Building Africa: How Architecture Makes States
From parliaments and presidential palaces to courts and police stations, Africa's public buildings reflect the complexities and ambiguities of its states
Most African states are relatively new. Products of late colonialism, many inherited weak institutions and low levels of popular trust from the societies they govern. Yet they have proven remarkably resilient. What holds African states together? And what role do citizens play in building their authority?
Professor Julia Gallagher has found a new way to approach these questions. In her research, she studies state buildings – like parliaments, ministries, presidential palaces, courts, schools, police stations, hospitals and even sports stadiums and churches – to explain how citizens in Africa read their states and how, by engaging with the buildings, they help hold them together.
Julia talked to more than 600 citizens in South Africa, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia. Here are some of the stories they told her.
Constitutional Court
“The Court upholds South Africa’s post-apartheid constitution which introduced the idea that everyone is equal under the law.
“It was built on top of an old prison which was infamous for its particularly brutal conditions. The Court sits in a complex that includes cells and an exercise yard. It is made out of bricks and stairwells from the original prison.
“South Africans talk about how this building reminds them that the freedoms won in 1994 were built on a painful racist legacy. The building doesn’t try to wipe out this history, but shows how the new state sits above it – ‘a hospital built on a graveyard’, as one man put it.”
Jubilee House
“Jubilee House is the new office for Ghana’s president. The old one was Osu Castle, a European slave fort and centre of the British colonial regime. The new building references the Golden Stool, a traditional Asante symbol of authority.
“Yet despite its bid for local sympathy, the building attracts all sorts of controversy. It’s too big, too ostentatious, built with foreign (Indian) rather than local investment. People complain that they don’t know what’s going on inside, that they don’t feel it fits Ghana’s culture.
“Some even say it ignores their history and think the president should still be working at Osu.”
Basilique Notre Dame de la Paix
“Côte d’Ivoire’s state-built Catholic basilica is the biggest in the world. Modelled on St Peter’s in Rome, it was made almost entirely of imported materials and is reputed to have doubled the country’s national debt.
“Ivoirians describe it as a miracle and are proud of the admiration it attracts in West Africa and Europe. But they are also frightened that it might be falling down. They describe weeds growing around it and bats living inside it. The building becomes a symbol of the state which appears miraculous on the surface, but underneath is in poor shape.”
Tata Raphael Stadium
“The Tata Raphael Stadium isn’t really a building – but in many ways that makes it a good symbol of the Congolese state which, say many of its citizens, isn’t really a state.
“The Stadium has seen a lot of important state events. President Mobutu used to make public pronouncements here. He also used it to put Zaire (as the DRC was known during his rule) on the map by hosting the world’s most famous boxing match, between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in 1974.
“People call it the ‘Congolese Federation of the Discussions’ because it’s where you go if you want to find out what’s really happening – you can’t rely on the state-controlled media to tell you.”
Emperor Menelik’s Palace
“People in Ethiopia didn’t want to talk much about their state buildings – so much so that I almost began to think they didn’t see them. It’s not surprising they are reluctant to look when some of them are heavily protected by armed soldiers.
“But there are ways in which citizens can catch at least a glimpse of where the state used to be – in structures that have been decommissioned and turned into museums. The Palace is one example.
“It’s in the new Unity Party, recently opened to the public. People described it as a good day out, where they could see Emperor Haile Selassie’s wine cellars and learn about how the military Derg regime turned them into a prison for political prisoners.”
Professor Julia Gallagher works on African Politics and Development. Her research is about state - and democracy - building, with a focus on how citizens’ understandings of the state are shaped by colonial legacies and international relationships. She has recently finished work on an ERC project about African State Architecture and her new book, State-Building: Architecture and Authority in Africa will be published in 2026.