AFRITECTURE
Building in Africa
Edited by Andres Lepik, texts by Filip De Boeck, Killian Doherty, Okwui Enwezor, Lesley Naa Norle Lokko, Iain Low, Edgar Pieterse u.a.
Hatje Cantz
September 2013
Africa’s economic boom is
being accompanied by a rapid urban growth that is decidedly altering the
continent. Approaches to an individual, ecological, and context-sensitive kind
of architecture are evolving within these transformative processes. In these
changing urban structures, numerous projects aim at making an impact on society.
Thus, a large number of building schemes—most of them conceived with the help of
the local population—are turning the city into an experimental field for design.
Rural planning, on the other hand, is developing traditional local architectural
techniques, vocabularies, and materials through technological and stylistic
innovations. This opulent catalogue features essays by the architectural
historian Andres Lepik and others, and presents around twenty outstanding
examples of contemporary African architecture south of the Sahara. Alongside
interviews with architects, developers, and sponsors, the book provides a
comprehensive view of an original, lively architectural culture.
