Killian Doherty on the Search for Rwandese Regionalism

Last month we featured one of our previous students, Nerea Amorós and her work in Rwanda teaching the country’s first generation of architecture students at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). As she mentioned in that interview, at the university she is currently working alongside colleagues from various architectural NGO’s, including Architecture for Humanity’s Design Fellow, Killian Doherty, who kindly sent us this urgent reflection on the importance of instilling regionalism in the practice of Rwanda’s modern architecture and recovering the country’s rich vernacular, stemming from a recent lecture by Peter Rich at KIST. The article was also sent to and published on Archinect.
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In Search of a Rwandese Regionalism; ‘Learnt in Translation’ lecture by Peter Rich, Kigali, Rwanda 2011

Kigali context and Image of Kigali Masterplan model, Courtesy of Killian Doherty

‘The reality I have known no longer exists’ laments the narrator at the loss of the Paris of his youth. This extract from Marcel Proust’s ‘A la recherché du temps perdu’ (In Search of Lost Time), is referred to in Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre’s seminal essay ‘Why Critical Regionalism today?’ in an attempt to poetically capture the concept of the loss of a place and its identity. A loss synonymous with modern architecture, particularly in relation to contemporary global development , in this essay they argue for a ‘Regionalist Architecture’ , an architecture of place making which preserves the fibres of ‘collective social structures and the collective representations’[i] that are etched within community and place ; things that cannot be recaptured if lost.

Football for Hope Centre in context , Kimisgara, Rwanda. Courtesy of Killian Doherty

Football for Hope Centre in context , Kimisgara, Rwanda.  Courtesy of Killian Doherty

Therefore it has never been timelier for the South African architect, and teacher, Peter Rich whose very work draws heavily from its context’s, serving to bolster local communities it resides within, to now re-visit Rwanda to conduct a workshop and a lecture on his work with the Kigali Institute of Technology (KIST), also in conjunction with the University of Arkansas School of Architecture. Peter Rich’s work has established an architecture which is uniquely African. Influenced directly by an understanding of spatial hierarchies and aesthetic qualities of African tribal settlements, he works directly within the community, sustaining the cultures and traditions re-emerging in his buildings. His methods are not only due to his empathy for marginalised communities, but are methods which are a forceful architectural response to the new problems posed by contemporary global development, where a disintegration of identity, culture and community is characterized by homogeneity of place.
Approach to Football for Hope Centre. Courtesy of Killian Doherty

Wall Detail to Football for Hope Centre.  Courtesy of Killian Doherty

During his visit, Peter was drawn to a place with a particular convivial spirit as the subject for his workshop; the community of Kimisagara, in the centre of Kigali. Kimisagara is the most densely populated, disadvantaged area in central Kigali with few opportunities for young people with alarming school dropout rates.  It was in Kimisagara, in the unfinished ‘Football For Hope Centre’ for Esperance, that Peter chose as the venue to give his lecture about his work to the students of KIST, Arkansas and the community of Kimisagara.

Peter in community room  of ‘ Football for Hope’ centre. Courtesy of Nerea Amoros Elorduy  and Killian Doherty

‘This lecture in relation with the exhibition LEARNT IN TRANSLATION draws on Peter Rich’s extensive personal and professional career, through his drawings and travel sketches, models and photographs. Rich’s working methodology emphasizes the importance of community engagement and research. Part of this process is intensive observation of people and environments, and documentation of the context for a project through sketching and measured drawings.’[ii]

Peter Rich Lecture –  Courtesy of Nerea Amoros Elorduy  and Killian Doherty.

Peter Rich Lecture - Courtesy of Alicia Cappelli

Peter Rich’s work is influenced by his time spent with various South African tribes; the Kennedy house is planned around diagonal geometries regulating views to the ocean beyond, just as the spaces within an Ndebele tribal dwelling are diagonally arranged around the dominant space of the woman to reinforce the females position in the homestead. The sublime Mapungubwe Interpretation and Visitors Centre in Limpopo South Africa, which honours the site of an ancient trading civilization, evokes the circular domed forms of kraal settlements of dispersed African tribes. Yet in Mapungubwe it is in the very construction of these domes, that Rich’s work transcends tectonic form or space-making, by intervening and empowering the communities within themselves. At Mapungubwe the use of local soil to create stabilised earth tiles was employed to construct vaulted arches (a technique pioneered by Rafael Gaustivino) but which were built entirely with unemployed, unskilled labour within the local community, in turn learning new trades which they continue to use today.
Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre Mapungubwe National Park, Limpopo, South Africa, 2002-2010. Courtesy of Peter Rich Architects

Peter Rich Lecture –  Courtesy of Nerea Amoros Elorduy and Killian Doherty