Finian Reece-Thomas

Enugu School of Art

The brief for this project has been developed from readings of fiction – specifically that of Purple Hibiscus by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie. The novel, set in post-colonial Enugu in Nigeria, tells the story of a country afflicted by various hierarchical structures of power, such as those of tradition, the church, the political sphere or the family unit. The inherent tension between tradition and modernity is explicated with the protagonist, Kambili, finally finding liberation from her complex childhood in the progressive household of her auntie. The project, set in an imagined future on from the book, sees characters of the story establish a non-hierarchical institution for the teaching of creative disciplines in Enugu.

The architectural language of the project has explored ideas of textiles and of weaving in both an attitude towards space as well as towards the tectonics of the building fabric, an approach suited to the challenging climate of south eastern Nigeria. The final proposal sees the radical reuse of an existing 1960s tower, transformed into a new institution for the teaching of art in Enugu. Informed by both the pre-colonial palaces of Western Africa and the compound house typology specific to much of urban Africa, the school utilises low embodied carbon materials and employs a range of passive environmental strategies to construct a spatially fluid and environmentally sustainable institution that provides the infrastructure for a new form of cultural reproduction in Enugu, recalling the spirit of the post independence Mbari Artist and Writers Clubs of the 1960s.