The growing demands of ubiquitous computing are leading towards the densification of wireless access networks. The challenges of high density deployments can be addressed by networkwide centralized control. To this end we propose CADWAN -a Control Architecture for efficient management of Dense Wi-Fi Access Networks. Its main advantages are: flexibility (it supports softwaredefined wireless networking), scalability (it uses a three-tier optimization framework), and extendibility (it exploits a unified control interface with support for heterogeneous devices). Furthermore, CADWAN is complementary to ongoing developments in IEEE 802.11, especially 802.11ax.