TwoCents | States, Societies, and the face of Lagosian Residential Architecture

In terms of the numbers, Lagos city has a housing problem. Reports by the World Bank show up to 70% of the population lives in informal settlements or slums, and their residences have no access to the most basic facilities. There aren't enough houses, and the houses are of poor quality. Nigeria is a poor nation by multiple accounts, and all its cities are naturally susceptible to these formations. Furthermore, poverty is not the only specific problem plaguing residential architecture in the city of Lagos; the state is home to a saturated construction industry with big players building what some of the digests and critics define as “ultra-modern” homes. The shanties and Lekki homes share the problem of being utterly inspiring. I grew up in a city where the immoderate variety of design styles do not make it into the songs; the houses are unmemorable attempts at posturing or survival; they do not make it into my dreams. In part 1 of this essay, I speak generally and draw a line of correlation between the political failings of the nation, through the absence of shared identity, and the uninspiring situation I have described above. A strong central authority sets the tone for the formation of a cohesive national identity, and this in turn allows citizens to form shared values beyond mere survival or personal gain. These values are what shape the face of beauty. In a given place, the architecture of the home is a crucial point of contact with them. <img src="/media/inline_insight_image/1000007224.jpg" alt=""> Photo credit: by Dami Akinbode on Unsplash First, a brief discussion of political science; Francis Fukuyama states in "the origins of political order" that a modern state forms when a consolidation of central authority gives rise to a meritocratic bureaucracy that can administer public services in a territory. A strong centralised government can create and, or maintain regulations including those concerning architecture and public infrastructure. Strong states look for ways to make their territories legible and easy to access; it makes sense because a legible territory can be easily monitored and taxed. This manifests in services such as bridge and road construction as well as creating building codes that ensure even personal residences, privately built, are within a corridor of predictability.Nigeria (and Lagos by extension) has a government rife with patrimonial appointments—a patrimonial government here being one where the ruler(s) treat the state as personal property. The Civil service is staffed with appointees who have risen through the ranks or remained in office as a result of patronage or clientelism. Beyond the poor quality of staffing, the state proves incapable of providing the most basic infrastructure due to one version of incompetence or the other; I live in an estate that has had a poor road connecting to the major road for all of two decades—reasons for this include someone sitting on a contract (taking up the money), or someone else simply forgetting to attend to it. Nigeria’s politically corrupt present and past are well documented in metrics such as the corruption perception index (CPI) compiled by Transparency International, ranking Nigeria 136 out of 175 countries for least corrupt. General political corruption, however, is not the subject of this essay. The consequent poverty, irregular administration of property and land use laws as well as a formation of strong National ideals are.As a polity moves from the traditional tribal and patrimonial mode of government, the citizens are forced to gradually drop tribal identities in favour of a more generalised national identity. A person would define themselves first as a Nigerian, for example, before saying they were from a certain village or town. An American might chant "USA" before his designated hometown’s name. This patriotism is born of a formation of shared values and ideals that come about in the context of a strong state that can unify its people. Nigeria remains perpetually on the brink; not quite tribal (although tribalistic on many occasions) but not quite nationally defined in ideals and principles either.In ancient dynastic China, first under the influence of the Qin (pronounced Chin), the country's make up was slowly unified under the rule of emperors, as China formed the world's first modern state bureaucracy built on the back of meritocratic appointments. In part two of this essay I draw straighter lines between these strong centralised bureaucracies and the impact on national identity and on architecture in the region; I also contrast this more specifically with the context of Lagos, Nigeria. <img src="/media/inline_insight_image/1000007277.jpg" alt=""> Forbidden city China: by Weichao Deng on unsplash  I make the case that the only unifying core value of the average Nigerian is the desire to be able to escape the administration that perpetuates substandard living conditions. This core principle manifests in a pursuit of money that is all-consuming. The logic is sound; if enough money is made one can live out of reach of the poverty that pervades the Nigerian landscape. “Money stops nonsense” “Double your hustle” “If it's not making money it's not making sense.” Nigerians might be familiar with any of these mantras summoning the importance of a sizable bank account. The Nigerian dream is one of salvation through financial freedom. Taken to its extreme, even in religious circles, money with profit becomes deified.Returning to Lagos; the capitalist stronghold of Lagos city is a place of pilgrimage for the service of money. Societal values penetrate every aspect of life, and in the financial jewel of Nigeria, the worship of profit does not spare the architecture. In societies with more complex and richer value systems formed on the back of strong national identities, one might have architects designing to profess an admiration for community or perhaps articulate the meek inner city life. Honest, transparent states might design houses that call men of the town to unearth their deeds. Even tribal societies of old have erected their homes with clear priorities backed by their unified value system and identities. A courtyard surrounded by communal homes of one large extended family might show you just how important family is, and apartments in Italy with balconies featuring flowery balustrades looking into the squares or streets paint clearer pictures of where you are.The sameness of modern cities is a wider discussion that goes beyond poverty or substandard statehood; the residential architecture of cities to the east and west that we might describe as unique and beautiful, however, face modernist principles armed with strong institutions and clarity on who they are. <img src="/media/inline_insight_image/1000006909.jpg" alt=""> Lagos has no such good fortune; with an irregular administration of the built environment, featuring laws that can be circumvented by bribery or negligence, the individuals, developers, and designers are treated to a free-for-all. The city is a rowdy discussion of design styles from colonial architecture to the current take on modern architecture; it is a tussle for the display of affluence or cutting of corners to maximise profit. To my left I might look and see a house that has seen no professional attention—it is perhaps unfit for living, the materials failing; the bespoke aesthetics a designer might bring to light, ignored. On the other hand, a developer might employ designers of his own; controlling the money and wanting more of it, his brief demands the oblong white and bland cuboids one might find in every gated Lekki estate. When the architects take charge they also, for the most part, bend to no particular ideal beyond profit. When they do not, they impose ideals that are removed from the local context. Between the cracks where these major forces propelling residential design have failed to reach, the common man erects informal settlements removed from this privileged discussion. <img src="/media/inline_insight_image/1000007268.jpg" alt=""> When I point accusing fingers at the residential architecture that fails to inspire me in Lagos, Nigeria, I channel much blame to the ailing state bureaucracy; the impoverished society it has engendered is lacking not just money but strong unifying values of statehood beyond survival.  In the future, I will point to more concrete examples of the architectural failings I described in this piece, and hopefully shed more light on what i believe is a crisis born of another crisis. If Lagos is to create more unique homes that prioritise tenets like well-being or beauty, it might be the case that the government must become more capable; designers and stakeholders might also have to impose a more robust set of principles that reverse engineer a strong sense of identity.In part 2 of this essay I further illustrate how the unifying central authority of ancient dynastic China forged a clear identity for its people and its architecture (residential or otherwise) in major cities and then outskirts. I contrast this with how the several disjointed influences on Nigerian and Lagosian architecture have introduced the current landscape with disparate competing styles belied by ideals such as profit, bare bones survival or showing up your neighbours.

States, Societies, And The Face Of Lagosian Architecture