The “New Culture” of the Nigerian Demas Nwoko, a model of monumental and sustainable architecture
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The clouds roll over the tin roofs, which stretch as far as the eye can see. Built on top of a hill, the New Culture Studio overlooks the city of Ibadan (more than 4 million inhabitants) located 130 kilometers from the economic capital of Lagos, in the south-west of the Nigeria.
Inside the tall building with ocher walls, a few young people are seated around a large table. They briefly interrupt their conversation to greet their host, Rufus Nwoko, 26. “I have lived here for eleven years now, explains the young man, and it was by living in this place that I better understood the mark left by my grandfather who built it. Architecture was for him more than a passion. He created a movement and that dream was bigger than him,” he assures.
Demas Nwoko, born in 1935, now enjoys a peaceful retirement in his village of Idumuje-Ugboko, in Delta State. But in the 1960s, he lived and worked in Ibadan. After studying art in the city of Zaria, in northwestern Nigeria, the young man received a scholarship to fly to Paris, where he studied scenography. Back in his country, he participated in the opening of the School of Dramatic Arts at the University of Ibadan, where he teaches.
A titanic project
But soon, “He felt the need to have his own workspaceexplains his grandson, walking along the building. It was his studio, his office, his home all at the same time. And he stayed here even when the civil war [1967-1970] started, while most of the other members of the Igbo ethnic group fled to the east” [pour rejoindre, alors, les régions sécessionnistes du Biafra].
The project is titanic. After going around the house and climbing a staircase, you come to a huge amphitheater open to the sky, surrounded by bleachers and overlooked by passageways. “It’s what he called a modern Nigerian theatre, says Rufus Nwoko. Before the British came here with rectangular stages, our theaters were round. So he mixed these two inspirations, building a theater in a semicircle, with a stage that can contain everything, both theatre, dance and music, as is the tradition here. »
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