From the Tbilisi Architecture Biennial to the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, architecture exhibitions are ever-increasing fixtures on cultural calendars around the contemporary world. New editions of architecture exhibitions rest on a foundation propagated by exhibitions of the past – and these historical expositions, to a great degree, have shaped the architectural discourse we have today. But as these exhibitions were born out of a western framework, African historical representations on the biennial and triennial architectural stage have often been reductive, with an assortment of cultures flattened into one, and distinct architectural styles meshed in an incoherent manner.
As ornament was rejected and the architectural style that came to be known as Modernism entrenched itself into the canon, early 1931 saw what is arguably the most extreme example of an oversimplified African architectural representation at an exhibition – the Paris Colonial Exhibition. A six-month show, it was an attempt to demonstrate the strength of European colonial policy, exhibiting in colonial pavilions supposedly “authentic” environments from the colonies in addition to indigenous peoples and artifacts from colonial territories.
