YAA Projects designs architecture in dialogue and response to place, identity, climate, material and history.
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Tropical Modernism: Architecture & Power in West Africa is an exhibition co-curated and designed by YAA Projects (Nana Biamah-Ofosu) in collaboration with the V&A for the Applied Arts Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. The exhibition explores the development of Tropical Modernism as an architectural style in West Africa, examining its colonial heritage and transformation into a symbol of Pan-African identity at the dawn of Ghana’s independence.
The exhibition design, set within the listed historic context of the Arsenale, offers a provocative and immersive spatial experience recalling some of the key attributes of the architectural style. A 35-meter-long wall constructed in a sustainable modular system displays 80 selected images, guiding a visitor through reflections on the style’s imperial history, post-independence development, and its subsequent decline and reappraisal in contemporary architecture. The design of the display wall references the brise soleil at the University of Ibadan, designed by Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew.
Additionally, YAA Projects co-directed a three-channel, 30-minute film featuring archival footage displayed in an enclosed curtained-lined space within the exhibition. The film includes reflections from key protagonists, such as Ghanaian architect John Owusu-Addo and figures like Samia Nkrumah, alongside contemporary footage of significant buildings, including those on the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology’s campus. The film frames this architectural movement within a social, cultural and political context, exploring how it was adapted and developed by West African architects during a transitional period marked by new freedoms and a break from the colonial past through architecture.
Project Collaborators: Christopher Turner & Bushra Mohamed
Photography: © Alice Clancy