Michele portfolio

1. Samba
Beat
Inside
Brazil’s
Carnival.
T h e i n - f l i g h t m aga z i n e o f et h i o p i a n a i r l i n e s
September/October 2013

2. Contributors
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| Aboutselamta
Claire Rigby is the editor-in-chief at TimeOutSão
Paulo. As a freelance journalist, she has written for Art
Review,FrameandMark,TheGuardian,Telegraph,Buenos
AiresHerald and SouthChinaMorningPost. Follow her
on Twitter @claire_rigby, and go behind the scenes of
Carnival with her in “Samba Beat” on p. 24.
Rooted in: São Paulo, Brazil
Typical breakfast: Milky coffee, a tall glass of freshly
squeezed orange juice and some pão na chapa — grilled
bread with butter.
Michele Koh Morollo is a writer and frequent
contributor to architecture and design titles,
including Dwell Asia, Surface Asia, Singapore Architect,
Design Quarterly, In Design, LOFT and Perspective Global.
Her favorite buildings are those where modernist
forms meet traditional local styles. In “The Rise of
African Architecture” on p. 42, she looks at the talent
arising from and returning to the continent.
Rooted in: Hong Kong, China
Typical breakfast: Weetabix with soy milk, and half a peanut-
butter-and-jelly sandwich on whole-wheat bread.
Behailu Shiferaw is a freelance journalist
and independent media-and-development-
communication consultant based in Ethiopia. He
is currently working with the Children's Radio
Foundation, a youth-media organization that’s
active in several African countries. See his story on
Ethiopia’s agricultural transformation on p. 64.
Rooted in: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Typical breakfast: Chechebsa — an Ethiopian delicacy made
of flatbread broken into pieces and then lightly fried with
liquid butter and berbere (a spicy red pepper powder).
andrÉ KLOTZ is a photographer and compulsive
traveler who recently returned to his hometown of
São Paulo after many years abroad. He has col-
laborated for such magazines as National Geographic
Traveler, the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Trip, GQ
and Casa Vogue, among others. See his images of São
Paulo’s Carnival on p. 24.
Rooted in: São Paulo, Brazil
Typical breakfast: “A cup of coffee and a couple pieces of toast,
and I’m ready to go. Simple is good.”
8 selamtamagazine.com

3. 42 selamtamagazine.com

4. he mention of 20th-cen-
tury architecture brings to
mind Europeans such as Le
Corbusier and Antonio Gaudí,
or Americans such as Frank
LloydWrightandFrankGehry.
The 21st century sees a more
international crew, includ-
ing Shigeru Ban from Japan,
Moshe Safdie from Israel and
Wang Shu from China. But where is Africa
in architecture’s hall of fame?
Powerful colonial influences, coupled
with a history of political and economic
turmoil, left the people of Africa with less
time to ponder the aesthetics and ergo-
nomics of houses, malls and skyscrapers.
But the tide is turning. According to
Tanzanian-born British architect David
Adjaye,agrowingnumberoforganizations,
architectural contests and architects them-
selves are placing African architecture on
the world’s stage. “Through initiatives such
as these — awards, events and peer group
support,” Adjaye says, “this decade will see
a striking new horizon for African architec-
ture and its global impact.”
ThehistoryofAfricanarchitecture
In the 1940s and ’50s, experiments in
architecture and urban planning were
carried out across the African conti-
nent, but mostly by Western architects
such as Le Corbusier and Aldo van Eyck,
who were particularly influential in the
creation of mass housing schemes in
Morocco and Algeria.
When African nations started gain-
ing independence, between the 1950s and
’80s, colonizers used “International Style”
to show their good intentions of leading
colonies toward the future. This style is a
modernist approach developed in Europe
and America in the 1920s and ’30s and is
characterized by the use of concrete, steel
and minimal ornamentation.
In May 1981, the new African Union of
Architects began uniting architects of all
races, religions and nationalities across
the continent. Other national architect
associations and action networks — such
as Adventurers in Diaspora, Casamémoire,
Doual’art and ArchiAfrika — were created
to stimulate the debate on the quality of
the built environment and the value of
Africa’s artistic and architectural heritage.
With the fast pace of economic growth
in Africa from 2000 to 2008, these organi-
zations kept a concerned eye on valuable
architectural assets in African cities —
the historical buildings in the city center
of Dar es Salaam, for example, and the
National Museum in Ghana. Architects
and academics alike within the continent
began paying more attention to the build-
ings in their countries.
“Up to now, important projects on the
continent were designed by foreign ar-
chitects,” says Jean Charles Tall, architect
and founder of the College Universitair
d’Architecture de Dakar.
“When you go to a bookshop, even in
Africa,” he continues, “all the books writ-
ten on African architecture are written
by people from outside of the continent,
with an anthropologist perspective or
for tourists.”
So Tall is urging further discussion
and research about architecture across
Africa. Forums of discussion between
practicing architects, students and aca-
demics, he says, will allow this generation
to further voice its own opinion and move
African architecture onto the global stage.
T
TheRiseof
AfricanArchitectureThecontinent’stalentsarespeakingup. B y M i c h e l e K o h M o r o l l o
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FOTOIMAGIC/GETTYIMAGES,GARYTOGNOMI/GETTYIMAGES
43september/october2013

5. library
Burkina Faso
Diébédo Francis Kéré
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IMAGESCOURTESYOFKEREARCHITECTURE
44 selamtamagazine.com

6. Increasingawarenessthroughdialogue
Encouraging the rise of indigenous archi-
tecture across the continent is ArchiAfrika,
an organization founded in 2001 as a plat-
form to put African architecture on the
world map. ArchiAfrika offers an online fo-
rumfortheexchangeofnewsandexpertise
in the region, and initiates and facilitates
research, projects, and conferences.
In addition to ArchiAfrika’s influence,
there are now more than 50 universities
in Africa offering architecture programs,
and students are approaching the disci-
pline with greater confidence.
Up till now, architecture in Africa was
driven primarily by the Bauhaus principal
of functionality, but today’s architects
are much more innovative, incorporating
sustainability and intelligent aesthetics
into their designs.
One such professional is Burkinabé
architect Diébédo Francis Kéré, 48. Kéré’s
first project — a primary school in eastern
Burkina Faso, built when Kéré was still a
student at the Technical University of
Berlin — was designed on the principles
of climatic comfort and keeping construc-
tioncostslow.Kéréusedlocalconstruction
materials such as compressed earth blocks
and metal shutters to create a streamlined,
contemporary form that is often observed
in modern German architecture.
“I think that giving value to traditional
building techniques,” Kéré says, “is the way
we can unite tradition and modernity.”
Considerclimateandtopography
Part of generating new concepts involves
appreciating historic architecture. Coun-
tries with stronger economies may have
more noteworthy modern buildings, yet
places such as Mali and Ethiopia have
much to offer in the way of traditional her-
itage buildings — like the mud mosque of
Djenné and the rock churches of Lalibela.
As the birthplace of dozens of ancient
civilizations, Africa enjoys a rich and var-
ied artistic heritage that has informed
modern European artistic techniques as
well. Twentieth-century artists such as
Picasso and Modigliani were inspired
by the lines and forms of tribal masks
and sculptures. European architects Le
Corbusier and Theo Van Doesburg used
well-organized geometric and cubical
forms from African art in their works.
One of the earliest African architects
to value the continent’s artistic wealth
is Pierre Goudiaby Atepa, former presi-
dent of the Association of Architects of
Senegal and a pivotal figure of African ar-
chitectureduringthe1970sand’80s.Atepa’s
most well-known projects include Dakar’s
Millennium Gate, Gambia’s Banjul airport
and the bank of the Economic Community
of West African States in Lomé, Togo.
“I don’t want to bring Africa into mo-
dernity,” Atepa says, “but rather to use
modernity with what is profoundly Afri-
can in order to create a kind of symbiosis,
or metissage, in architecture.”
At 66, Atepa says he’ll have to think
about taking a rest soon. But he is “sure
that the new generation will revolutionize
modern African architecture.”
Indeed, this new generation has
already stepped up. David Adjaye, 47, at-
tained international fame for such works
as the Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo, Norway,
and the Smithsonian National Museum
of African American History and Culture
in Washington, D.C.
He has published numerous books on
African architecture and says he learns
something every time he goes to a new
place — whether it’s a slum community
like Kibera in Nairobi or the business dis-
trict of Luanda.
(ALL)COURTESYOFKEREARCHITECTURE
45september/october2013

7. library
Burkina Faso
Diébédo Francis Kéré
46 selamtamagazine.com
primary school
Burkina Faso
Diébédo Francis Kéré

8. (ALL)ASHLEYWALTON/JOURNEYGROUP,ORIGINALIMAGESCOURTESYOFKEREARCHITECTURE
47september/october2013

9. (ALL)COURTESYOFJOEOSAE-ADDO
48 selamtamagazine.com
“Within the context of [world] en-
vironmental challenges,” he says, “the
building practices of traditional African
architecture offer some useful lessons in
working with climate, topography and
cultivating a sense of place.”
For example, as he explained in an
August 2012 interview with Architectural
Record: “You can’t understand Africa until
you realize that it has six extraordinary
geographic zones — each one very pre-
cise and extreme. In the northwest you
have the Maghreb, then to the east you
have the desert, and to the south the Sa-
hel, which is between the desert and the
forest. Other parts of the continent are
forestlands or savanna or the mountains.
“Each place, of course, has its own
particularities, but culture grows from
climate. . . . How do you respond to this
extreme climate and make an architec-
ture that becomes African?”
Homewardbound
This growth in contemporary African ar-
chitecture has led several distinguished
African architects who have lived and
worked overseas to return to their home
countries. The most well-known is
Ghanaian Joe Osae-Addo, 42, who moved
back to Accra in 2004.
Although Osae-Addo had run a thriv-
ing architectural practice in Los Angeles,
he hoped to better align himself with his
beliefs on sustainability, and Ghana was
the place to do so.
At that time, most urban homes in
Accra,thecapitalofaformerBritishcolony,
were concrete-block houses made with im-
ported English Portland cement. Dissatisfied
with this drab approach to living, Osae-
Addo was determined to find ways to build
his home with locally sourced materials.
“I wanted to explore ideas of light,
cross-ventilation and lightness of
structure,” he says. As a result, Osae-
Addo designed his home to stand 3 feet
off the ground on a wooden deck, so that
under-floor breezes would cool the space
naturally. He also incorporated slatted-
wood screens and floor-to-ceiling jalousie
windows for cross-ventilation.
“Interstitial spaces and landscape are
what define tropical architecture,” he says.
“It is not about edifice but rather harness-
ing the elements — trees, wind, sun and
water — to create harmony, not the per-
fection that modernism craves so much.”
Osae-Addo applied these sustainable
building principles to other projects,
too, such as the Oguaa Football for Hope
Centre in Cape Coast, Ghana, which was
constructed with reclaimed scaffolding,
donated shipping containers, and indig-
enous bamboo and adobe bricks. “Africa
is not just a place of inspiration,” he says,
“but a place to live, grow and create.”
ThenewAfricanarchitect
“The next generation of architects is our
future,” Osae-Addo says. “They have all
the tools and technologies at their dispos-
al and a growing awareness of their own
roots. The old guard must recognize this
and nurture and support them.
Atepa shares Osae-Addo’s focus on the
next generation, believing that all Africans,
nomatterwheretheylive,shouldparticipate
in the development of African architecture.
“The wealth of tomorrow is in Africa,”
he wrote in a June 2008 interview with
the African art blog Unseen Art Scene.
”I received everything from Africa. So I
must give something back. . . . Africa is
the cradle of art. If African architects suc-
ceed one day in making the symbiosis
between African art and modern archi-
tecture, the result will be magnificent.”
oguaa football for
hope centre
Cape Coast, Ghana
Joe Osae-Addo