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Abstract
For years, Africa has been stripped of the treasures that framed its history and the marks and distinctive signs reflecting its role as supplier of modernity. At the same time, in the African urban landscape, colonial realizations are not always considered to have a direct impact on the evolution of the concept of urbanities and the construction of new societies. Following the story of the prefabricated Tropical Houses created by the famous French designer Jean Prouvé, sent to Africa in the late 1940s and repatriated to France in 2000, I will look at the discursive and ethical challenges in the field of postcolonial studies and the interpretation of historic spaces in shaping modern identities. Using the art installation Maison Tropicale by Angela Ferreira, I will focus on the question of modern heritage in Africa and the difficulties of recognizing the role played by sub-Saharan African countries in the integration of modernist movements during colonization. My argument is that Angela Ferreira's conceptual work addresses the notion of shared cultural heritage – a notion which is controversial and does not often shape practice in Africa.
Acknowledgements
I deeply thank Janet C. Marstine, Alexander Bauer and Chelsea Haines for their great support. They were generous for their time and challenging in their questions. Many thanks to Manthia Diawara for his continuous support, and to Angela Ferreira and Jurgen Bock for permission to reprint stills from Maison Tropicale.
Notes
1. At the turn of the twentieth century, modernists rejected traditional values and practices in art, looking instead for new modes of expressions. The term modernism here applies to architects and designers who preferred to emphasize the materials used and pure geometrical forms.
2. See also Tristan Guilloux's works about colonial architecture in Brazzaville and the Tropical Houses.
3. Le Corbusier (1887–1965) is the pseudonym for Charles Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, a Swiss/French architect, city planner, painter and writer, who was one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century.
4. D.J. Huppatz (2010, 33) explains: ‘Prouvé expanded into furniture design and joined the modernist dissidents from the Société des Artistes Décorateurs who formed their own association, the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM) in 1930. Participants included leading modernist architects such as Le Corbusier, Jeanneret, Mallet-Stevens, as well as furniture designers such as Prouvé, Charlotte Perriand and René Herbst’. Also see this article for further insights into Prouvé's architectural innovations.
5. See the catalog of the exhibition Jean Prouvé # Tropical Houses. Large Brazzaville Tropical House. Edition Eric Touchaleaume – Galerie 54, Paris, 2006.
6. In 1974 the government of Portugal was overthrown by the military. The new regime (which favored self-determination for all of Portugal's colonies) made an effort to resolve the conflict in Mozambique. Talks with Frelimo resulted in a mutual cease-fire and an agreement for Mozambique to become independent in June 1975.
7. The Carnation Revolution changed the Portuguese regime from an authoritarian dictatorship to a democracy after two years of a transitional period known as PREC (Processo Revolucionário Em Curso).
8. Alain Godonou, Director of the School of African Heritage in Porto Novo, Benin, reminds us that ‘90% of the African patrimony is outside the continent’ (Public debate on Memory and Universality: New Challenges Facing Museums, UNESCO, February 5, 2007. http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.phpURL_ID=32653&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html/). The School for African Heritage (EPA) is located in Porto-Novo, Benin. It is a postgraduate university institution, specialized in the preservation and promotion of both tangible and intangible cultural heritage.
9. See, for example, the different works initiated by DOCOMOMO (Working Party for the Documentation and Conservation of buildings, sites and neighborhoods of the Modern Movement; http://www.docomomo.com/; by ICOMOS-UNESCO-ICCROM) and in particular by the seminars held in 1994 in Helsinki and in 1996 in Mexico City; by the Montreal Action plan, 2001; and also the essay by R. van Oers and S. Haraguchi, eds. 2003. Identification and documentation of modern heritage, World Heritage Papers 5. http://whc.unesco.org/en/series/5/
10. For example, the Alaoui museum opened in the Beylical Palace in Tunis,Tunisia; the Craft Museum in the residence of the sultan Rabah/Morocco; and the Abomey Historical Museum on the palatial site in Abomey, Benin.
11. Named today IRD (Institut de recherche pour le développement).
12. Eric Touchaleaume explains in The Guardian that ‘(…) it took six months to get them out. Congo had been through civil war and a succession of governments; negotiations ensued between ministers, tribal factions and two families that both claimed to own the houses’. Steve Rose. 2008. House hunting. The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/February 7
13. William L. Hamilton in The New York Times specifies that ‘the Maison, occupied by squatters, was sold twice to Mr. Touchaleaume, he said, by two parties who each claimed ownership. Mr. Touchaleaume added that he also paid the government, which raised patrimonial claims, and waited five months for the railroad to reopen before shipping the house out. In the same article we learn that it cost nearly $2 million for Touchaleaume to restore the big house from Brazzaville’. Hamilton, W.L. 2007. From Africa to Queens, modernist gem, fully assembled. New York Times, May 16.
14. Maison Tropicale, documentary film directed by M. Diawara (52 min, Portugal/USA, 2008).
15. Bullet holes extra by Amelia Gentleman, The Guardian, Tuesday 31 August 2004. www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2004/aug/31/architecture.regeneration#history-link-box/
17. Balatz is the owner of some of the most glamorous and stylish hotels in the world as the Mercer Hotel in Soho, New York.
18. The book Architecture Française d'outre mer, initiated by Maurice Culot and Jean-Marie Thiveaud, published by Pierre Mardaga/Liège and the Institut Français d'Architecture/Paris in 1992, is referred to as the pioneer in the field of architecture and French colonial patrimony. The objective was to save the memory of the buildings realized by French architects in diverse former colonies.
19. See, for example, the joint program for the identification, documentation and promotion of the built heritage of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries labeled Modern Heritage Program launched in 2001 with the UNESCO World Heritage Center, ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) and DOCOMOMO (Working Party for the Documentation and Conservation of buildings, sites and neighborhoods of the Modern Movement); the Euromed Heritage regional program for the Mediterranean region (http://whc.unesco.org/en/activities/); and essays by J. Lagae and L. Eloundou presented at the conference ‘Rethinking Temporal Boundaries: History of Architecture and the Challenge of Modern Heritage’, Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art, Paris, 2005. http://inha.revues.org/.
20. In an interview at the Venice Biennale, extract from the film Maison Tropicale.