Olumuyiwa demonstrates the plurality of his and Nigerias

background by displaying artifacts from African, European, and Islamic traditions. Even the climatic adaptations in Architecture House respond with the approaches of several different cultures. Olumuyiwa uses cross-ventilation, much like Fry and Drew and indigenous Africans. He also uses pools as a cooling method, a practice common in Islamic architecture.
Photo of Architecture House showing staggered levels. 195860.

The artifacts and objects in Architecture House come from Islamic, African, and European traditions and culture.

In general, Olumuyiwa maintained the strong aspects of his native architecture and improved the weak ones. He integrated long-established knowledge about natural cross-

ventilation and outside spaces to cool his buildings as well as used local materials when he could. He drew from his European experiences where he saw Nigerian architecture to be lacking, using bold materials and colors. His architecture showed that he wanted to assert his budding nations voice and independence upon the world scene. This may be the strength in Nigerias culture. With so much cross-pollination, they had so many different roots to draw from. Once, when asked whether it was possible for Nigeria to find a modern aesthetic, the Maxwell Fry seemed to scoff at the idea. He questioned what it would be based on, and if Nigeria could find an influence as strong as Aaltos Finnish tradition or TangesJapanese. He did not seem to consider the thousands of years of different ethnic

groups with different ideas on architecture who had lived in Nigeria, including Islamic, African, and European peoples. And he did not seem to understand Nigerian tenacity and independence, established by decades of resisting some elements of Western culture while embracing and integrating others. Olumuyiwa, who began his practice in Nigeria only a few years after some of Fry and Drews major works there, seemed to understand the strength of Nigerias plurality as well as its independent spirit. His approach to his practice in Nigeria, where he was able to successfully reference the plurality of Nigerias past in a modernist way, shows that Nigeria was ready for a modernist future. When looking at Fry and Drews work as opposed to Olumuyiwas, it might seem like Fry and Drew display more of a connection to Nigeria, at least to its physical setting. But Olumuyiwas work has a stronger connection to the time and the aspirations of his country. This is the modernist present, and showed that Nigeria, through native Nigerians such as Olumuyiwa, was ready to enter the modern era.

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