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Architecture, Empire, and Trade
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Description
This open access book tells a new and untold history of the architecture of West Africa in the colonial era, as revealed for the first time through the archives of the United Africa Company (UAC).
From the imperial Royal Niger Company's charter in the 1890s through to its suave African department stores of the 1960s, the UAC – a British company firmly embedded in the economies of colonialism, extraction, and exploitation – became the largest commercial firm in West Africa, involved in almost every commercial enterprise and sector, and responsible for procuring architecture, infrastructure, and city real-estate across a vast region.
Based on unprecedented access to the UAC archives, this book pieces together a new architectural history of West Africa from the high colonial period through to independence. It reproduces an extraordinary array of newly-uncovered material – from photographs of streetscapes, buildings, and West African everyday life to civic reports and city plans – and presents these alongside critical and theoretical discussions to reveal an alternative account of the architecture of the region which stands in contrast to more conventional state-focused histories. The book explores technological, aesthetic, and political shifts through an architectural lens, and brings to the fore an awareness of the violence and appropriation which underlie each architectural episode, showing how the UAC, as a case-study, presents a unique opportunity to investigate how architecture manifests power, culture, and identity in colonial and post-colonial contexts.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the University of Liverpool.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. The United Africa Company Archive
2. Responder Essay - UAC and/in the Archives: Silences and Gaps – Ayodeji Olukoju (University of Lagos)
3. Trading Stations on the River Niger: Treaties, Charters, and the Royal Niger Company
4. Island Traders: The Company Town of Burutu and the Crown Colony of Lagos
5. Responder Essay: UAC Rivers Stations and Oil Rivers: An Argument for Local 'Found' Knowledge as the Archilles heel in Ijo Communities – Warebe Brisibe (Rivers State University, Nigeria)
6. Image Collection: Rivers and Coast
7. Shifting Narratives of Legitimation: Palm Oil Extraction in the Belgian Congo
8. Building a 'Forest Factory': Architecture, Extraction and the African Timber and Plywood Company in Nigeria and Ghana
9. Responder Essay: Land – Ola Uduku (University of Liverpool, UK)
10. Image Collection: Land
11. Fine Buildings Enrich A Country: Factories, Showrooms and the UAC as a partner in Decolonisation
12. The Independence Boom: Africanisation, Land Speculation and the Business of Building
13. Kingsway Stores: Contested Visions of Developments
14. Responder Essay: Social Class, Kingsway Stores, Archival Fictions – Kuukuwa Manful (University of Michigan, US)
15. Image Collection: City
Coda
References
Bibliography
Appendices
Product details
| Published | May 01 2025 |
|---|---|
| Format | Hardback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 520 |
| ISBN | 9781350411319 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Visual Arts |
| Illustrations | 408 colour images and maps |
| Dimensions | 10 x 7 inches |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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