Akin Akintayo: Joe Osae Addo

Maison Tropicale - Corrupt enterprise

Corrupt enterprise

The audience might have worn a wry smile when the camera focused on an interview with one of the top government officials in Congo Brazzaville.

He completely denied knowledge of the removal of the Maison Tropicale prototypes and offered that he only really learnt of their disappearance and the circumstance around the situation at the interview.

It was not convincing, silver had definitely crossed palms for the removal of that structure beyond the payment that was made to the landlady who used the paltry sum she made compared to current market value of the prototype to become a powerful slum landlord developing all the land surrounding the original prototype foundations.

In Niamey, the people seemed to have a lesser claim to the prototype and simply felt powerless in preventing their monument from being dismantled and carried away.

Powerless people

In the words of that neighbor, she said, “Poor people have no power”. This again represents the helplessness of the ordinary African in exacting their rights and getting justice.

In age-old colonial-speak, they gave us the Bible and took our land; in this case, they offered a few bronze coins for the prototypes and sold them for truckloads of gold.

The money they paid would have smoothed the bureaucratic hurdles that would have impeded the opportunities to take the prototypes out of the countries with the blessing of government officials who were supposed to hold African treasures in trust for the people and ensure they are not pilfered for personal profit of as it were art thieves.

The need for reeducation

However, without a strong sense of ownership and an appreciation of heritage very little can be done to generate the activism that would militate against African treasures being stolen out of African for the business enterprise of thieves.

There is a reeducation context to this which should include embracing our colonialist past and what came with it with the greater prospects of proud African history open to tourism and the recognition of our culture in situ.

La Maison Tropicale Series

[1] YouTube - Jean Prouvé – 3D Animation construction of La Maison Tropicale

Maison Tropicale - Heritage

A lack of appreciation

Moving on from the ownership context of Maison Tropicale, when these prototypes were somewhat rediscovered for the world that would better appreciate them, they were literally derelict.

The building in Congo Brazzaville was like a castle with a moat of overgrown weeds and shrubs, occupied by a lady who returned home after the death of her father to an inheritance that had been usurped by his relations leaving her this structure that no one thought had value.

In Niamey, the building was not occupied but one of the neighbours reminisced saying the building was like a big sister and very good shelter from the rain. This was what she missed the most about the prototype.

What is heritage?

The appreciation of heritage grows from a sense of ownership and it was a revelation when one of the important interviewees said that heritage was an un-African thing bordering on taboo.

One can almost agree entirely with this assertion, there are many historical places in Africa that have failed to realise the level of conservation that exudes national pride at first before leading to tourist interest apart from the Egyptian world treasures.

If much care and attention had been paid to these structures in Africa, it would have been impossible or quite difficult to remove them from their locations in Africa to Europe and other parts of the world.

It is arguable that if the Egyptian pyramids could be transported they might well have found homes elsewhere, the Maison Tropicale prototypes were modular and easy to dismantle [1]; it just needed someone with the means and wherewithal to cart them away.

The pillage continues

Africa has consistently suffered the pillage of her treasures and the removal of these very large structures in broad daylight as late as the year 2000 is more an indictment of our sense of ownership and heritage than of the corrupt enterprise that allowed the action to take place.

It was interesting to see the activism that seemed to follow the removal of the buildings depicted in the film but given the appreciation and value these prototypes have now gained in Paris and New York, I doubt if those prototypes would ever return to Africa

We are left to view the foundations of the prototypes where domesticated livestock graze with the regret of what could have been.

Sources

La Maison Tropicale Series

[1] Ângela Ferreira – MAISON TROPICALE / e-flux

Maison Tropicale - Ownership

Introduction

Just over three weeks ago, I attending an event organised by Prince Claus Funds and African Architecture matters that featured the work of Professor Manthia Diawara which included the launching of a book on African film and Maison Tropicale; a film he directed on modernist architecture as a documentary feature by Ângela Ferreira [1].

I have wanted to explore a few themes after watching the film but on now had the time to compile the views into a series of topical blogs.

After the screening of the film Maison Tropicale [2], the director, Manthia Diawara [3] was joined on stage by the architect, Joe Osae Addo [4] to discuss the issues raised in the film.

After a few exchanges between the panellists and number of architects, I got the opportunity to ask the first question from the audience.

The matter of ownership

The matter of ownership in relation to the Maison Tropicale prototypes and the neglect they suffered over the years along with the ease with which they were dismantled and returned to Europe had me concerned about the fact that none of the materials that constituted the prototypes were of African progeny and that might speak to the inability for Africans to associate with these colonial fixtures.

The panellists disagreed offering a few views to buttress their opinions, the first being that the prototypes had been in Africa for 50 years and essentially had become African in context, intent and relevance.

Adapting for usage

We need to own the European parts of our history and heritage just as must as we would what is naturally African. For example, cement is not essentially African; its derivation is associated with stone derived from quarries on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, England.

Portland cement has been adapted and integrated fully into the building framework of African architecture such that its historical provenance has been lost to full ownership in the African setting.

Strong as these arguments might be, it is clear that the Maison Tropicale prototypes were neither adapted nor assimilated into contemporary African architecture, else imitations and copies of the prototypes would have been built to fulfil the 10,000 units planned for the colonial times or have been seen to be useful to building programmes that greeted post-colonial independence schemes for housing.

Sources

[2] YouTube - La Maison Tropicale

[3] Manthia Diawara - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] Joe Osae-Addo - Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction

La Maison Tropicale Series

Monday, 1 November 2010

Deconstructing Maison Tropicale - Introduction

The event

Last week Thursday I attended an event [1]organised by the Prince Claus Funds [2] and African Architecture Matters [3] in Amsterdam featuring the launching of a book on African film by Manthia Diawara [4], the screening of Maison Tropical [5] which he directed and appeared in with Ângela Ferreira [6] after which he was part of a panel of discussants with Joe Osae Addo [7] engaging the audience on the matters highlighted in the film.

I was a guest of Dr Jeremy Weate [8] at the event and this occasion could easily have been topical or a conflation of varied perspectives from architecture, through modernist architecture, culture, heritage, politics, development, history, colonialism to a social commentary on values and appreciation in contemporary Africa.

The context

Not being an architect or in any design vocation, I did not know anything about the work of Jean Prouvé [9] but in context, he was commissioned by the French government to help with a housing problem in the African colonial territories that would have been the building of 10,000 housing units.

Jean Prouvé created 3 prototypes, of prefabricated aluminium parts to be assembled into houses, these parts were flown to 2 locations in Africa, with 2 prototypes erected in Congo Brazzaville and the other in Niamey what eventually became the Niger Republic.

The story

Ângela Ferreira tells a story [10] in the film Maison Tropicale where she identifies an increased interest in the work of Jean Prouvé in Europe in the 1990s which lead to some curator discovering the Maison Tropicale properties in Africa, buying up the buildings, dismantling them and carting them back to Europe in 2000 where two of the prototypes were refurbished, put on display and eventually one was sold at auction [11] in New York in 2007 for almost $5 million.

She attempts to reconstruct the prototypes but after laying out the constituent pieces displays them as sculptural deconstructed parts of the building - the roof, the walls, the blinds and the doors with a container depicting the sense of transition that conveys the context of the buildings coming to Africa from Europe for 50 years and then being returned to Europe.

The controversies

The action of the removal of the buildings offers a complex mix of histories, of colonialism, modernist architecture, economics, politics, social discourse, African perspectives and controversy – the architecture simply becomes a medium to relay and tell a rather intricate story.

I will try not to review the film as a critic but rather offer my views of the things we discussed after viewing the film addressing the undertones that speak about Africa’s colonial history, our appreciation of heritage and the prospects for a changes in thought towards things African.

I would name a series of blogs – Deconstructing Maison Tropicale and attach a focal point that I would try to address at length what was discussed and what I observed.

Deconstructing Maison Tropicale blogs

[1] AAMatters, Invitation for an evening with Manthia Diawara and Joe Osae Addo

Sources

[2] Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development

[3] African Architecture Matters

[4] Manthia Diawara - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] Jean Prouvé - La Maison Tropicale - Presented by André Balazs

[6] Ângela Ferreira – MAISON TROPICALE / e-flux

[7] Joe Osae-Addo - Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction

[8] Dr Jeremy Weate’s blog

[9] Jean Prouvé - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[10] YouTube - Angela Ferreira on her film project the Maison Tropicale

[11] The Prouvé Prototype Maison Tropicale Sold for $4,968,000 at Christie's | Home | Art Knowledge News

Youtube references

YouTube - La Maison Tropicale

YouTube - Jean Prouvé – 3D Animation construction of La Maison Tropicale

La Maison Tropicale Series