© Timothy Hursley. Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
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From July 5, 2026, to January 2, 2027, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York will present Architects of Liberation: Modernism in Western Africa, the first major exhibition dedicated to the modernism that flourished in West Africa between the late 1950s and the early 1980s.
Curated by Martino Stierli and Ikem Stanley Okoye, the exhibition brings together nearly 450 pieces — drawings, models, and archival photographs — of projects in seven countries: Benin, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo. It is not merely an aesthetic review; it is a political one. It shows how the leaders of the newly independent states used modernist architecture as a tool for liberation, nation-building, and the projection of a modern and pan-African identity.
Housing buildings, universities, government headquarters, and urban landscapes reveal an adapted modernism, not a copied one. This exhibition arrives at the perfect moment: just as the Nairobi Biennale and projects like the Tour F are focusing on Africa’s present and future, it invites us to better understand its roots.
If you are in New York or planning to travel there, don’t miss it. Seeing these projects at the MoMA is a unique opportunity to reflect on how architecture has always been political… and how it continues to be today.
