When Senegal became independent in 1960, there was no architecture school in the country. Most of the architects working in Senegal at the time were French. Michel Chesneau, of Chesneau et Vérola; Henri Chomette and Thierry Melot, of BEHC; and Jean-Paul Castanet and Fernand Bonamy were among the first to open architecture firms in Dakar and to register as architects with the Ordre des Architectes (founded in 1970).

Cheikh Ngom was part of the first generation of Senegalese architects, all of them trained abroad (France and the United States) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The other architects in this generation who were prolific in terms of architectural production were Pierre Goudiaby Atepa, who joined the Ordre in 1974; Moussa Fall, who joined in 1975; and Cheikh Ndiaye, who joined in 1979. It was only in 1974 that Cheikh Ngom, an engineer who had become an architect after studying at the Ecole spéciale d’architecture in Paris between 1970 and 1973, became the first Senegalese architect to open an architecture and urban planning firm in Dakar.

In 1975, with support from President Léopold Sédar Senghor, Cheikh Ngom, with his young colleague Pierre Goudiaby, won the competition to design the head office of the Banque Centrale des États de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (BCEAO), solidifying his role in the architectural evolution of the country and the continent. The BCEAO Tower project, inaugurated in 1979, marked a turning point in the construction sector in Senegal; at twenty floors, it was at the time the tallest building in the Senegalese capital.

The bank’s head office complex is composed of five buildings around a park and is situated at the end of Avenue Albert Sarraut, one of the major downtown axes leading from La Place de l’Indépendance. The most visible part of the complex is the oval-shaped tower, inspired by the kapok tree native to Casamance. The cylindrical building is marked by arteries that originate in the ground, like roots, and extend up to its top. The tower is structured around a central core covered with what Cheikh Ngom calls the “skirt,” composed of the façade marked by the vertical arteries. The buildings’ façades are cladded with local marble in natural tones. At the foot of the building, a pool shaped like a map of Africa underscores the balance between African heritage and modernity.

Cheikh Ngom then designed a number of residential buildings in Dakar; among the best known are the Fayçal Building (1984) and the Fahd Building (1992), both near the BCEAO Tower. The Fayçal residential tower, one of the tallest buildings in Dakar, stands out for its bold structure and raw concrete façade. Situated on a hill in the Plateau district, it combines a wide pyramidal base, balconies protruding from the first five floors, and a slender rectangular tower above. The use of reinforced concrete, iron, and an abundance of glass creates an interplay of geometric shapes and light.

Cheikh Ngom’s unique-looking towers are still architectural icons in the Dakar landscape. They exemplify his approach based on a “rational logic” that combines functionality and aesthetics. He responded to the expectations for an African architectural identity with a pragmatic vision, integrating varied modular motifs rather than a purely decorative style. The linear modules that adorn the “skirt” of the BCEAO Tower and the “scales” on the Fayçal building also function as solar protection. For Cheikh Ngom, rational logic also involved adapting to the climate and creating facades that contribute to thermal comfort inside the building.

Aesthetics and architectural expression emerge as the product of rationality and technical mastery, with which every architect should be equipped in order to make a building functional and solid and before adding “ornaments” that must remain within a logic of economy and sustainability. Concrete was often Cheikh Ngom’s primary material—a choice that reflected a concern with durability. The façade material, whether raw unformed concrete or marble cladding, had to be easy to maintain over time.

Cheikh Ndiaye, with his contributions to the overall heritage in Dakar and Senegal, stands among the leaders of the first generation of Senegalese architects. After studying at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, from which he graduated in 1979, he quickly returned to Senegal to found his own eponymous firm. His emblematic projects have played a key role in the development of modern architecture in Senegal.

Cheikh Ndiaye’s background training in fine arts gave him a vision of architecture as the first of the arts, and he saw no dichotomy between human being and architect in his love of the discipline. His methodology can be summarized in the precision and simplicity seen in his designs. Concerned with integrating buildings with their environments, he wanted façades to be simple to read, and he opted for clear, clean lines. The functional quality of the interior spaces was no less important, and he emphasized light and natural ventilation intentionally integrated with the structure. As he was one of the first Senegalese architects, Cheikh Ndiaye’s designs found a territorial anchoring in his use of local materials such as stone and shells, inspired by his repeated stays at Toubab Dialaw, a fishing village an hour away from Dakar.

The Contrôle Financier was Cheikh Ndiaye’s first project, a commission he earned by winning a competition in 1981. The building, situated facing the presidential palace, subsequently housed the prime minister’s office. The L-shaped administrative building is articulated around three levels and is integrated into the urban context, occupying the corner of the street and enclosing an inner courtyard. This inaugural building exemplified Cheikh Ndiaye’s methodology, notably the intentional integration of the structure with the architecture, as can be seen in the intersections of beams and posts deliberately visible on the façade and in the successive overhangs achieved through a rational structural framework.

The building and its façade, with their clean lines, reflect the architect’s modernist style, and the choice of fine, off-white shell cladding further emphasizes the purity of the cubic volumes. In addition to being locally sourced and drawing its origins from coastal landscapes, shell rock is also very durable and limits the need for maintenance in Dakar, where sea spray can be aggressive and damage paintwork or even concrete.

Simple lines and local materials are found in another of Cheikh Ndiaye’s projects, the Office du Baccalauréat. Initiated in 1989, this building was part of a larger renovation project for the University of Dakar, in collaboration with the company EGCAP. The project stands out for its radical volumetry and a central patio that allows the building to breathe. The ground floor is deliberately designed to be left largely free, and the administrative functions are concentrated on the upper floors. This composition facilitates the circulation of students and offers ample waiting areas sheltered from the sun under the lush vegetation in and around the patio. The ground-floor beams and pillars are cladded with limestone, and the exterior walls of the upper floors are cladded with beige shells. Once more, the façade, with its continuous horizontal lines and the structural framework in the background, is easily read. The simplicity of these architectural lines would remain one of the key trademarks of Cheikh Ndiaye’s architectural designs; it is also found in another of his well-known buildings in Dakar, the SONACOS head office.

Abdoulaye Emile Diouf is a Senegalese architect and co-founder of the firm Oscare Afrique, which he opened in 1987 after earning his degree. After he enrolled at the École d’Architecture et d’Urbanisme in Dakar in 1979–80, he came across an iconic Senegalese architecture project, the residence of President Senghor, nicknamed “Teeth of the Sea,” designed by Fernand Bonamy. He had an opportunity to visit the project in 1981, when it was under construction, and he met with Senghor. This encounter allowed him to immerse himself in Senghor’s intellectual thought and his promotion of a modern architecture inspired by Sudano-Sahelian tradition, as illustrated by his house with its oblique walls referring to the buttresses of monumental Sahelian earthen architecture.

One of Emile Diouf’s earliest projects, the USAID head office in Hann, adopted the vertical and oblique elements inspired by the Senghor House and were also used in the design for the CITAMIL building with more explicit references to Senegalese traditional architecture.

The CITAMIL building is situated near Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD). Initially named “Cité Radieuse” (Radiant City), the objective was to create a building that would live up to its name. The project took the constraints of the site into account, including its proximity to the university. The vertical and triangular elements dividing the façade are a metaphor for buttresses, protecting the building from thrown stones, and assert a strong architectural identity, symbolizing Senegalese architecture by referring to the walls of the Senghor House that accentuate the verticality of the project.

The openings on the façade are also inspired by a Sudano-Sahelian tradition, and the architecture of the Soninké, a people living in northeastern Senegal on the border with Mali and Mauritania, whose earthen architecture is known for its small geometric openings in the façades to ventilate living quarters.

Another influence that Emile Diouf cites is the course in thermal design given by his elder at the Prytanée militaire, Jean-Charles Tall, who taught acoustics and building physics at the E.A.U. beginning in 1984. The concern with thermal comfort, especially through the use of solar production mechanisms such as a double skin, returned often in Abdoulaye Emile Diouf’s architecture. In another of his projects, the IPRES headquarters, we see an example of this second façade with the vertical columns that serve as solar protection by supporting passageways, which, in turn, offer outdoor circulation and protect the interior rooms from direct sunlight.

Although Abdoulaye Emile Diouf’s career has been marked by a series of international projects that feature double skins and solar protection mechanisms, today he is more concerned with steering his architectural practice towards reconnecting with a materiality anchored in the territory.

One of his most recent major projects is USSEIN, a university complex in Sine Saloum that extends over five sites, all characterized by similar vegetation and flora. The design, resulting from an in-depth study of local materials, is inspired by Sudano-Sahelian architecture, with materials, colours, and motifs that reflect its traditions. This project highlights the richness of Senegalese heritage and also underscores the need to develop a local materials industry based on this tradition.

In looking back at these key projects, it is clear how much the architectural pioneers, such as Cheikh and Ngom Cheikh Ndiaye (and Pierre Goudiaby Atepa), have influenced the architects who graduated from the E.A.U. This is exemplified by Abdoulaye Emile Diouf, who has also shared several of his projects that are integrated into a modern Senegalese architectural tradition.