THE STORY WE TELL: TRANSLATING THE AFRICAN SPIRIT INTO SPACE

If we, as Africans, forget who we are, where we come from-our roots-then we have nothing to contribute to the world. Is the architectural work we create telling the African story ?-history transformed into memory ?.

“Today’s hyper-individualism will not last. We are social animals. We cannot live without identities, families, communities and collective responsibility. Which means we cannot live without the stories that connect us to a past, a future and a larger group whose history and destiny we share... To create and sustain a free society, you have to teach your children the story of how we achieved freedom and what its absence tastes like... Lose the story and eventually you lose your freedom.  That is what happens when you forget who you are and why.

The greatest gift we can give our children is not money or possessions but a story…one that connects them to us and to a rich heritage of high ideals. We are not particles of dust blown this way or that by the passing winds of fad and fashion…What you forget, you lose.

…A story told across the generations is the gift of an identity, and when you know who you are and why[you are what you are], you can navigate the wilderness of time with courage and confidence. That is a life-changing idea.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Work that embody South African Indigenous Knowledge Systems should ‘tell transformative stories’ that bring healing from injustices of the past building a collective South African identity. How should we reimagine our heritage, the indigenous knowledge systems imbedded in buildings,  explore and reflect the concepts of Ubuntu, Lekgotla and Letsema in spatial and programmatic ways? Such architectural work may encapsulate the African spirit in space.

Here are practical ways we can tell the African story:

1. Town Planning Schemes (bylaws) should cultivate spatial structures and reflect use zones that are informed by our individual and collective stories, socio-economic and cultural practices, and existing rural and urban self-built environments (instead of importing such we should recognise and enable what we already have)

2. The urban and building forms and spaces (built environments) we create should be informed by, reflect and amplify who we are, what we do, and how we do it.