I will never get over the ‘Open your Facebook’ scolding I got from a police officer who hurried me into a van as a university student in Lagos. It started without an alarm. It was “Come here, what is in that bag”. This was 2007 — a few years before…
Isn’t it ironic that I just authored the book: One Profession, Many Paths, and I make such a statement? What I didn’t mention in the title is: A book is no longer enough to deal with the pace of modern life.
You will probably be digesting memes, reading book previews…
You have just left architecture school in Nigeria, possibly with 2 degrees and a chip on your shoulder. You’d have binged heavy on Calatrava and Hadid, but little about the work of GHK, ACCL, Shokunbi or Anetor right in front of you.
You will apply for jobs claiming advanced proficiency…
Problem 1
At the University of Lagos, we had a library at the department of architecture. Fumihiko Maki was the first architect I stumbled on. But as I scanned the library for other books, I found no books or projects published by even the professors who taught me.
Problem 2
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Following the jury’s decision to split the competition into undergraduate and graduate categories, Gbolahan Madandola, 27 has emerged Winner of the graduate category for his entry on the Great Mosque of Niono, Mali. He is a graduate student at the Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar and is a researcher on…
Chiagozie Enwonwu, 21 is the Winner of the inaugural A3-Archnet Prize in the Undergraduate Category for her essay on Egedege N’Okaro, Benin which is recognised as the first 1-storey building in the ancient Benin Kingdom. Chiagozie is a student of University of Benin studying to earn a BSc in Architecture…
The Endless Maryland Courtship
A marriage has failed to happen in Maryland, I am talking about the endless courtship going on between the pedestrian bridge and maryland mall. Two objects: one of them infrastructure and the other, a black lady continue to postpone their first kiss. So the life of…
In my naivety while directing DWSeries I asked one of our visiting teachers, Omoyemi Akerele - who’s also Director of the Lagos Fashion Week - how our indigenous fashion houses could be as massive as the big names we knew on the global scene. She said quite a number of…
I had had too much wine with my defunct reading club a couple of years ago, when I spontaneously prefixed Abidin Kusno’s Rethinking the Nation essay with a question: are Architects Rethinking the Nation or Politicians are? Of course it is easy to agree that politicians are. That question marked…
When we are asked to do private residences, I am usually wary if I don’t have enough information on the client. Not that I want to know more about them for knowing sake, but because information about, say their past houses, say their vision, say their habits, say their experiences…
