2014年，Philipp Meuser正在寻找有关非洲建筑的信息。他的柏林建筑公司Meuser Architekten，正在马里和加纳设计了两个德国大使馆，他想更好地了解西非的历史和各种建筑。但是，除了一些学术研究项目和一次性的建筑概况外，他和他的团队还没有太多运气。梅瑟说：“没有全面的概述。”“这是一开始就开始制作建筑指南的动机。”
七年后，迈瑟（Meuser）和他的同事阿迪尔·达尔（Adil Dalbai）编辑了一场扫荡architectural guide for the entirety of Sub-Saharan Africafor Dom Publishers, featuring more than 800 buildings from 49 countries. Illustrated by more than 5,000 images, the seven-volume guide fills more than 3,400 pages, and features essays and building profiles from an international group of more than 300 authors, including original essays from noted African architects likeDavid AdjayeandFrancis Kéré。
该指南涵盖了各种各样的建筑风格，从土著和殖民地到现代主义者和21世纪，这项指南是填补空白Meuser的重大尝试，他的团队在2014年面对。Dalbai和指南合作者Livingstone Mukasa获得了奖励。格雷厄姆基金会的赠款to expand this work into an online network to share more knowledge and information about African architecture.
But creating a guide to nearly an entire continent—now home to more than 1 billion people—is hardly a straightforward task. Here, Meuser and Dalbai discuss how they tried to encompass Sub-Saharan Africa’s architecture without oversimplifying it.
德赢提款: The scope of this project is a bit daunting. How did you go about tackling such a wide and diverse subject?
Adil Dalbai: We have architects involved, authors, journalists, photographers, all kinds of different professional backgrounds, and all of them brought with them their own views, their own take on the topics [and] countries they wrote about, so it’s totaled into this polyphonous work of many. We also invited participation from renowned scholars, professors from various universities from Africa, the African diaspora, and also from countries across the global south to give their input on how architecture in Africa can be perceived, what are the narratives that exist, which ones are changing, and how can we overcome the clichés and stereotypical tropes.
How did you go about selecting buildings?
Philipp Meuser: We do have hospitals, schools, and other social infrastructure, but for us it was also important to point out and to focus on everyday architecture. You’ll find the icons, but we also wanted to show normal architecture, how it is in reality.
AD：我们的目标之一是桥接[所示的内容]光泽的建筑杂志，您有一个带有漂亮照片或一些度假胜地和酒店的豪华项目，然后是“贫民窟色情”，有时被称为“贫民窟”。我们试图展示整个范围。我们不仅通过描述建筑物，而且提供许多上下文信息来做到这一点，这对于了解这些建筑物如何在社会，空间，地理，历史和政治上如何嵌入这些建筑物至关重要。
在许多非洲国家，殖民主义是一个反复出现的主题。在建筑环境中也很明显，建筑风格受到外部影响的影响，并非总是以积极的方式。您是如何在指南中解决的？
AD: In some countries, the colonial architectural legacy is very disputed, very controversial, and we tried to reflect this in the text. Because in some places colonial times are not so long ago, and there was a lot of struggle. In other countries, the colonial architecture is very much incorporated into the contemporary national identity, in a way. It’s adapted and accepted as part of the current built reality. Of course in some places it is still relevant to challenge these sometimes uncritical modes of perpetuating this architectural heritage. But you can find all kinds of different ways this heritage is dealt with. And in some countries, although a minority, there are even initiatives to preserve and restore this heritage, of course with the historical context of when and how it was built.
PM：在阿拉伯人到达之前，在欧洲人，印第安人面前，在欧洲人面前有一些城市集团。这些城市聚集与我们理解的城市文化不同。这些是更多的市场和更大的村庄。就我的理解，我要说的是，今天的撒哈拉以南非洲城市类型学与村庄的群体密切相关。当然，在21世纪，您的城市中心很密，而且非洲的城市化率很高。在接下来的30年内，有4亿多人将搬到城市或出生在城市中，因此这意味着这些城市将会发生完全的变化，问题是：如何发展这些城市？他们是遵循亚洲战略，欧洲战略或美国战略，还是会找到自己的战略？
AD：我向欧洲或美国的大多数人展示了章节草案，许多从未去过非洲或以前对非洲没有特殊兴趣的人，他们惊讶地看到多样性，多样性。从圆形房屋到实际的高层，玻璃和钢，现代主义，超法建筑，都有整个频谱。这些天际线有很多非洲城市。不完全是Wakanda，但是非常接近它。
本指南中包含的49个国家 /地区自然有各种各样的建筑类型和样式。是否有任何相似之处或共同主题？
PM: You also see this relationship between decorating the body and decorating the space . . . between climate, material, and construction methods. Of course, you see these round huts, with the cone-thatched roof. You see that everywhere. But if you go deeper into the details, you see that they are all different. From village to village, they have different decorations, different sizes, different orders of the houses within the village. This is something that you can also see in the modern slum areas, places that do not have urban infrastructure. You see similar patterns.
AD: It’s very difficult in a vast region and 49 countries to find very specific commonalities. But what we see, especially with the African authors in the book, is this common feeling that right now is a time when there are a lot of things happening all over the African continent. Even though in some places the economic situation is bad and some places are riddled by war and internal conflict and crisis, most of the places in Africa have a lot of drive, a lot of energy, a lot of new young architects, because there are a lot of new architecture schools and the first cohorts are graduating. The drive among the young African architects to find new solutions and their own solutions in relation to climate and material and construction, this is certainly something that can be found all over the continent.