NEW YORK, NY.- The Center for Architecture announces the first NYC showing of Architecture of Independence – African Modernism. Featuring nearly 80 buildings, the exhibition explores the complex history and legacy of architecture in Ghana, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, and Zambia during the 1960s and 1970s. Curated by Manuel Herz and organized by the Vitra Design Museum, Architecture of Independence includes contemporary photography by renowned photographer Iwan Baan and award-winning South African humanitarian photo-documentarian Alexia Webster.

Between 1957 and 1966, 32 countries – almost two thirds of all African nations – gained their independence from colonial powers. In these budding nations, including the five featured in this exhibition, technology and development, including modernist architecture, became tools of liberation and instruments for expressing national identity. The daring and ambitious designs of new buildings, from state banks to convention centers and stadiums, mirrored the optimism and aspirations of the newly liberated states.

While architecture served as a means of expressing a break from the colonial past and positioning themselves on the global stage, only a few local architects, including Pierre Goudiaby Atepa, Chiekh N’Gom, and Pierre Fakhoury, were actually commissioned to design these projects. The architects mainly came from Western countries, including former colonial powers England and France, the United States, Scandinavia, and Israel, and later Eastern Bloc nations like Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. These contradictions reflect the complex nature of post-colonial construction, with myriad sources providing design services and planning expertise to these new nations in collaboration with local planning bureaus, builders, and designers.

Presenting over 700 photographs, as well as archival materials, historical photos, newspaper clippings, postcards, videos, plans, and sketches, Architecture of Independence documents the ambivalences of decolonization, its contradictions, and inconsistencies, but also its ambitions, aims, and aspirations.

The exhibition is based on the book project African Modernism: Architecture of Independence by Manuel Herz in cooperation with the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany.