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Monrovia Modern: Urban Form and Political Imagination in Liberia
In Monrovia Modern Danny Hoffman uses the ruins of four iconic modernist buildings in Monrovia, Liberia, as a way to explore the relationship between the built environment and political imagination. Hoffman shows how the E. J. Roye tower and the Hotel Africa luxury resort, as well as the unfinished Ministry of Defense and Liberia Broadcasting System buildings, transformed during the urban warfare of the 1990s from symbols of the modernist project of nation-building to reminders of the challenges Monrovia's residents face. The transient lives of these buildings' inhabitants, many of whom are ex-combatants, prevent them from making place-based claims to a right to the city and hinder their ability to think of ways to rebuild and repurpose their built environment. Featuring nearly 100 of Hoffman's color photographs, Monrovia Modern is situated at the intersection of photography, architecture, and anthropology, mapping out the possibilities and limits for imagining an urban future in Monrovia and beyond.
232 pages, Paperback
Published November 14, 2017
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May 17, 2018
A review essay:
University of Washington anthropologist Danny Hoffman stood outside the Hotel Africa on the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia. Before the nation’s fourteen-year civil war, West African elite and global investors gathered at the resort to escape the noise of the city. Now, like much of the capital, the hotel was in ruins. At Hoffman’s feet lay the hotel’s centerpiece, an empty swimming pool in the shape of Africa.
The pool seemed to offer a forlorn commentary on the failed hopes of a pan-African prosperity. As a seasoned photojournalist, Hoffman knew how to spot a metaphor when it gaped up at him from the ground. But as a thoughtful scholar, he also knew how to spot a cliché.
Using the pool as a cheap symbol wouldn’t bring him any closer to his goal of studying how Monrovia’s future is shaped and constrained by its urban forms. He took a photograph and kept moving, discovering throughout the city a richer and more complex portrait of the way architecture influences a city struggling to move forward.
Read the rest at https://medium.com/@simpsoncenter/lea....
University of Washington anthropologist Danny Hoffman stood outside the Hotel Africa on the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia. Before the nation’s fourteen-year civil war, West African elite and global investors gathered at the resort to escape the noise of the city. Now, like much of the capital, the hotel was in ruins. At Hoffman’s feet lay the hotel’s centerpiece, an empty swimming pool in the shape of Africa.
The pool seemed to offer a forlorn commentary on the failed hopes of a pan-African prosperity. As a seasoned photojournalist, Hoffman knew how to spot a metaphor when it gaped up at him from the ground. But as a thoughtful scholar, he also knew how to spot a cliché.
Using the pool as a cheap symbol wouldn’t bring him any closer to his goal of studying how Monrovia’s future is shaped and constrained by its urban forms. He took a photograph and kept moving, discovering throughout the city a richer and more complex portrait of the way architecture influences a city struggling to move forward.
Read the rest at https://medium.com/@simpsoncenter/lea....
Displaying 1 of 1 review