Are there lessons from African cities that Western architects should be more aware of?
What I am interested in is how they have a very strong public life: the markets, the way people use the spaces in front of their homes, the way life is lived as networks. The house is just a unit you sleep in. Even in Muslim countries that are very extreme, it still plays out. That is something we have lost in the West. It is interesting you’ve been so explicit about using your African heritage, since, as you said, architecture is such a white-male-dominated profession. There has been a tendency to shy away from who you are, and I don’t want to deny who I am. If a Japanese architect talks about Shintoism, everyone goes, Wow. If an African architect talks about an African village, it is somehow weird in the Western context. I find that hilarious. What’s the difference?
