What will you do now ?

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 in software you don’t use. You will get creative with titles for volunteering roles you barely did in uni. You will pass off academic group work as yours where you did nothing. Your resume will be a motley of achievements. It will pump you up.

Your friends will hail you when you share new work on social media but in the end, your family will be your first client should they be rich. If they are not, you will likely join the town criers lampooning ARCON/NIA, Nigeria, Buhari or Trump if you make it to Canada.

You will quietly leave, first to interiors, to landscaping and finally to flipping cars or houses. You might return. You might not. Your friends who studied illustration at Camberwell will quickly get their first show in Lagos. But you will languish in a practice with names of grand old men on the door or anonymous acronyms; men who minted architecture’s big money in the 60s or you will join a mid-sized young-ish studio. They will tell you: “in architecture, 40 is a teenager”. Your friends, the admirers who should be clients still make money in hundreds or thousands of any currency in Africa. Nah! Not enough to make dreamy buildings. What will you do now?

Your father’s allowances will no longer be enough, God who has all the world’s resources will now have to be your Father and go-to. You will adult quick and believe adult stories faster. This is your life, feast on it. Your family will call you architect; you will silently pray someone in the industry does not hear them because of the ‘copyrighted’ nature of the title.

This e-book is supposed to provide company for you, the way some records make breakup easier. it is really a self-help book. I didn’t believe I will be writing one either. But I thought you should know some truth, so freedom can start early. They are not my life’s lessons. They are a patchwork of candid advice crowd-sourced from intense people watching. It’s not advisable to read it while in uni., it’s better to do so when you are desperate for some luck and social media suggests otherwise. There is a time for even truth under the sun, so choose that time. You don’t have to read it now.

This e-book is not really a labor of love, rather it is a parsing of truth. It’s thrust is for you to find so many other routes to this architecture thing if you really want it. It says, sometimes kindly, don’t despise where you start. It is like what Jonathan Hill said in ‘Illegal Architect’ of the many ways to be an architect. It says indeed, Ona Kan O Woja.

This e-book challenges you to embrace the informality of the local architecture scene, that may disguise as wanton crassness, it also asks you to embrace politics early for Sam Mockbee warned ‘once the job gets to the architect, it is already too late’

It is not well-written, but well-cobbled. It avoids pussyfooting and has very short, candid sentences and you should ideally read it in one sitting.

My name appears on the cover but in actual sense, the name or who I am today is a patchwork of so many people who pour their lives into mine. They are my shrouding clothes and I made sure to recognize them in initials. Daddy, Mummy, Mayowa, Aunty Sola, Big Mummy Calabar and the rest of my world is in there. I love you so very much.

I forget Koku Konu & CIA-Lagos, the publishers of this eBooks series. One day I will write about you. Your patience is a gift. I forget that James George also wrote a glowing foreword. He wrote the absolute truth. He’s my teacher. I forget to mention the illustrious company of architects who have also authored eBooks in this series and how honored I feel to be in that group. I also forget that it’s priced at $9.99 and you can buy it here: https://www.blurb.com/ebooks/p3ff15e168bba8b3c2856. What else am I forgetting? Oh that it is available for Amazon Kindle Fire®, Apple iOS devices, and MacOS computers.