The promises, poetics and politics of verticality in the really high African city

Abstract

This article is an attempt to foreground considerations in African cities of three-dimensional urbanism, or what Eyal Weizman has called the ‘politics of verticality’. Through analysis of the work of three builder/artists the article resists a strain of persistent horizontality in African urban studies. The focus of this article is on three specific urban forms which are contested in interesting and provocative ways. The first, the Tower, in Limete Kinshasa is simultaneously a built form, an imagined space, a set of processes, a film and a theoretical proposition for Filip de Boeck and Sammy Baloji. The second structure is a radical reimagining of Bodys Isek Kingelez’s childhood agricultural village as a megacity of cardboard skyscrapers, paper parks and polystyrene promenades. Kimbembele Ihunga (1994) is a three-by-two-meter ‘extreme maquette’ in which Kingelez presents an unbuildable city which is nevertheless intended in all seriousness as a visionary proposal for post-independence African urbanism. The third structure is a literary residential high-rise, the Maianga Building in Luanda. Ondjaki’s novel, Transparent City (2018) presents the biography of a building in a general state of decay but which is, counterintuitively, not a burden to its residents; in fact, its idiosyncratic dysfunction offers some promising, pleasant and useful affordances.

Cet article tente de mettre au premier plan des considérations dans des villes africaines d’urbanisme tridimensionnel, ou ce qu’Eyal Weizman a appelé la ‘politique de verticalité’. A travers l’analyse du travail de trois constructeurs/artistes, l’article résiste à une tension d’horizontalité persistante dans les études urbaines africaines. Cet article se concentre sur trois formes urbaines spécifiques qui sont contestées de façon intéressante et provocante. La première, la Tour, à Limete Kinshasa est simultanément une forme de construction, un espace imaginé, un ensemble de processus, un film et une proposition théorique pour Filip de Boeck et Sammy Baloji. La seconde structure est une ré-imagination radicale du village rural de l’enfance de Bodys Isek Kingelez en tant que méga-cité de gratte-ciel en carton, de parcs en papier et de promenades en polystyrènes. Kimbembele Ihunga (1994) est une ‘maquette extrême’ de trois mètres sur deux par laquelle Kingelez présente une ville inconstructible qui est malgré tout conçue très sérieusement comme une proposition visionnaire pour l’urbanisme africain post indépendance. La troisième structure est une tour de résidence littéraire, le Maianga Building, à Luanda. Le roman d’Ondjaki, Transparent City (2018) présente la biographie d’un bâtiment dans un état général de dégradation, mais qui n’est pas, ce qui est contre-intuitif, un fardeau pour ses résidents; en fait, sa dysfonction idiosyncratique présente des facilités prometteuses, agréables et utiles.

Keywords:

• verticality
• infrastructure
• autoconstruction
• Africa
• urbanism
• representation

Mots clés:

• verticalité
• infrastructure
• auto-construction
• Afrique
• urbanisme
• représentation

Acknowledgements

I want acknowledge valuable input from the peer reviewers, special issue editors Shari Daya and Rike Sitas, Noëleen Murray, Charne Lavery, and translations and input from André Prado Fernandes; funding support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through the Architecture, Urbanism and the Humanities Initiative at the Wits City Institute, University of the Witwatersrand and through the Oceanic Humanities for the Gobal South, located at WiSER, Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Statement of ethics

At the time this study was conducted, the University of the Witwatersrand did not require ethical approval to be sought for this type of research.

Notes

1 A number of books by Fourthwall Books, published by Bronwyn Law-Viljoen and Terry Kurgan, blur the boundary between theory/history and creative production. For instance Mark Lewis and Tanya Zack’s book Bed Room: Wake Up, This is Joburg (2016) which is about a single bedroom in a Hillbrow high-rise where Birthial Gxaleka runs an NGO and shelter; Undercity: Wake Up, This is Joburg (2015a) depicts underground labour by artisanal miners, or ‘zama zamas’; Tea at Anstey’s: Wake Up, This is Joburg (2015b) focusses on the famous art deco building; or Kim Gurney’s (2017) August House is Dead, Long Live August House! The Story of a Johannesburg Atelier which documents the complex artistic life of a former textiles factory in downtown Joburg. UP UP: Stories of Johannesburg’s Highrises (2016) focusses on the inner city of Johannesburg.

2 Booklet II ‘Ponte as geological agent’, Lindsey Bremner.

3 Booklet III ‘Changing the Skyline’ Melinda Silverman.

4 Booklet VIII ‘Flat 3607’, Ivan Vladislavić.

5 Booklet XI ‘Zulu-Boy / Room 207’, Kgebetli Moele, excerpt from novel Room 207.

6 Regarding elevators and the politics of verticality see Stephen Graham’s ‘Super-tall and Ultra-deep: The Cultural Politics of the Elevator’ (2014) and Colson Whitehead’s speculative fiction novel The Intuitionist (2017).

7 See for instance, David Morton (2019) Age of Concrete: Housing and the Shape of Aspiration in the Capital of Mozambique; Gastrow PhD (2014); Cardoso PhD (2015); Ruth Sacks PhD (2017) ‘Congo style: from Belgian Art Nouveau to Zaïre's Authenticité’; Johan Lagae & Kim De Raedt, ‘Building for “l'Authenticité”: Eugène Palumbo and the Architecture of Mobutu's Congo’; In the Desert of Modernity: Colonial Planning and After (2008); African Modernism: The Architecture of Independence: Ghana, Senegal, Côte D'Ivoire, Kenya, Zambia (2015); Asmara: Africa’s Secret Modernist City (2003); Modern Architecture in Africa: Angola and Mozambique, edited by Ana Tostões; Monrovia Modern; The networks of tropical architecture, Hannah le Roux; Andrew Byerley (2019) ‘Drawing white elephants in Africa? Re-contextualizing Ernst May’s Kampala plans in relation to the fraught political realities of late-colonial rule’; Afropolis: City Media Art. 2010.

8 That these assemblages most certainly look like miniature cities, though none that (yet) exist, belies a complex art historical question: what, in fact, are they? Kingelez, in typically ambivalent terms, has reared to his creations as ‘extreme maquettes’, ’extra modern models’, ‘similar to an extremely realistic prototype gem’ (Kingelez 2018, 50); visions ‘put down on paper’; ‘image-maquette’ (Kingelez 2018, 51); constructions that represent the shape of imagination; ‘concrete imaginative leaps’ (Kingelez 2018, 51); blueprints for a real towns … ‘large-scale architectural acts’ (Kingelez 2018, 51); maquettes visualizing whats inside (Kingelez MoMA film). Critics have have offered slightly more formal suggestions: ‘they are more art than architecture, more sculpture than working model … Not intended for building’ (Wiesenberger 2018); ‘architectural sculpture’ (Serageldin 1993); cities made of dreams and paper (https://www.citylab.com/design/2018/06/cities-made-of-dreams-and-paper/561773/).

9 See also Justin Plunkett’s digital collage ‘Skhayascraper’ (2014) from the ‘Con/struct’ series.

10 Kingelez’s work includes a large number of cities and buildings for non-African nations and organizations. These attempts to think about global cities from the South, from Africa suggest a provocation for research in line with the John and Jean Comaroff’s Theory from the South: Or, How Euro-America is Evolving Toward Africa (2012).