The architectural profile of Demas Nwoko, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2023 Architecture Biennale, is expressed through an unconventional vision of building that combines artisanal building traditions with an intense and broad artistic and professional experience. The exhibition covers five buildings, five key iconic buildings that chart different aspects of Baba Demas’ work. Two of these buildings are in Ibadan. One is the early work that you mentioned, the New Culture Studios, which started with an art gallery, art studio and then the residents. Later on, the Amphitheatre was dug up and then the theatre. The Centre is then built up over time based on needs. The second one is the Dominican Chapel, a very iconic chapel which was built between 1970 and 1975 for the Ibadan Dominican Institute of the friars from Chicago. This building has somehow served to bring aspects of traditional architecture, such as aspects of ventilation, aspects of the intimate way of worshipping and also bringing light very theatrically into the building, just using the materials that we have here locally. Then there is the Oba Akenzua Centre in Benin City. The fourth one is this house, where we are now, which is Demas Dwoko’s private villa in Idumuje-Ugboko, his birth town. And the fifth one is a monastery building in a place called Ewu, about an hour and a half from here, in Edo state.
Some buildings of this project, started in the early 80’s, are already there: a reception building, a refectory which is now used as a prayer hall, but was built just for communal services. Additionally, Baba has introduced three ongoing projects which we also developed for the exhibition. Two of these projects are very recent, from 2020. Baba has designed a purpose-built chapel for Ewu and a National Gallery for Nigeria, in Abuja. And then finally, there is a new Cultural Design Centre for Lagos, which will encourage the architecture and consortiums and consultants all to work under one roof so that they can collaborate to find the solutions we need in design right now from engineering to architecture. So, it’s a building that would be interfaced by the citizens where you can provide different aspects of design under one roof.
It’s a kind of a master plan project. So the exhibition works in different zones, it includes five completed and three ongoing buildings. The exhibition is designed mostly on photographical images: some huge photographical images invite you to see and to enjoy this space, to enjoy the materiality and the detail of the structure. There will also be some of Baba’s archival drawings from the 60s and 70s and two of his new books. A third book The Happy Little Prince will be on display as well in the Book Pavilion together with some design parameters for the Tropics.