Sculpting Space: Design, Architecture, and Sacred Systems in Africa and the Diaspora
Week 4+5
Architecture is considered a formal art within in this week's reading and with good reason. The concept of form and function within the west African vernacular of architecture is shaped in response to sustainability, usefulness, and symbolic gesture. Mosque that resembles are termite mounds such as the Kwaara in Ivory Coast are a minor representation of what I understand within African architecture's fullness. Most of it is a response to the environment. Attempts to collect rainwater such as the case of the impluvium courtyard palace at Efon Alayes or in the Makoko Floating School's plastic tanks, are built for structure and a reflection of the cultures embodied in the physical habitats of the spaces occupied by their builders and users. Beginning with the interview witgh Okwui Enwezor and Andres Lepik in Architecure That Can Truly Be Owned by the People, I am most struck with the notion of restructuring the post colonial west Africa nations. " Architecurnur in many ways represents the one way that many countries can signal their leap"; that leap being a transition separate from colonizer's influence into an identity of their form. I heard many stories before this reading of the presumed chaos of Lagos; what I understand after this week's readings is that the infastructure and organization of this city's system's is not soley an issue of faulty development but perhaps western/global north responses to cities that far surpase the typical population of western nations. "Except for London, there is hardly a European city that has more than ten million inhabitants." ( Lepik 62). With this social construct as a measurable consideration for understanding architecture's function, I recognize Enwezor's thoughtful consideration for an influence outside the "formal" western tradition. They do not have appropriate responses to the populus issues faced in African and Asian nations. "In order to think about architecture in Africa, we need to create a balance between architecture as work made by trained, professional technical practitioners and architecture that is made based on real everyday needs" (Lepik 65). I feel this statement may also hold a spotlight on the United State's growing housing inequity issue. The number of single-family homes built daily from incredibly fragile material, creating more and more waste, is not a response to the physical environments that impact or daily lives but or economic bottom lines. These frail homes can and will not sustain the test of time that climate change is vastly presenting us. The Makoko Floating School however, does. Using waste material in growing abundance like plastic to keep it afloat, the Makoko school, much like Kenyan woman, Nzambi Matee (Links to an external site.), is not mentioned in this week's readings; who created a brick from recycled plastic.
Returning to the influence of termite mounds on the mbari's construction reminds me of my work in encaustic paints as a beekeeper and painter. The work of changing the form and function of one compound to another represents a relationship to the earth. I feel my work as an encaustic painter and paint maker as a beekeeper is also spiritual work, which is why the reading of mbari struck me most this week. " Twice processed by sacred termites and by sacred workers, the clay is both spiritually charged and an excellent medium" (Visona 293). There's honestly no better way to articulate my work with my bees to create my work.
