Searching for Common Ground
Architecture and (Social) Space

By Ursula Troche

Nairobi, Kenya was venue of the World Social Forum at the end of January. Among the hottest topics that were addressed was the urban condition, i.e. the informal settlements in which the poor live. Therefore, here lies an important concern for architects. A prominent figure in this endeavour, was certainly Hassan Fathy of Egypt, who popularised not only housing for the poor but also economical and environmentally friendly ways of building, such as the use of mud, as it had been used traditionally as well.

Ghanaian (and now diaspora) woman architect Epifania Amoo-Adare discerns not only a rich and poor and African and European dimension but also a gender dimension of inequality as revealed in architecture. Awareness of this fallacy is what she calls ‘critical spatial literacy’(Amoo-Adare, 2004).
Amoo-Adare writes that: “during my preliminary architectural training in London (from 1987 to 1990) I found that my personal experience of alternative household configurations, namely my Asante grandmother’s communal matrikin house, provided me with concrete examples that contested the Eurocentric and hegemonic spatial conceptions we were being taught, e.g., the belief that nuclear house spatial configurations and women’s roles in those private spaces was a universal norm.”(ibid.) She cites as an example the space that existed in traditional households for sharing childcare obligations with (female) members of the extended family.
Despite this convenient arrangement, in contemporary urban Accra it is rather houses that comply with the western household model that are being built. This presents a problem because not being able to share childcare with extended family members also means that the individual woman is more restricted in doing work outside the home (unless she can afford to pay for childcare). Another example she cites is the use of imported materials when building houses rather than using locally available materials – which would be more useful in the context of that non-western region; further it would be cheaper, more easily replaceable as well as supportive of the local (and/or national) economy rather than the international one.
Amoo-Adare goes on to explain how her mother’s household contrasted with her grandmother’s, as her mother adhered to western notions of the nuclear family, which appeared impractical when compared with the opportunities that a traditional fluid notion of a household presents. This shows that architecture can be another avenue from which culture clash – and, by extension, identity clash – is experienced. That culture- and identity clash stems from westernisation, as we have seen, but also the related phenomenon of urbanisation.

On thinking about this, I was wondering whether there is any common ground – i.e. between Africa and Europe - from which we can start to look at architecture and modernity or, alternatively, architecture and tradition. Is it helpful to revisit tradition in both – the African and the European – context?
African traditional architecture, albeit a very broad term, is rooted, like all aspects of life, in cosmology. With cosmology I mean a way of understanding the world that embraces spirituality as well as science. In general, in Europe, a link between architecture and cosmology does not exist – not least because of the fact that cosmology in itself is underdeveloped in Europe.
In traditional Africa, when small houses (also called huts) or big buildings are erected, the spirits are called upon because their co-operation and their blessing is requested. Such ceremonial acts of building do not usually exist in Europe, because the spirits involved in the process of building (through the expertise, thought and work of the architects on site) are either uncalled for or unknown. In Africa these spirits are well known and acknowledged since they form part of the texture – and this includes architecture – of society.

Aspects of common ground for both continents might be in the work and thought of Rudolf Steiner (1861 – 1925), whose approach links domains such as education, medicine and, indeed, architecture, with cosmology. (see e.g. Ullrich, in ‘Prospects’, 1994). His contribution to architecture is most famously embodied in the ‘Goetheanum’ in Switzerland. Steiner’s architecture tries to avoid rectangular shapes, and so windows and other rectangles are either rounded or contain corners other than rectangles – which interestingly gives them a ‘traditional African’ look. The material used for the Rudolf Steiner approach to architecture is preferably organic local material. This would match Amoo-Adare’s important quest for use of local material as well as Fathy’s use of local material.
Where else can we go to look for common ground and what else can we contribute, as architects and as people, to close gaps of inequality in society?

References

Amoo-Adare, Epifania (2004): En-gendering critical spatial literacy: Migrant Asante women and the politics of urban space. In: W.A.G.A.D.U.: a journal of Transnational Women’s and Gender studies, Vol. 1 (1), 2004. http//web.cortland.edu/wagadu/issue1/epifania.htm 24/01/2006

Ullrich, Heiner (1994): Rudolf Steiner: in Prospects - the quarterly review of comparative education. Vol. XXIV, no. ¾, p. 555-572. Paris, UNESCO International Bureau of Education