Article Feature: Demas Nwoko’s Architecture || Al-Jazeera

“A NEW MASTER’S HOUSE: THE ARCHITECT DECOLONIZING NIGERIAN DESIGN” | Al-Jazeera

Demas Nwoko at Mbari Uno | Sylvan Studios

In the midst of New Ibadan’s concrete palaces, the question of how to infuse culture is a journey Demas Nwoko has been undertaking for more than half a century. In an architectural autopsy and reawakening of Nigeria’s fading architectural heritage, Al-Jazeera‘s Colonialism series features one of Nigeria’s greatest Architect and an ideological reconstruction of spaces in Nigeria.

Journalist, Amber Sijuade, does a walkthrough of the thoughts, designs, and history of Artist, Architect, and Master Builder; Demas Nwoko, using his experiences as a lens through which we can appraise how architecture in Ibadan, Africa’s largest city, has become a neo-colonial manifestation and how we can emancipate ourselves and our history by decolonizing our built environment.

Taking a tour of Pa Demas’ daily life, history, ideology, works, and inspirations, Amber investigates how Nigerians are creating foreign problems via imported colonial models of Architecture and how we are importing solutions to these problems. The article tackles the erosion of Nigeria’s indigenous design styles and their gradual loss. It describes what the Natural Synthesis theory is and how Demas and the Zaria rebels came to disrupt the status quo and re-establish indigenous heritage in arts and architecture for the inspiration of the next generation.

Head on to Al-Jazeera to know how far he’s come and what is next for the new school of architects and builders.