Decolonizing Modern Heritage of Africa: Afro‐Brazilian and Neo‐Moorish Liberation Architectures

Abstract

This article examines modern architectures in Africa that express ideas of liberation. It aims to rethink narratives and re-evaluate perceptions through a reading of liberation architectures that are born out of popular resistance movements, revealing of voices for liberation, and representing cultural responses to political pressure from oppressed populations. Two cases are studied. The first concerns pre-liberation architectures in early 19th century Algeria that emerged when popular resistance provoked the colonial administration to facilitate the creation of the neo-Moorish style as a way of allowing the autochthonous to identify themselves within the city through a new architecture inspired by precolonial architecture. The second case study is about post-liberation architectures using Afro-Brazilian architecture initiated by returned formerly enslaved people (Lagos/Benin), reflecting their freedom to reflect on their shifting identities and complex associations between their lives lived in both lands across the Atlantic Ocean. Both examples challenge notions of authenticity and recognition. Neo-Moorish is perceived as a fake mix of two dissociated architectures; Afro-Brazilian is regarded as imported and less authentic than local architectures. Yet the authenticity of both architectures lies in the political and cultural context and motivation underlying their creation: Afro-Brazilians who returned to where they were captured and enslaved to create masterpieces, and Algerians who forced the colonizer to make a unique cultural compromise to appease the population, created two forms of liberation architecture of undeniable authenticity.