The politics of architecture and urbanism in postcolonial Lagos, 1960–1986

Abstract

After independence, the Nigerian government faced a number of choices about how to manage its urban environment, particularly in Lagos, Nigeria's capital. By favouring a programme of tropical modernist architecture for its prestige buildings in Lagos and British New Town style for its housing estates there, the government sought to demonstrate both its independence from European culture and its ability to perform the functions of a modern state. And yet, the hopes of government officials and elites for Lagos were frustrated as Lagosians, in response to new economic and demographic forces, shaped a very different sort of city from below. The Nigerian government's retreat to Abuja and its abandonment of Lagos mark the failures of urban policymaking in Nigeria.

I would like to thank John Lonsdale, Gwen Wright, Abena Osseo-Asare, Dk Osseo-Asare, Jon Cole, and Ola Uduku for their help with various aspects of my research.

Notes

¹Tropical modernism has received a great deal of interest lately. The best overviews of tropical modernism in West Africa are Hannah Le Roux's work (2003, 2004b).

²Seeing them as more than just aesthetic or technical, Hannah Le Roux (2004a) has offered an interpretation of the climatic adjustments of modernist architecture made by architects working in the tropics in terms of the politics of colonialism.

³For an excellent analysis of those high-modernist cities, see Scott 1998: ch. 4. The discussion of Abuja in this article is entirely compatible with Scott's description of high-modernist cities in general.