University of Galway History Seminar: Irish Architects in Africa: Tropicalism in the Built Environment and its Legacy

Dr Lisa Godson 

(National College of Art and Design, Dublin)

Irish Architects in Africa:

Tropicalism in the Built Environment and its Legacy 

Abstract

This paper focuses on the phenomenon of Irish architects who produced work that was built in different African countries including Kenya, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Nigeria from c.1948-78. It draws in particular on oral histories, archival research, film, architectural drawings and architectural and missionary publications. A key consideration is how totalising discourses of tropicalism, modernism and Catholicism and specific working practices and material conditions produced buildings and narratives that privileged a heroic narrative of the missionary project as well as certain attitudes to the agency of those who constructed hundreds of churches, seminaries, hospitals and schools. It will also briefly address the legacy of ‘tropical modern’ architecture, an approach to building in particular regions, particularly as formulated in the early 1950s, and still espoused by particular agents such as the World Bank. Also under consideration is how Irish historiography, including Irish architectural history, approaches questions of religion and modernity.  

Biography

Lisa Godson is programme leader for the MA in Design History and Material Culture at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. Her co-edited publications include Uniform: Clothing and Discipline in the Modern World (2019); Modern Religious Architecture in Germany, Ireland and Beyond (2019); Making 1916: Visual and Material Culture of the Easter Rising (2015). Her monograph How the Crowd Felt: Public Ritual, Memory and Space in the Irish Free State is forthcoming. She has undertaken a number of collaborations with artists including Still Films for Build Something Modern, based on her research into modern architecture in West Africa. 

Registration

This is a hybrid event, organised in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Religion, Moore Institute. 

To attend via Zoom, please register at: https://forms.office.com/e/L9QJGv8nqF.

The talk will be streamed simultaneously on Zoom: https://nuigalway-ie.zoom.us/j/95381823181