Palladianism in West Africa: The Ambiguities of an Architectural Migration
Federico Marcomini, Ph.D.
Since the seventeenth century, the legacy of Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio shaped the built environment of the so-called ‘Western civilization,’ from Europe to North America. Recent critical approaches, however, encourage a reassessment of Palladianism, emphasizing its interconnections with racialized culture and colonialism. Building on this premise, this research investigates the distinctive case of Liberia, West Africa. Its territory was purchased in the early nineteenth century by a North American organization to relocate former enslaved individuals and free people of color, who imported their experienced ideas of society, civilization and architecture. Max Belcher’s 1970s photographs of ‘Americo-Liberian’ mansions brought this original form of Palladianism to attention, though its complex implications remain underexamined. This project explores Liberian architecture’s formal, material and cultural properties in the longue durée, from the foundation of the capital Monrovia in 1822 to the 1960s. With travel accounts, ethnographic reports and related literature as primary sources, the research also critically analyzes how the Western gaze has framed Liberia’s unique context. It discusses the role of the built environment in constructing narratives on the country, while fostering biased conceptions of indigenous dwellings and lifestyles. This project provides a fresh contribution to a long-established historiographic tradition, illuminating a largely disregarded yet highly significant architectural experience.