CeCASt Research Seminar 20th March 2024

Architecture in Music: Exploring alternative architectural histories in Africa using other evidence

Presenter: Francis William Adjei-Mensah

Abstract

The historical discourse on architectural evidence in Ghana, as elsewhere in Africa, seems to be meagre and incidental within written global architectural histories. Scholars’ over-reliant on conventional or ‘westernized’ methods of documentation, neglects the rich oral traditions of most African states. Misrepresentation and misconception of the continent’s architectural history is the result of overreliance on westernized epistemologies and the accosted denial of other evidence by colonial ascendency.

This study is interested in how Ghanaian musicians' references to architecture in their works provide alternative narratives of architectural history. Focusing on other evidence, I examine Ghanaian architecture through the lenses of Ghanaian musician. Music, as performing art, is one of the oral sources that has been used to document and disseminate diverse cultural expressions, African traditions, and philosophies. With a particular focus on highlife music and folklore, I examine songs that make references to architecture, building, interior, urban space, and landscape, through explicit pronouncement or/and inference. I use this intertextual or mixed-genre approach in exploring alternative narratives of architectural historiography within Ghana.

Profoundly, this research would contribute to the ethnolinguistic documentation in both music and architectural history within the west African sub-region as well as provide a differing paradigm to African architectural discourse.