Africa Big Change Big Chance

Africa Big Change Big Chance is an exhibition of Africa’s architecture and the transformations taking place on the continent. Changes involve the control of large numbers and show huge shifts of people, pressures brought to bear by urbanization, the inappropriate use of natural resources and territories. The transformation – the Big Change – and the opportunity – the Big Chance – reflect the order of prospects available today for a better and sustainable future in Africa. The continent will be the theatre of a new modernity, where a different global and cosmopolitan culture may be developed. The huge change in Africa’s physical environment shows the traces – some problematic – of new infrastructure, the impact of large dams, and solar and wind power plants. There are also the tangible signs of major projects for reforestation (needed to stop the desert), in the lead up to the conquest of new areas. The Africa of villages is becoming the Africa of cities. The African urban model is hard to read and classify. Western thought processes and conceptual strategies are ineffective. It may well be possible that the city of globality – the African megalopolis – will serve as a workshop for seeking alternatives to Western and Asian contemporary city. The spotlight turns to the figures involved in design fielding remedies for extreme situations, and which show the technical horizons of architecture related to passive environmental control. The exceptional nature of these experiments suggests that Africa was – and is – a training ground for a challenging concept of modernity.