1The Architectural Guide Sub-Saharan Africa, edited by Philipp Meuser and Adil Dalbai, is an impressive undertaking, both in size and scope. It comprises seven volumes and results from an editorial venture carried out over six years. The Guide features contributions by 388 authors from a variety of professional backgrounds: active architects, researchers and scholars representing several academic fields, and theoreticians and preservationists from the continent and the African diaspora, as well as those of non-African background. An introductory volume on theory is followed by six books dedicated to large regions of sub-Saharan Africa. Each of the Guide’s 49 chapters focuses on one country. In the introduction, the editors refer to these numbers with a certain degree of pride, highlighting the uniqueness of their undertaking. The monumental scope of this publication must have made it a daunting task for the editorial team, intent on producing a “compendium covering the entirety of sub-Saharan Africa” (vol. 1, p. 11). In this review, I will reflect on five aspects of this Guide to probe how the volumes discussed are the result of a specific editorial context; who actually curated them; and how they fulfill various functions. This publication has a truly protean character, appearing in different shapes and forms—as an inventory, a handbook, and a guidebook, yielding different answers to different readers posing the same questions.

As an exhibition

2As Nnamdi Elleh points out in the foreword, this publication is not simply a series of books but also a “spatial exhibition in text” (p. 9) to be explored by the reader/visitor. Such a framework raises the question of the curatorial decisions underlying the project selection process. The way the Guide’s main editors Meuser and Dalbai address this matter is commendable. Acknowledging their specific—and, from the vantage point of some (potential and actual) contributors, uncomfortable—positionality, they decided to take a step back to tackle one of the main challenges of the whole endeavor, namely the question of representation. Instead of making top-down decisions, they handed over the choices regarding the selection of projects to the authors of respective national chapters. They also made sure that each chapter was authored or co-authored by experts from the respective countries.

3This editorial decision is significant for at least two reasons. First, on the practical level, if we consider that all 338 authors involved received a copy and that “more than 180 are based on the continent” (p. 12), it ensures that the final product, in the form of the 7-volume publication, has a tangible presence and outreach across sub-Saharan Africa. For a publication produced in a Western context, costing a considerable sum to purchase (198 euros, according to the publisher’s website), this is not self-evident. What is more crucial, though, is that this broadly shared curatorship results in a much more varied choice of the architectural works discussed. The rendering of African architecture is all the more polyphonic, not only in terms of the number of projects, but also, and more importantly, in terms of the nature of the designs. The Guide differs substantially from the much more top-down curated selection in the sixth volume of World Architecture. A Critical Mosaic edited by Udo Kulturmann, in collaboration with three nominators: Dadiv Aradeon, Nnamdi Elleh, and Richard Hughes (all anglophone).

As an inventory

5Without such a broad involvement of authors, the main editors of Architectural Guide would not have been able to present an inventory that contains “more than 850 architectural buildings” on the continent. Since the main editors did not define strict selection criteria for projects, this inventory is heterogeneous, by default. Yet some patterns can nevertheless be discerned.

As a handbook

9The inventory function of the publication is also the groundwork for an empirically informed theoretical attempt that permeates the first volume, Introduction to the History and Theory of Sub-Saharan Architecture. It fulfills two different purposes simultaneously. On the one hand, it may be used in academic teaching; on the other, it can also be read as a meta-discourse on architectural education on and about the African continent. So, in fact, we are dealing with two overlapping discourses—on the built environment (and its history) and on the architectural profession.

11The second part of volume 1 is divided into seven sections, each containing short articles. These articles range from theoretical reflection (e.g. Warebi Brisibe on the unwritten architectural theory, p. 194-195) to position pieces (e.g. Godson Egbo on creating architectural futures, p. 184-185) and questioning architectural theory (e.g. Mariam Kamara, on the “trouble with ‘African Architecture’”, p. 218-219). The structure of the seven sections is somewhat arbitrary and overlapping, so it becomes difficult to distinguish between section 4, Past Awareness: History and Heritage and section 7, Architectural Identity: Style and Authenticity. Yet the final section 10 is a much-needed move towards embedding the discussion in transnational and global contexts.

13An extensive multilingual bibliography at the end of vol. 1, despite it still being dominated by anglophone sources, offers a chance to embed the short articles in the context of francophone, lusophone, and German-speaking discourses (there are also scattered references to publications in Italian and Spanish). In its breadth, however, it is a strange collection in which published primary sources stand randomly next to critical works of architectural historiography. Unfortunately, a critical discussion of the available sources is also absent from most of the contributions. It would have been crucial for redefining the role of the builders beyond the agency of the architects—as pointed out by Amit Srivastava and Peter Scriver in their plea for “construction studies” (vol. 1, p. 308).

As a guidebook

14All of these concerns, however, might be beyond the interest of readers looking for an informative architectural guidebook rather than a theoretical handbook. Regardless of the target readership, it would have been beneficial if the six volumes of opulent guidebooks gave more space to architectural projects beyond the main urban centers. More examples from the “hinterland”—or in fact, from the centers beyond the coastline, apart from the capital cities built “from scratch” such as Abuja or Yamoussoukro (this remark does not apply to chapters on landlocked countries)—should have been included. This seems like a missed opportunity to paint an even more detailed picture of the continent's layered urban and architectural history.

15In terms of practical use, the simple addition of maps of urban centers, pinpointing specific buildings referred to in the guide—would have been appreciated. Including maps may be an outdated approach, but they would have made the books useful for navigating the city while on the move as a reader and visitor. Another way to solve this issue could have been to equip the publication with a digital companion, an interactive app, with geocoded entries.

Conclusion

16The Architectural Guide Sub-Saharan Africa is a milestone—not only in size and weight. It is also a provocation—in a good sense, as it does not leave the reader indifferent, no matter who this reader might be. It is indeed a “spatial exhibition in text,” constantly moving on the spectrum between an architectural biennial and a trade fair. Note that this observation is not meant to suggest the former should be valued more than the latter. The final evaluation of the publication is subjective, depending on the various and sometimes conflicting interests and needs of the reader or visitor.

17For an architectural professional from the continent, the Guide may act as a call to take a position in the ongoing debate on African architecture. For a researcher, it may elicit a reconsideration of methodological frameworks and an engagement in scholarly endeavors that this publication cannot entirely fulfill—for instance, a critical analysis of various sources. For a cultural tourist, it could be an invitation to rethink what they are looking for while visiting cities in sub-Saharan Africa. But in the end, and much to the credit of the editors, hardly any other publication available on the topic today has the capacity simultaneously to be a reference point to a student of architecture from Kampala and for a traveler from Hamburg visiting Dakar on business and planning half a day of sightseeing before heading back to the airport.