How do postcolonial states use architecture to mobilize global influence?
‘And thus, little by little, we conquer the hearts of the natives and win their affection, as is our duty as colonizers.’ – Joseph Marrast.
The 20th Century saw the start of the so-called end of colonisation at least in the eyes of politicians. In fact the aftermath of independence still resonates today in many countries across the world. And a new form of control has taken over these countries in the form of capitalisation and consumerism. Countries being reborn again into the new modernity of the present day struggle to juxtapose the traditional and the present. At the end of the day it all comes down to power. To instate yourself as a world power, to be seen as progressing, to be seen as the best. Architecture has the connotations in which to place an image in the world that shows modernity, movement, futurism and progress. It also has the power to diminish such connotations and can even be spun on its head by showing a poverty stricken, desolate place that is in much need of some social intervention.
In this essay I want to create a narrative that follows the futuristic development of the region of Senegal on the west coast of Africa, looking at the country’s capital city Dakar and the $2 billion city that is being planned to cut down the overcrowding of housing in the city. The planning of this new complex opens up narratives that concern the age of post-colonialism, globalisation, consumerism and global finance along with the complex social monopolies that are deeply affected by such developments. In relation to this I will also talk about the film Atlantics (2019) which shows the direct effect of corporate building structures on the many poverty stricken communities in and around Dakar and the consequences of such modernist transversalities.
Dakar in the country Senegal was colonised by the French in the late 1600’s, the country being conveniently (for colonisers) on the west coast of Africa made it easy for the French to settle a base and start extracting the wealth of resources that lay in the heart of the mainland. ‘Dakar is a very lively coastal city and forms the natural boarder between arab and black africa. The old city was built by the french who employed a form of colonial modernism to create the urban landscape.’ As European powers such as France, Spain and England fought for land across the globe to secure power and riches beyond measure Africa became a playground for the white european man looking to make profit to capitalise on in the name of the sovereign.
‘Sub-Saharan Africa became the victim of a frantic european land grab right through to the mid-twentieth century as latecomers to european nationhood sought status with the remaining few colonial opportunities. As tribal boundaries and cultures were subsumed by arbitrary borders, colonial languages were imposed, complete european administratie systems introduced and, without traditions of monumental architecture, colonial styles established.’
During this period the French exploited the Wolof people for cheap labor in order to create a new colonial wealth in the region. This meant that plans for a new infrastructure were built around the city to accomodate for the extraction of goods that were rewriting the cultural history of the region, implementing ideologies that favoured strongly the sainthood of the French as they made savage Africa a symbol of colonial civilising discourse.
‘Administrators hoped that preserving traditional status-hierarchies would buttress their own superimposed colonial order. Architects, in turn, acknowledging that resistance to new forms is often based on affection for familiar places, tried to evoke a sense of continuity with the local past in their designs. Both groups extolled traditions – often, in the words of Eric Hobsbawm, ‘invented traditions’ which relied on pageantry or other symbolic expressions of a rigid social order, resuscitated and dramatized by the european authorities.’
Eventually after the extraction of the enormous amounts of wealth that came from Africa, the time came round for the Africans as a nation to rebel and gain independence. Frantz Fanon in his book wretched earth states… ‘Everybody therefore has violence on their minds and the question is not so much responding to violence with more violence but rather how to defuse the crisis.’ The kind of violence that erupted throughout Africa in the 20th century led to the independence of many countries Senegal included, however Fanon also states, ‘But it is common knowledge that for 95 percent of the population in developing countries, independence has not brought any immediate change. Any observer with a keen eye is aware of a kind of latent discontent which like glowing embers constantly threatens to flare up again.’ The ugly head of colonialism shows it’s head and makes it known that these countries as much as they try to rebuild the structures around them, they can’t do it without the economic stability of those who colonised them.
Leopold Senghor (the first president of Senegal) and Aime Cesaire tried to come to a conclusion about the problem of colonialism in the midst of independence. They needed the financial support of the French to help them out but they also wanted a new form of politics to take place so they wouldn’t be tied down to their former colonists. ‘Senghor dreamed of a federal, democratic France that incorporated its former colonies as free and equal members.’ In March 1946 Cesaire signed a treaty that meant the former colonies under French rule were now to be in a democractic partnership with the French state. A post national democracy was to be created. ‘This new policy would include former colonies and the former metropole as freely associated members, each of which would be self-governing and fully equal federal partners with shared access to the social and economic resources of the whole.’ The african states would now rely on interdependence and have done so ever since. Meaning that the ghost of colonisation still haunts the country because of the lack of economic structure to keep the country afloat. As Gary Wilder states in his essay Apart Together, ‘True decolonisation would require that the whole empire, metropolitan and overseas, be changed and remade into a different kind of political formation.’
The film Atlantics (2019) recently released on Netflix shows the reality of the city today. The struggle to compete in the modern world and the realisation of power struggles throughout the city. The film also has a strong undercurrent to the problem of migration and refugees who we hear more and more about everyday in the media due to their untimely deaths as they try to cross oceans to receive a better life for them and their families.
Atlantics, shows the ghost of Colonialism through the construction of a satellite city on the coast of Dakar, Senegal. The skyscraper wrapped in glass hangs on the edge of the city watching a close eye on the workers far below that have to travel for miles everyday from their slum dwellings to the construction sight to be told they can’t be paid and will not be paid for several months due to the greed of the property investors. The men are consequently forced to find a new way to be able to repay debts and help their families by going to sea in search of a new life to substitute for the old one. They die and return as ghosts that haunt the bodies of their girlfriends until they get revenge on the boss who subsequently leads them to a terrifying and inhumane death.
What we see is a city made up of stark divisions. On the one hand you have the millions of people living in sub-slum culture with houses toppling over each over in a maze that interconnects and runs through the city and on the other hand you have the international investors the new wave of tourism culture flowing through the region allowing for a rich luxurious lifestyle but only for the few that can have access to it. The film starts off with the building of a new skyscraper (figure 1.) on the coast of the city standing out for miles with its glossy glass like facade projecting a shiny new future onto the crowded and dust like city. This structure stands alone isolated from the rest of the region, a metaphor for the power relations and hierarchies that flow through the region. With most of the population in poverty, only the rich have access to the lavish luxury that essentially will be built of the cheap labor of those living in the slums in the heart of the city.Vanessa Watson on talking about the new global phenomenon on urban planning in African cities states…
‘However, these new urban visions and development plans appear to disregard the fact that at the moment, the bulk of the population in sub-Saharan Africa cities is extremely poor and living in informal settlements. Some of these settlements are on well-located urban land that is also attractive to property developers. Attempts to implement these fantasy plans within existing cities will (and is already) having major exclusionary effects on vulnerable low-income groups through evictions and relocations. Moreover, these development interests bring with them a host of additional demands − for new and particular forms of urban infrastructure and for forms of governance and decision-making that facilitate the realization of property investment interests’
(Figure 1.)
(Figure 2.)
Atlantics follows the progression of the city Dakar, in the face of new urban landscaping influenced by global finance and western modernism. In the picture featured above (figure 2.) We see the main protagonist Ada, a young teenage girl from a humble working class family. She is to be married to Moustapha, a man with economic wealth as his family is part of the emerging middle class growing in the region which will benefit from the developments being built on the coast of the city. The film follows the story of Ada in a Romeo and Juliet style as she is secretly in love with Souleiman, a working class teenager working to build the skyscraper featured at the beginning of the film. Atlantics portrays the socio-economic differences between stark class divisions. The labor of building the city shows the effects of the post colonial state trying to elevate itself onto the world stage within the idea of an aesthetic of modernism within the bounds of architecture and luxury.
(Figure 3.) (Figure 4.)
In figures 3&4 you can see the evolution of the city, with stable high rise buildings and infrastructure such as roads and pavements being made in order to accomodate for the new satellite city that is being built for the emerging middle and upper classes compared to the shanty town facade in figure 5 were the majority of the people working for the construction of this new city dwell. So what we can see now is a visible power play on the people and Dakar and those who are investing in the new global stage. Using the idea of the skyscraper and the connotations of power that comes with it towering over the city to make a standpoint that it too can be part of the world stage as an attractive global financial area. The postcolonial state has now copied the actions of the french manipulating cheap labor in order to mobilize global influence with a rigid hierarchy that ensures that the ones at the top benefit from the hard work of those at the bottom.
‘It is a fact: every culture cannot sustain and absorb the shock of modern civilisation. There is the paradox: how to become modern and to return to the sources; how to revive an old, dormant civilisation and take part in universal civilisation. – Paul Ricoeur’ The thirst for economic wealth, the thirst for your nation state to be recognised as a first world country is far greater than the costs of the lives of the people whose grandfathers and great grandfathers sacrificed themselves for the independence of what was their born right.
Diamniadio Lake City (Figure.5) is a futuristic $2 billion dollar city being built 20 miles away from the city of Dakar and is to house 350,000 people out of the 14 million people who live in the area. The complex has been commissioned by the President Macky Sall contracting the investment group Semer who are based in Dakar and have partners in the UAE and the USA. The city is to be completed in 2035 with the aim to help cut down overcrowding in Dakar and help revitalize the economy of Senegal. In Neil Brenner and Nik Theodores text Neoliberalism and the Urban Condition they state…
‘As Edward Soja (1987: 178; italics in original) indicated in a classic formulation: Restructuring is meant to convey a break in secular trends and a shift towards a significantly different order and configuration of social, economic and political life. It thus evokes a sequence of breaking down and building up again, deconstruction and attempted reconstitution, arising from certain incapacities or weaknesses in the established order which preclude conventional adaptations and demand significant structural change instead […] Restructuring implies flux and transition, offensive and defensive postures, a complex mix of continuity and change.’
(Figure 5.)
In the 21st Century, Africa’s economy has been increasingly rising due to the amount of material goods that are bought and sold to accomodate for the billions of people that live on the continent. ‘Telecommunications, banking, retailing and construction are flourishing, even booming. Private investment flows are surging. From $9 billion in 2000, foreign direct investment increased to $62 billion in 2008—relative to GDP, this is almost as large as the flows into China.’ This new influx of money allows for more investment opportunities such as the Diamniadio Lake City project to take off to accomodate for the demands and needs of the middle classes and upper classes so they can separate off from the lower class struggles.
‘Even more crucial to the on-going transformations is the rise of middle-class consumer. Today, 40% of the continent’s one billion people live in cities, a proportion roughly comparable to China’s and larger than India’s. It is estimated that by 2035, that share will rise to 50% and Africa’s top 18 cities will have a combined spending power of $1.3 trillion.
The project includes a University, industrial park, housing and commercial services for the targeted middle class audience. The buildings being constructed are all concealed in glass to create a new futuristic hope for the city of Dakar, a new economic awakening. ‘All architectural representation constructs images of nature and order, shapes imagined futures. Seduction carries the implication that desire has been manipulated and that we indulge such desire against our real interest.’
(Figure 6.)
The outer buildings are designed to fit in with the natural fauna that grows around the city’s edges, adding an aesthetic that is shielded by corporate capital. ‘In the world of modern finance, ‘money is water’ writes barna, which helps to explain the mirrored glass and polished surfaces. Since the boom of the early 1990s reflected in this advertising we have seen the development of fluid and crystalline buildings which capture the mythologies of the natural, sustainable and flexible.’ The glitz and glamour of the buildings attract wealth and limit the types of people who can enter the complex.
Satellite cities like Diamniadio Lake City, are usually built in spaces called free zones or an export processing zone, this means that the country can make capital on urban development and attract global investment.
‘The free zone… has become a self perpetuating agent in the growth of extrastate urban space – space beyond the reach of state jurisdictions. Yet, at the same time, it has also become an essential partner for the state as it attempts to navigate and profit from the very same shadow economies. In this form of extrastatecraft, far from overwhelming state power, the zone is a new partner that strengthens the state by serving as its proxy or camouflage.’
Profiting from the complex, the city gains an international reputation as a place where people desire to be. But it also means that these complexes are built on the very foundations of cheap labor. ‘Yet the zone is also capable of organizing a form of labor exploitation that is relatively stable within the law. Workers confront unsafe, strenuous, physically abusive, and psychologically intimidating situations. They have a job, but their wages fail to support a decent standard of living.’ The poorest of society are building for the richest and being pushed further and farther inland until they either have to flee to a different country to have a better life or die.
‘Interventions within current city boundaries set in motion similar processes. Urban developments in Metro Manila involving land clearance for new commercial developments and new elevated transport systems to link them together have been labelled as “bypass-implant urbanism” by Shatkin.(46) These enclaves for the “global class” are designed to avoid and supplant the “failures and decay” of the existing city, and in the process have led to large-scale evictions.’
As much as the complex is good for the image of the country and indeed it will bring in massive profits that will be positive for the economy, the downfall is how and where that money will be spent and who it will be spent on. The corporate structure allows for the complex to be shown in a positive light. The article in Business Insider, suggests ways in which the complex reflects positively on nature, because of the added steel frames draped over the buildings to reflect native Baobabs trees (figure. 6). Or the fact that there will be a 5 star hotel, and a new shopping mall perfect for the middle class shopper. All of this is based on a market for the small percentage of the population that can actually afford it. And although the advertisement of such a development is seen as largely positive because it plans to solve ‘overcrowding’ it is simply a ploy for the corporate model to create power hierarchies within the city system to elevate itself to a standard like that of New York or Shanghai.
Post colonial states use architecture to create a glossy facade of the real problems that are going on in their cities. Corporations are called in to build a temporary, satellite city that will transform the image of the city. Attract more investment because the countries left behind after independence had nothing else. In the wake of the refugee crisis, we see more and more incidents where families, innocent civilians are putting their lives at risk all for the sake of a better life because they are being ignored, treated like ghosts, all for the sake of corporate investment and global reputation. In the year 2020, with the global challenge of the climate crisis and the covid-19 outbreak and the violence whether it be visible or not, I wonder if we will reconsider the ways in which we envision our cities, the way we plan and who, what, where, why and when will we start to prioritise the needs of those who desperately need it rather then use the aesthetic face of luxurious architecture as an image to hide the problems the need to be faced in the current global climate.
Bibliography
Books
David Adjaye Adjaye, Africa, Architecture: A Photographic Survey of Metropolitan Architecture (Thames & Hudson, 2016)
Frantz Fanon The Wretched of the Earth, (Grove Atlantic, 2007)
Gwendolyn Wright, The Politics of design in French colonial urbanism (University of Chicago Press, 1991).
Keller Easterling, Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space, (Verso, 2016)
Kenneth Frampton, Modern architecture: a critical history, (Oxford University Press, 1980)
Kim Dovey, Framing Places: Mediating Power in Built Form, (Psychology Press, 1999)
Mbembe, A. (2015) Africa in the New Century Cityscapes. Cityscapes [online]. Available from: http://www.cityscapesdigital.net/2015/12/09/africanewcentury/
Robert Adam, The Globalisation of Modern Architecture: The Impact of Politics, Economics and Social Change on Architecture and Urban Design Since 1990, (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013)
Articles
Senegal is building a $2 billion futuristic city to help cut down on overcrowding in Dakar check out its abstract design https://www.businessinsider.com/senegal-building-2-billion-futuristic-city-inspired-by-nature-2018-9?r=US&IR=T
Films
Mati Diop, Atlantics, released 29th November 2019
Essays
Gary Wilder Apart Together (Published by Aeon on: 29th September 2015) https://aeon.co/essays/how-cesaire-and-senghor-saw-the-decolonised-world
Musab Younis, Against Independance (London Review of Books, Vol. 39 No. 13 · 29 June 2017), https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n13/musab-younis/against-independence
Neil Brenner & Nik Theodore (2005) Neoliberalism and the urban condition, City, 9:1, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13604810500092106?needAccess=true
Watson, V., 2014. African urban fantasies: dreams or nightmares? Environment and Urbanization
Goldsmiths BA Curating 