Rescuing Modernity: Global Heritage Assemblages and Modern Architecture in Africa Citation for published version (APA): Rausch, C. (2013). Rescuing Modernity: Global Heritage Assemblages and Modern Architecture in Africa. Universitaire Pers Maastricht. https://doi.org/10.26481/dis.20131018cr Document status and date: Published: 01/01/2013 DOI: 10.26481/dis.20131018cr Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Please check the document version of this publication: • A submitted manuscript is the version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. 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Download date: 25 Sep. 2021 RESCUING MODERNITY GLOBAL HERITAGE ASSEMBLAGES & MODERN ARCHITECTURE IN AFRICA © Christoph Rausch, Maastricht 2013 Production: Datawyse | Universitaire Pers Maastricht Cover design: Vibeke Brethouwer, Waiheke Island 2013 On the cover: Vacant site of the Maison Tropicale in Niamey, Ângela Ferreira, Lisbon 2007 On the back cover: Maison Tropicale on Display in New York, Tyler Hicks for The New York Times 2007 ISBN 978 94 6159 253 8 RESCUING MODERNITY GLOBAL HERITAGE ASSEMBLAGES & MODERN ARCHITECTURE IN AFRICA DISSERTATION to obtain the degree of Doctor at Maastricht University, on the authority of the Rector Magnificus, Prof. dr. L.L.G. Soete in accordance with the decision of the Board of Deans, to be defended in public on Friday 18 October 2013 at 14.00 hours by CHRISTOPH RAUSCH UMP UNIVERSITAIRE PERS MAASTRICHT SUPERVISOR Prof. dr. M.C. Kuipers (Delft University of Technology) ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE Prof. dr. R. van de Vall (chair) Prof. dr. ir. T.L.P. Avermaete (Delft University of Technology) Dr. M. Fuller (University of California, Berkeley) Prof. dr. V. Mazzucato Prof. dr. P.J. Pels (Leiden University) Dedicated to my parents, Maria-Anna and Karl-Heinz, and to my daughter, Nora, with whom I gladly share today and who give meaning to my recent past and near future In loving memory of Nora’s mother, Karen (1977-2012) Contents Acknowledgments 9 Prologue: A Cult of Heritage 13 Introduction: World Heritage as Event 19 Global Heritage Assemblages: Towards an Anthropology of the Contemporary 23 Diagnosis: Modern Architectural Heritage as an Anthropological Problem 27 The Crystal Palace 27 A Tradition Against Itself 32 Problematizing Modernity 34 A Pathway 37 Conservation vs. Stylistic Restoration 39 Heritage Preservation vs. Architectural Innovation 40 Modernization vs. Heritage Preservation 43 Towards Heritage Preservation for Modernization 46 The Institutionalization of Modern Architectural Heritage 49 Modern Architectural Heritage in Africa as an Anthropological Problem 57 Analysis: Global Heritage Assemblages and Modern Architecture in Africa 67 A Crisis of Coevalness 68 Site of Inquiry/Mode of Inquiry 71 Form of Inquiry 76 Towards a New Form of Inquiry 78 At the Frontlines 80 Modern Nostalgia: Asserting Politics of Sovereignty and Security in Asmara, Washington and Brussels 85 Politics of Sovereignty and Security 87 A Global Heritage Assemblage around the Modern Architecture of Asmara 89 Asserting Sovereignty and Security 94 Restorative Nostalgia/Reflective Nostalgia 103 Conclusion 108 Modern Trophy: Contesting Technologies of Authenticity and Value in Niamey, Brazzaville, Paris, New York and Venice 111 Technologies of Authenticity and Value 113 A Global Heritage Assemblage around the Maisons Tropicales 115 Contesting Authenticity and Value 122 Recontextualization/Remediation 128 Conclusion 134 Many Words for Modern: Negotiating Ethics of Legitimacy and Responsibility in Dar es Salaam, Utrecht, Amsterdam and Accra 137 Ethics of Legitimacy and Responsibility 139 A Global Heritage Assemblage around Modern Architecture in East Africa 141 Negotiating Legitimacy and Responsibility 146 Laboratory/Collaboratory 153 Conclusion 160 Synthesis: Contemporary Politics, Technologies and Ethics to the Rescue of Modernity 165 Spaces of Experience/Horizons of Expectation 166 States of Emergence 168 Demands of the Day 171 Appendix 177 List of Interviews 177 Participant Observation/Site Visits 178 Notes 179 Bibliography 209 Samenvatting (Summary in Dutch) 219 Curriculum Vitae 229 9 Acknowledgments Ideas occur to us when they please, not when it pleases us. […] In any case, ideas come when we do not expect them, and not when we are brooding and searching at our desks. Yet ideas would certainly not come to mind had we not brooded at our desks and searched for answers with pas- sionate devotion. Max Weber, 19181 An experience is something that you come out of changed. […] An experience is neither true nor false: it is always a fiction, something constructed, which exists only after it has been made, not before; it isn’t something that is ‘true’ but it has been a reality. […] Experience must be linkable, to a certain extent, to a collective practice and to a way of thinking. Michel Foucault, 19812 A pedagogy of inquiry is hierarchical and mutually formative. As it is hierarchical it requires care; as it is process it requires conceptual work. It might best be called Wissen- sarbeitsforschung, but as that will never work, let us call it a form of thinking. Paul Rabinow, 20033 Acknowledgments Acknowledgments This thesis is the outcome of a long research process and could not exist without the ‘col- laboratory’ I have found in the global heritage assemblages that it features. I heartily thank all of my contacts and interviewees, whose names and details are listed in the appendix. Out of my many interlocutors, I must prominently mention the artist Ângela Ferreira, whose work I admire and who has kindly allowed me to use fragments of it for the cover of this thesis. Obviously, it would have been impossible to produce this thesis without support from my personal and professional heritage assemblages, which – for better or for worse – are not at all global. Above all, I thank my supervisor Marieke Kuipers for her confidence, sus- tained assistance and critical guidance – first at Maastricht University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, then at Delft University of Technology. I extend my thanks to all members of the assessment committee for their kind consideration. During my time as a student at Nauset Regional High School on Cape Cod, Robert Rice inspired my initial interest in anthropology, which led me to a university education in the liberal arts and sciences in the Netherlands. In Maastricht, I am very grateful to Louis Boon for frequently allowing me access to his personal library, as well as for his knowledge- able encouragement to pursue ‘science as a vocation’. Similarly, I want to thank Arnold Labrie for an early introduction to the ways of academia, to the New York Review of Books, as well as to the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Weber, Reinhart Koselleck and Hayden White. Furthermore, I commend the following colleagues for manifold aid and stimulation during my years in the Dutch province of Limburg and at Maastricht University. At Uni- versity College Maastricht and at the Faculty of Humanities and Sciences: Lonneke Bevers, Pascal Breuls, Anouk Cuijpers, Teun Dekker, Roberta Haar, Harm Hospers, Gerard Kor- 10 Acknowledgments stens, Nicolai Manie, Marie-Lou Mestrini, Ulrike Mueller, Ans Netjes, Jenny Schell, Peter Vermeer, Johanna Wagner and all other staff. Moreover: Ruth Benschop, Wiebe Bijker, Jo Coenen, Maarten Doorman, René Gabriels, Sara de Jong, Bas van Heur, Fred Humblé, Ike Kamphof, Marietje Kardaun, Sjaak Koenis, Barbara Kuit, Dominic Larue, Katja Lubina, Chris Leonards, Peggy Levitt, Maaike Meijer, Wiebe Nauta, Peter Peters, Vivian van Saaze, Hildegard Schneider, Geert Somsen, Lisanne Spork, Renée van de Vall, Jo Wachelder, Lies Wesseling, Rein de Wilde and – commuting from Frankfurt – Regina Kreide. I am indebt- ed to Marie-Florence Burki, Guillemette Naessens and Maaike Willemsen, for taking on the tedious business of transcribing my interviews conducted in Dutch and French. Sytze Steenstra wrote the Dutch summary of this thesis and always asked the right questions. My intermittent stay at the Brandenburgische Technische Universität