This book compiles the research on Senegal’s national school of architecture and urbanism—active between 1973 and 1991 and created as part of Léopold Sédar Senghor’s vision for the post-independence nation—conducted by Nzinga B. Mboup as part of the CCA c/o Dakar program.

The history of the school and its avant-garde curriculum is told by the people who studied there and some of their professors through a series of oral histories coupled with extensive research into local archives. Architects were interviewed individually and at times reunited around curated events to allow for discussion and the confrontations of ideas around specific topics. Student theses, didactic materials, newspaper clippings, and photographs from different archival sources become supplements to the architects’ recollections.

The project aims to paint a portrait of this first generations of Senegalese architects while addressing the historical, socio-cultural, and political context that they operated in. In this sense, the book offers new resources and a new understanding of modernity in Africa.

Edited by Nzinga Biegueng Mboup
Oral histories: Nzinga Biegueng Mboup, Carole Diop
Editor in charge: Alexandra Pereira-Edwards
Graphic design: Julia Novitch, Ghazaal Vojdani

Co-published by the CCA and Archive Books