- 4 months ago
Clay, light and new paths: With the new Goethe-Institut building in Dakar, Francis Kéré has created a building that combines tradition and modernity. Contemporary African architecture is at the center of a global future.
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00:00Music
00:10We're traveling to Africa, where a new form of architecture is emerging, made from red earth.
00:16Innovative, locally produced, and climate friendly.
00:19It's a journey to those pioneering the building designs of tomorrow for Africa and possibly the world.
00:25Music
00:27The future of cities is being decided on the African continent.
00:31Here, global megalopolises are growing to house more than one-third of the world's population.
00:37The result is a set of grey concrete landscapes built with enormous CO2 emissions.
00:47But one solution lies within Africa itself. It's Earth.
00:51The red raw material is easily available, economical, and above all, climate friendly.
01:00It's a material from modern construction that's restoring forgotten knowledge.
01:06This is the story of a new beginning, one that produces heroes and celebrates its pioneers.
01:12Those visionaries of architecture who are wrestling with the material of the future between grey concrete and red soil.
01:25Who are the people embodying this new beginning?
01:29And how are their ideas turned into constructed reality?
01:32It's very scary, recogntaking.
01:37By Huntica's 5416th, the story of the licenses of Todayissing.
01:43Are Sagittarius?
01:55A sandy plot of land.
02:00A outstanding plot of land.
02:01A dilapidated intoזהth, rumoured toounter Secretly, richet, riche and exponential Nature and
02:02house, and an architect.
02:07I'm Francis, Francis Carré, or to be precise, my name is Diabedo Francis Carré.
02:13I was born in Burkina Faso.
02:16These days, I divide my time between Germany, Burkina Faso, the United States, and many
02:22other cities in Africa.
02:24And I enjoy it.
02:38Carré and his team are developing an idea.
02:41They want to build a place for culture and education, for networking and celebrating.
02:46It's to be the new home for the Goethe-Institut in Senegal.
02:54Back in Berlin, their ideas are being turned into drafts.
02:58With that, the future building starts to take shape.
03:01Carré's clients wanted to have a cultural connection to West Africa and incorporate
03:06sustainable architecture, down to the choice of construction materials.
03:15What's special about the Goethe-Institut in Dakar is that we're using loam to build the
03:19structure, earthen material stabilized with cement.
03:26These bricks are being used to build a cultural facility for a German institution in Africa.
03:33That's great, because it clearly demonstrates the importance of sustainability.
03:41That's why the Cultural Institute in Dakar, Africa, is being built using earthen material.
03:46In Dakar, from a peninsula jutting into the Atlantic, the city spreads into the hinterland.
03:59Four million people live in Senegal's dynamic coastal capital, one quarter of the country's
04:04population.
04:05That number is projected to grow to 10 million by the middle of the century.
04:10Typical for expanding African megacities, much here is unplanned and makeshift.
04:15The infrastructure is already chronically overloaded, and there's a lack of public and green spaces.
04:27Living space is expensive and scarce, forcing many people to build their own homes over several
04:32years, one cement bag at a time, wherever there's room, often somewhere on the outskirts.
04:43Modern Dakar, a city that's one massive construction site.
04:56In the concrete jungle of the Ngor district, one house stands out.
05:01Brick red, five stories high, built entirely of mud blocks.
05:06The structure of the facade creates areas of shade.
05:12Courtyards provide light and air.
05:14It's proof that alternative construction methods work.
05:17It was designed and built by the Worofila architectural firm in Dakar, run by Nicola Rondet and Nzinga Mboup.
05:28My name is Nzinga.
05:30I am an architect.
05:32I co-founded Worofila with a couple of other architects, and right now I'm associated with
05:37Nicola.
05:38And the Worofila is an architectural practice that focuses on bioclimatic architecture.
05:44Like Francis Carré, these young African architects want to revolutionize the construction industry.
05:49They launched their mission in 2019.
05:52I do feel that as an African we need a bit more of a radical approach.
05:56A radical approach that is sort of anchored in our traditional knowledges to really make buildings and cities that sort
06:05of work better for us from a climatic point of view, from a cultural point of view, from an economical
06:10point of view.
06:11And I do believe that the use of locally sourced material, low-tech materials, is going to enable us to
06:18do that.
06:28Africa's red earth, weathered soil millions of years old, known as laterite.
06:34It's rich in aluminum and iron oxide, which lended its typical red color.
06:44My name is Amadou Doudoudem.
06:46We are at our production unit in Gondigal, and I am a civil engineer.
06:53Doudoudem finds the raw material for his brick factory in the hinterland of the metropolis of Dakar, in the vastness
07:00of the Zahel savannah.
07:04Here at our production unit, we produce everything from local bio-based and geo-based materials.
07:12We make compressed earthen bricks.
07:15We make adobe, which is molded mud bricks.
07:20These compressed earthen bricks are made from a mixture of laterite.
07:24It's the kind of soil you find throughout the area, throughout the Dakar region.
07:30The laterite is mixed with sand and cement, moistened and then compressed.
07:35The bricks are stored under a tarp for three weeks, after which they're ready to be used in construction.
07:44Using a manual press, the company can produce 1,000 bricks a day here, 15,000 when all the presses
07:50are running at full capacity.
07:52But that remains the exception, since mud bricks are a niche product in the construction industry.
08:00Mud is considered to be a building material for the poor, so the idea is to change attitudes by showing
08:06that it's possible to work with it.
08:07The oldest buildings in the world are made of earth.
08:11It's durable, eternal and sustainable.
08:13It's reversible, as long as you don't use cement.
08:16Today it's absurd that people spend so much energy building concrete buildings.
08:21When it gets hot, they sleep outside, or they turn on the air-conditioning and spend even more money.
08:27The idea is to bring some logic back into all of this, and build using materials as efficiently as possible.
08:37Doudou Dem is a pioneer in his field.
08:40He founded his company, Alimantea, 15 years ago.
08:44Today, its reputation has spread far beyond the African continent.
08:48Dem works closely with the team from Woro Fila.
08:51Nzinga Mboup has dropped by to pick up an order of bricks for a construction project on the coast.
09:01It's a new home, an hour south of Dakar, for a family from outside Senegal.
09:13The thinking was to be able to create a fairly compact home.
09:18This is only a three-bedroom house, but to ensure that we have all the various principles of passive design
09:24that are important to us.
09:25So, cross-ventilations, natural lighting, and also have an envelope that is built entirely with earth, in order to have
09:35the thermal resistance that we need for the regulation of the internal temperature.
09:39So, the focus is mostly on having the ventilation, having a lot of flow as well.
09:45Nzinga Mboup is one of the few women architects of her generation in Senegal.
09:57After studying in South Africa and London, she decided to return to West Africa in 2017.
10:03She wanted to be independent and help shape modern African architecture.
10:13There's sometimes a lot of skepticism when it comes to what can be done.
10:17You know, people have a lot of constructs that have developed over times and that we need to deconstruct by
10:22actually doing.
10:23So, it helps that we have clients that are willing to go for it, that we have architects, engineers, contractors
10:30that are all participants in this revolution.
10:34And one building at a time, we're showing that it's possible, and more people are adhering to it.
10:43Latterite, red earth in an ideal mixture with sand and silica.
10:52It characterizes the landscape and is abundant in West Africa, a region larger than the entire European Union.
11:02Latterite costs almost nothing, and transport distances are short.
11:08So, why is this traditional red building material hardly ever used here anymore?
11:31A three-hour flight from Dakar is Accra on the Gulf of Guinea, once a fishing village, then a major
11:38outpost in the gold and slave trades, and long a center of British colonial rule.
11:42Since 1957, it's been the capital of Ghana, which was the first former colony in sub-Saharan Africa to declare
11:50its independence.
11:51The buildings from that era are a self-confident expression of identity and nation building.
12:02An increasing number of people are seeking their fortune in this rapidly growing metropolis.
12:07Accra has always been a place of critical debate and political resistance to any form of external control.
12:13The realm of architecture is no exception.
12:22What is African architecture?
12:23What is African architecture?
12:23I would say, very firmly, we are in the process of finding out.
12:28Decolonization, for me, is not about replacing one narrative with another, it's actually about expanding the narrative.
12:33You then have to teach, encourage, develop how to build.
12:37So decolonization has a trajectory which is about undoing, but it also has a trajectory which is about building and
12:45making that is often not spoken about.
12:54Leslie Loco founded the African Futures Institute in 2021 in her home city of Accra as a pan-African think
13:01tank.
13:03But above all, the Ghanaian Scottish academic and thought leader wants to build a world-class architecture school here, in
13:10Africa, for Africa,
13:12where construction challenges are enormous, but formal architecture education is lacking.
13:23Accra lies in the middle of a densely populated coastal strip between Nigeria and Ivory Coast.
13:30Forty million people live along a thousand kilometers, and the population is increasing fast.
13:36One house at a time, this area on the Gulf of Guinea is turning into an African megacity of concrete.
13:44This material is not just some grey stuff.
13:47It's charged with life, social symbols, challenges, and projections for the future.
13:52Building permanent structures is a way of saying to the municipality, to the state,
13:56look, I've invested a lot of money here, and if I've built something, it means I'm legitimate.
14:01It means I have a right to stay.
14:04That's what's interesting about this material.
14:07It's both the material of the rich, who use it to construct huge buildings,
14:12and also the material of the poor.
14:14It's a way for them to try to improve their living conditions too,
14:18to avoid the flooding and displacements that are commonplace in these cities.
14:24Geneva-based researcher Armel Choplin studies the astonishing success story of concrete in West Africa.
14:31How a symbol of the colonial era and Western modernity became an everyday product.
14:37Builders once needed to import cement at significant cost, now it's made in Africa.
14:50The grey material became a promise of happiness.
14:54With sand, water, and the all-important materials cement, we build cities, houses to live in,
15:03factories for manufacturing, bridges so we can cross the rivers with ease,
15:10breaking their backs that builders build with loving and infinite care.
15:16The price of cement is a bit like the local Dow Jones, the stock exchange.
15:21We can gauge a country's economic health based on the tons of cement produced and the companies that exist.
15:28Above all, the dream of most West African residents and city dwellers is to try to build a house for
15:34themselves,
15:34for their future, for their descendants.
15:37For example, a couple may buy bags of cement as a gift, as a long-term investment in their commitment.
15:47Concrete may be cheap and hugely popular, but its ecological price is high.
15:51There is no concrete without cement, but the production of cement is already responsible for up to 8% of
15:58global greenhouse gas emissions.
16:00And there is no concrete without sand, but the often illegal extraction of sand threatens the ecological balance of West
16:08Africa's coastlines.
16:10You know, we're the world's fastest urbanizing continent. I mean, in 25 years, this, the stretch of urban corridor between
16:19Lagos and Abidjan will be the most densely populated place on the planet.
16:23So there is an incredible time pressure. I want to use that pressure to galvanize support for this place because
16:31this is not something that we have another hundred years to think about.
16:33Actually, we've got to think and act now.
16:38That was further reason for Leslie Loco to take on yet another task.
16:43In 2023, she became the first curator of African descent at the Venice Architecture Biennale.
16:59Back to Senegal.
17:01Like Accra, the greater Dakar region is experiencing dynamic growth with the same gray material creeping through the landscape.
17:09Anarchy and central planning, chaos and large-scale projects.
17:16But while everyone's talking about the city of the future, Nzinga Mboup is setting off to try to understand the
17:23past.
17:35Nzinga is one of only 300 registered architects in Senegal.
17:39Most of the buildings in the country were not designed by a professional.
17:45Her friend and teacher Jean-Claude Thalle has witnessed firsthand the decline of building culture.
17:50At one point, Senegal offered no formal education in architecture, prompting Thalle to found a college.
17:56For 20 years, it's been one of the few places offering young people in West Africa a place to officially
18:02learn the basics of building design.
18:07What's great about this generation is that they're determined to move forward.
18:12They're demonstrating that they can do something modern using earthen material with different technological approaches.
18:19Using that material is very, very important.
18:22Are they failing? Are they succeeding?
18:25That becomes a secondary issue.
18:28What's important for them is to test things out.
18:31Not just to talk about bioclimatic architecture, but to produce a bioclimatic culture.
18:37I think they'll need a few years of existing in-between worlds.
18:40They're still searching.
18:42They'll manage to move things forward that way.
18:47But it won't be easy.
18:50Thalle says the problem began in the 1980s, when air conditioners became standard in African cities, making it unnecessary to
18:58build in a climate-friendly way.
19:00Traditional know-how was lost.
19:08Dakar was a laboratory for architecture in the decades before and after independence in 1960.
19:14It became the home of a self-assured African architectural modernism, featuring a geometric design language inspired by the cultures
19:22of the Zahil region.
19:23These were the city's golden years of architecture.
19:32The tropical modernist buildings were made of concrete, but incorporated ingenious solutions for light, air circulation and shade.
19:41Senegal's first president, Léopold Sédard Senghor, had those ideas applied to his own residents.
19:48Fifty years later, the new Goethe Institute will be built next to it.
19:53We have the neighboring Musée Zégor, the former home of the country's founder, Léopold Sédard Ségor, who was himself a
20:02man of culture.
20:03I think this design by Francis Carré hits in beautifully with the surroundings.
20:08It's inspired in part by the Musée Zégor, by German architectural ideas, of course.
20:14We are the German cultural center here in Senegal, after all.
20:17And by Francis Carré's own ideas, which he has already implemented and is reflected in his design.
20:27The designs may be ready, but at the site, there's not much to see.
20:33Three years after Francis Carré's first visit, the plot is still nearly empty.
20:39A tarp protecting some of the ground.
20:43It's now December 2022, and we first had to excavate the entire area where the building is to be constructed.
20:51That's because the underlying sand could swell and cause cracks.
20:55We replaced it with different sand.
20:57We had to lay things like water pipes.
20:59You can see this blue plastic behind us.
21:01It tells you just how big the building will be.
21:07The building is intended to fit in with the city and its history.
21:11A history, Nzinga Mbup says, is preserved in the architecture of Dakar.
21:16Along with architect Carol Diop, she is researching how locals lived before colonization by France.
21:22She says people created so-called Pinch, farmsteads arranged around a central courtyard.
21:30The Pinch denotes essentially the centre of the community, which has a political nature, but also has a spatial nature.
21:38And typically, spatially, it was marked by a tree, actually, which is the place where people would gather.
21:44Now, in addition to the tree marking the Pinch, we also have a mosque, which is also why there's a
21:49mosque behind us.
21:50And this Pinch, in particular, because of the civic nature, also has this plaza, this esplanade, that serves as gathering
21:57spaces for rituals, for ceremonies,
21:59and is really rich with teaching about how to use space and what do the people need, really.
22:08Traces of pre-colonial housing styles can still be found here, in the district of Medina.
22:13They provide inspiration for sustainable architecture that provides space for residents looking to build community,
22:20and offers a retreat from the chaos of the bustling city.
22:24These trees are over 100 years old, and if we only knew all the stories that they could tell,
22:29they say that, you know, if trees could speak, they would actually hold a lot of the community memory of
22:35our history, right?
22:37Like, we would know about all the important decisions that were made, the places where we had conflict resolutions.
22:41They actually are living archives, when you think about all the important political or societal moments that happened under this
22:48tree.
22:48And it's a shame that, as they are disappearing, I think a big part of the connection to that history
22:53is also disappearing with it.
22:57These so-called palaver trees are a recurring theme in Francis Quéré's designs.
23:02Looming large in African history, they serve as inspiration for the new National Assembly Building in the Republic of Benin,
23:08currently the most important contract for Thierry's firm.
23:12The parliament building is modeled on the palaver tree.
23:19Palaver means coming together and then participating democratically and equally under the shade of the tree.
23:29But it's not just symbolic.
23:33This parliament functions much like a tree, very transparently.
23:41We then have two layers of walls, elements that prevent the interior of the building from overheating.
23:49But meetings are then held in a plenary hall reminiscent of a tree.
23:58Quéré's architecture is rooted in the world of the Sahel region.
24:01The area inspired his philosophy and his approach to building.
24:08This broad strip between the Sahara Desert and the savannah, with its historic trade routes,
24:13has given rise to one of Africa's most developed building cultures.
24:18Villages of the Dogon people on the Bandiagara escarpment in Mali.
24:22These multi-story houses are made of stone and clay.
24:26Centuries old, they're now a world heritage site.
24:31Mud mosques, in what's known as the Sahel Sudan architectural style, are among the most spectacular buildings in Africa.
24:38Wooden beams protrude like spikes from the great mosque of Bobo de Olaso in Burkina Faso.
24:44They stabilize the mud walls and also serve as scaffolding for the annual repairs after the rainy season.
24:52Other examples of buildings conceived of as natural adaptations by humans to their environment
24:57can be seen at the Nubian Vault Project.
25:00These standardized homes with vaulted mud brick roofs are reinterpreting an ancient mud construction technique from Sudan.
25:07Mud is ideal for a desert climate.
25:10Its thermal inertia keeps the interior cool during the day and allows the walls to release stored heat at night.
25:19All are examples of the type of new construction the world needs when adapted to the environment and using natural
25:26materials.
25:28Next week on Arts Unveiled, the new Goethe Institut in Dakar is setting an example.
25:32How can an eco-friendly change in architecture succeed?
25:37And what can we learn from Africa?
25:39We meet the most important minds of the future.
25:45the new Goethe Millика 900
25:46by a reader behind the walls.
25:49lacrosole0410
25:49this will never happen.
26:01For more importantly,
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