Whose Heritage? A Comparison of Colonial Influences on Indigenous Architecture in West Africa and Southeast-Asia and the Contestation of Shared Heritage for Global-Local Identity

Paper Abstract: In the wake of European colonization from the 16th to the 19th century, Western architectural traditions, forms, styles, and technologies found their way into indigenous built forms in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, evolving hybrid forms which constituted entirely new architectural traditions (e.g., Philippines), overlaid existing ones (West Africa), or emerged side-by-side with traditional forms. This global diffusion of European built forms often led to unexpected cultural feedbacks, such as Portuguese Baroque architecture 'exported' to Brazil in the 17th century, only to be 'exported' again to West Africa as Islamic architecture by returning former slaves or their descendants to Lagos, Porto Novo, and Accra in the 19th and early 20th century. These colonial 'imports' had a significant and lasting impact on local culture and architecture up to the present, leading to remarkable similarities, but also distinctions, between African and Asian colonial cities. Yet, perceived as being of foreign origin, the role and acceptance of this 'shared heritage' for identity formation in the post-colonial and nationalist discourses in Africa and Asia was and remains highly contested: Whose heritage is it really? Are they 'symbols of oppression' or markers of societal progress and achievement, or both? How are we relate to them in view of nation-building, identity politics, cultural revisionism, and other current global trends?
This paper discusses these issues from a global historical perspective, providing in particular comparative examples from the Philippines and West Africa, given the author's personal Philippine/Ghanaian heritage, architectural professional background, and academic research and teaching.