Money Makes the World go Round: Economics, Architecture, and Apartheid

 Economics is power. The influence and power of economics have been the motivation and premise for the structuring and re-structuring of whole societies. Naturally, if the reach of economics can extend to the realm of the socio-political, it can also be reflected in the built environment and the ways in which space is orchestrated. 

Remnants of Apartheid History retained in the built environment.

Apartheid South Africa, born out of the 1880s gold rush, is a testament to the power that economics has on space-making. A myriad of supporting infrastructure and multiple townships were built and established by settler communities, all in the name of seeking the economic benefit that the land promised. Through the colonialist appropriation of land and bifurcation of the urban fabric to privilege the Afrikaner and settler communities over the indigenous South African peoples, we can see the role in which architecture and the urban built environment play in the perpetuation of systems of inequality.

Mosque architecture within the context of the Senegambian region, modern-day Northern Nigeria, and all across Africa are not free from the implications and powerful influence of economics. The architecture that is produced by foreign governments as an indicator of goodwill through the faith tradition, carries with it a weightiness that is not often reflected upon. The construction of these massive edifices, or Mega-Mosques, often dawn the aesthetic traditions of their gifted nation-states. Meant to stand as symbols of modernity and progress, the structures do not even attempt to reflect the architectural traditions and cultural identities of their sites. They rather speak the language that is understood by all and communicate the power of economics.  

National Mosque of Ghana gifted by the Turkish government.

 

References

Federico Freschi “Postapartheid Publics and the Politics of Ornament…the New Constitutional Court, Johannesburg.” Africa Today, Vol. 54, No. 2, Visual Experience in Urban Africa (Winter, 2007), pp. 27-49