The architecture of the tropical city in Africa

The history of the tropical city is also the history of the architecture of the modern movement in Africa. The artefacts of this precise chapter of architecture are still recognizable today. However, these fragments of memory are endangered by an anti-modern movement, which classifies urban facts and the city as antiques whose value is 'mysterious'. The contributions explore the remains of a vanished memory by con-tributing to restoring its continuity. The relationship between architecture and the city is analyzed in time and space before and after Independence, and in a geographical area where the project is inextricably linked to the context. From the experiences in western Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria, Mali, and Burkina Faso, we move on to the events of modernism in South Africa and Mozambique, and then go back eastwards to Tanzania, Sudan and Ethiopia. The journey ends at the equator, in Congo and Rwanda.