How the École d’Architecture et d’Urbanisme de Dakar Imagined Senegalese Modernities

Since 2023, we have partnered with curator and architect Nzinga B. Mboup to launch the CCA c/o Dakar program, focusing on modernist Senegalese architecture, its protagonists, and its histories. Dakar will be the fourth city to anchor our CCA c/o program, initiated in 2016 as an experiment in transforming the CCA itself and a tool to engage new contexts and reveal thematic convergences across perspectives. To question our own points of view we asked to hear those of others, first in Lisbon, followed by Tokyo and Buenos Aires, and now in Dakar. Mboup is co-founder of Worofila, a practice that specialises in bioclimatic architecture and construction using earth and biomaterial sourced locally. 

“A true palimpsest city, Dakar has been a fertile ground for experimentation and forward-thinking. It is a place where a lot of questions about the future of cities are still being posed, some are unique to the context and others are universal. More specifically, in a country of 18 million people with less than 300 registered architects and the absence of a national school of architecture since 1991, we are faced with the challenge of defining what is the role of the architect and of architecture. For architects living and working in Dakar, research is critical for learning about the context despite the lack of resources on architecture. To access knowledge and engage in a debate on the place of architecture in our societies, one must think creatively and work across disciplines, ranging from art, craft anthropology, sociology and history. Through this work, we can find new languages to convey ideas about architecture to the people and create archives and repositories in order to make knowledge available.” —Nzinga Biegueng Mboup 

The first stage of her program will activate the histories of the Dakar School of Architecture and Urban Planning (1973–91) by revisiting the school’s projects, protagonists, and archives as modes of knowledge and research production. 

“The research project of Nzinga B. Mboup finds the roots of an independent Senegal’s architectural identity in a generation of architects, designers, and professors who trained at the public Dakar School of Architecture and Urban Planning (1973–91) during the recent historical past where ties were cut with colonial presence. This new freedom offered the conditions for a distinctly Senegalese architectural modernity to emerge. The project shows how the formation of a Senegalese architectural identity—through retrospection and forward-looking dialogue—can shed light on the work of today’s generation of architects, both in Africa and other parts of the world.” —Giovanna Borasi, Director and Chief Curator of the CCA 

How the École d’Architecture et d’Urbanisme de Dakar Imagined Senegalese Modernities 
To launch the c/o Dakar program, the CCA invites you to join conversations on May 18, at the Hôtel Saint-Louis Sun, where works by the first generation of architects trained at the École d’Architecture et d’Urbanisme de Dakar will be presented. These architects—who emphasize the use of local materials and Senegalese cultural identity—are central protagonists in the project for defining and developing Senegalese architectural modernities. Moderated by Nzinga B. Mboup, Birame Niang, Jean-Charles Tall and Jacques Trouvé, the event will gather architects Abib Diene, Seynabou Diouf, and Thiao Kandji around discussions aiming to prompt further explorations of the possible for current and future generations of Senegalese architects; to reflect on their architecture’s societal, cultural, political, and historical impact; and to reflect on the importance of preserving archival documents for generations still to come.

CCA c/o Dakar will expand on the CCA’s own investigations into questions related to the African continent and to the environment, including the multi-disciplinary research project Centring Africa: Postcolonial Perspectives on Architecture and its recent publication Fugitive Archives: A Sourcebook for Centring Africa in Histories of Architecture: a collection of micro-archives, each an argument for the role of primary research in locating, accessing, and constructing the new forms of evidence needed to create African architectural archives that are situated (2023, CCA / Jap Sam Books).  

Between May 16–19, find us at the fifth African Art Book Fair and join us on May 17 for conversations over breakfast around the institution’s wider curatorial work in addition to introducing new and recent titles, like  Fugitive Archives (CCA/Jap Sam Books, 2023), and a screening of the documentary To Remain in the No Longer (CCA, 2023, 38 minutes) directed by Joyce Joumaa. Find further details in the full program here.

To find out more about our CCA c/o Dakar program  and upcoming conversations, or about our film, research, publication and curatorial projects, subscribe to our newsletter.