A celebration of post-colonial independence in 'Architects of Liberation: Modernism in Western Africa'

Sometimes a publisher just gets it right. This week, it’s MoMA, whose new survey of Modernist architecture in post-colonial West Africa, Architects of Liberation, captures the euphoric energy of the region’s most visionary designers and builders after hard-won independence. Pictured here, La Pyramide in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, built 1968–73 by architect Rinaldo Olivieri and engineer Riccardo Morandi. “La Pyramide is a hallmark of the Abidjan skyline,” Mallory Cohen writes. “A fifteen-story, truncated pyramid outfitted in aluminum sunshades, the building was a product of the ‘Ivorian miracle’—a period of immense economic prosperity driven by cocoa and coffee exports. La Pyramide was designed as an African market for a new age… [featuring] three underground levels containing a parking garage for 1,800 vehicles, a supermarket and a night club, followed by two floors of boutiques. The upper levels were dedicated to offices and a small number of studio apartments, with the twelfth floor reserved for a restaurant with panoramic views of the surrounding city and Ébrié Lagoon.”

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