Alongside Professor Nnamdi Elleh of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, the Bartlett’s Professor Murray Fraser and Professor Eva Branscome are co-organising a major international conference titled ‘Ongoing and Emerging Discourses on African Architectural Practices’. It will be held at Wits University on 3rd – 9th July 2024 and details about the sessions and how to submit a proposal are given here.
Recognizing that discourses about African architecture and urban planning are more complex than the bifurcated ‘traditional’/‘colonial’ or ‘African’/‘Western’ models which tend to dominate current research, writing, environmental design and spatial design practices in the continent, this conference welcomes contributions that critically examine the status quo(s) of these disciplines, be that in terms of academic, practice, national or regulatory institutions, or as imagined by policy-makers through forms of urban development that are then disseminated to the public.
Funding is being provided for academics/architects from the African continent to enable them to take part in the conference via the generosity of the UCL/Wits Strategic Partner scheme.
The conference is also part of a continuing initiative by the African Architectural and Urban History Network (AFRAUHN), of which Professor Fraser is a founder-member. AFRAUHN has been set up to promote, support, develop and disseminate high-quality research about the architectural and urban history of the African continent and its diaspora.
