“Everybody Thinks They Can Build”: The Architect as Cultural Intermediary in Ghana

Abstract

This paper focuses on the culture within which the architect operates in contemporary Ghana, but outside of the office, in society at large, theorising that this professional is a cultural mediator, a translator of cultural and aesthetic trends for the lay population. I take the perspective of the architect who is consulted or hired to design new houses and must navigate between the formalities of good design, the clients' financial limitations and cultural requirements, and the cultural intermingling, which has produced hybridised tastes and designs. I trace the development of modern architecture in Ghana and the constraints on the architect as a practitioner: their training, their concerns as practitioners, and the various strategies that they use to legitimate their knowledge and negotiate the field of contemporary building practices.