Danny Hoffman Monrovia Modern | Urban Form and Political Imagination in Liberia Danny Hoffman ii Chapter One Hoffman_ALL_FF.indd 2 7/10/17 2:24 PM Monrovia Modern Urban Form and Political Imagination in Liberia Danny Hoffman Duke University Press Durham and London 2017 Hoffman_ALL_FF.indd 3 7/10/17 2:24 PM © 2017 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in Korea on acid- free paper ∞ Designed by Heather Hensley Typeset in Minion Pro by Copperline Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. isbn 978-0-8223-6357-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) isbn 978-0-8223-5884-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) isbn 978-0-8223-7308-7 (ebook) Cover art: E. J. Roye. Photo by Danny Hoffman. Duke University Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the University of Washington, Department of Anthropology, which provided funds toward the production of this book. Hoffman_ALL_FF.indd 4 7/10/17 2:24 PM Porte cochère, Liberia Broadcasting System Hoffman_ALL_FF.indd 5 7/10/17 2:24 PM Dedicated, as all things are, to Julie, Corey Rose, Lucy, and Eve. Hoffman_ALL_FF.indd 7 7/10/17 2:24 PM Modern architecture, and its extension into town planning, has above all this task . of making industrialism fit for human use; [making] buildings and larger aggregations in which life may know its bounds and flourish. — Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, architects and advisors to the British colonies in West Africa, 1956 Hoffman_ALL_FF.indd 9 7/10/17 2:24 PM Contents xiii Illustrations xvii Preface xxiii Acknowledgments 1 Introduction 33 CHAPTER 1 Live Dangerously, My Brothers: Ex- Combatants and the Political Economy of Space 61 CHAPTER 2 The Ministry of Defense: Excessive Architecture 91 CHAPTER 3 E. J. Roye: The Corporate (Post)Modern 115 CHAPTER 4 Hotel Africa: The Uncritical Ruin 143 CHAPTER 5 Liberia Broadcasting System: Three Utopias 175 CHAPTER 6 Finding Urban Form: A Coda 183 Notes 189 References 203 Index Hoffman_ALL_FF.indd 11 7/10/17 2:24 PM 6 1 E.J. Roye Building 2 New Bridge 3 Freeport of Monrovia 5 BUSHROD 4 Duala ISLAND 4 5 Zimbabwe 6 Hotel Africa 7 Ministry of Defense 8 Peace Island 9 Liberia Broadcasting System 3 10 Duport Road Cemetary & V.P. Grave WEST POINT 2 1 DOWNDOWNTOWN/TOWN/ CBD MESURADO RIVER SINKORSINKOR CCONGOONGO 8 9 TOWN 7 10 ATLANTIC OCEAN Hoffman_ALL_FF.indd 12 7/10/17 2:24 PM Illustrations frontis.1 Ministry of Defense ii frontis.2 Porte cochère, Liberia Broadcasting System v I.1 Fourth floor, Ministry of Defense xxiv I.2 Major Sandi, Ministry of Defense 3 I.3 Major Sandi’s quarters at the Ministry of Defense 3 I.4 Facility converted from grain storage to condominiums, Copenhagen 5 I.5 E. J. Roye Building 7 I.6 Ministry of Defense 7 I.7 Liberia Broadcasting System 8 I.8 Hotel Africa 8 I.9 Along un Drive, Bushrod Island 15 I.10 Downtown central business district, Monrovia 17 I.11 Unité d’habitation (Cité radieuse) #1 18 I.12 Unité d’habitation (Cité radieuse) #2 18 I.13 Unité d’habitation (Cité radieuse) #3 19 I.14 Unité d’habitation (Cité radieuse) #4 19 I.15 Unité d’habitation (Cité radieuse) #5 20 I.16 Unité d’habitation (Cité radieuse) #6 20 I.17 People’s Movement for Democratic Change rally, Freetown, Sierra Leone 22 Hoffman_ALL_FF.indd 13 7/10/17 2:24 PM I.18 Downtown ruin, Monrovia 26 I.19 Julius Shulman photographing the Stahl House, Case Study House #22 31 1.1 Field sketch #1, E. J. Roye Building 34 1.2 Arthur Kollie, aka Human Garbage 35 1.3 Arthur Kollie’s house 37 1.4 Nightscape, Zimbabwe (Bushrod Island) 40 1.5 Rubber tapper, former Guthrie Plantation 43 1.6 In the huts of Small Dennis’s crew 44 1.7 Fumba Konneh’s diamond miners 45 1.8 Ex- combatants’ shacks and boats outside West Point 47 1.9 In the Duport Road Cemetery #1 48 1.10 In the Duport Road Cemetery #2 51 2.1 Field sketch, Ministry of Defense 61 2.2 Ministry of Defense #1 63 2.3 Ministry of Defense #2 64 2.4 Ministry of Defense #3 65 2.5 Ministry of Defense #4 66 2.6 Ministry of Defense #5 67 2.7 Ministry of Defense #6 68 2.8 Ministry of Defense #7 69 2.9 Ministry of Defense #8 70 2.10 Ministry of Defense #9 71 2.11 Ministry of Defense #10 72 2.12 London Occupy 73 2.13 Ministry of Defense #1 89 2.14 Ministry of Defense #4 89 2.15 Ministry of Defense #5 89 2.16 Ministry of Defense #7 89 2.17 Ministry of Defense #8 89 3.1 Field sketch #2, E. J. Roye Building 91 3.2 E. J. Roye #1 93 3.3 E. J. Roye #2 94 3.4 E. J. Roye #3 95 3.5 E. J. Roye #4 96 3.6 E. J. Roye #5 97 3.7 E. J. Roye #6 1oo xiv Illustrations Hoffman_ALL_FF.indd 14 7/10/17 2:24 PM 3.8 E. J. Roye #7 1oo 3.9 E. J. Roye #8 101 3.10 E. J. Roye #9 102 3.11 E. J. Roye #10 103 3.12 E. J. Roye Building from Ashmun Street 104 3.13 E. J. Roye #3 113 3.14 E. J. Roye #5 113 3.15 E. J. Roye #6 113 3.16 E. J. Roye #7 113 4.1 Field sketch, Hotel Africa 115 4.2 Hotel Africa #1 117 4.3 Hotel Africa #2 118 4.4 Hotel Africa #3 119 4.5 Hotel Africa #4 122 4.6 Hotel Africa #5 123 4.7 Hotel Africa #6 123 4.8 Hotel Africa #7 126 4.9 Hotel Africa #8 127 4.10 Hotel Africa #9 130 4.11 Hotel Africa #10 131 4.12 War graffiti, Tubmanburg, Liberia 133 4.13 Abandoned office tower, Lugo, Italy 134 4.14 War graffiti, Kailahun, Sierra Leone 134 4.15 Abandoned vinegar factory, Lugo, Italy 135 4.16 Hotel Africa #4 140 4.17 Hotel Africa #5 140 4.18 Hotel Africa #6 140 4.19 Hotel Africa #7 140 4.20 Hotel Africa #8 140 4.21 Hotel Africa #10 140 5.1 Field sketch, lbs 143 5.2 lbs #1 145 5.3 lbs #2 148 5.4 lbs #3 149 5.5 lbs #4 152 5.6 lbs #5 153 5.7 lbs #6 156 Illustrations xv Hoffman_ALL_FF.indd 15 7/10/17 2:24 PM 5.8 lbs #7 157 5.9 lbs #8 160 5.10 lbs #9 161 5.11 lbs #10 162 5.12 lbs #3 171 5.13 lbs #5 171 5.14 lbs #6 171 5.15 lbs #8 171 5.16 lbs #9 171 xvi Illustrations Hoffman_ALL_FF.indd 16 7/10/17 2:24 PM Preface This is a story told largely through four buildings as they existed in early 2012. Each was a landmark in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. When the long de- cade of fighting ended in this part of West Africa in 2003, all four lay in ruins. The oldest, the E. J. Roye Building, was for many years the most prominent built form in the city. From the early 1960s it was the headquarters of the True Whig Party, a high modernist testament to Liberia’s history of one-p arty rule. During the 2003 siege of Monrovia, the forces of then president Charles Tay- lor posted gunmen throughout the building’s eight floors. From there they sought to prevent rebel forces from crossing the bridge into the city center. Two of the buildings were brutalist constructions, massive concrete edi- fices intended to house government ministries and services. The Ministry of Defense and the Liberia Broadcasting System were both commissioned in the 1980s by Samuel Doe, the young military commander whose presidency ended 133 years of rule by the nation’s Americo- Liberian minority. During and after the war both buildings were home to hundreds of refugees, inter- nally displaced people, and ex-co mbatants from the various fighting factions. The final structure is a five-s tar hotel, the Hotel Africa. Its remains sit on a beach at the outskirts of the city. Liberian elites, expatriate relief and devel- opment workers, and a cosmopolitan class of financiers and traffickers once swam in the hotel’s Africa- shaped pool and gambled in its large casino. As rebel forces advanced on the capital in the final clashes of the Mano River war, Hoffman_ALL_FF.indd 17 7/10/17 2:24 PM the residents of a slum settlement next to the hotel quickly took the building apart as they scavenged useful or saleable materials. In their design and construction, each of these four structures represents a vision of the modern city and the modern African state. So, too, do their ruins. These are visions that map uneasily onto one another and onto the struggles many Monrovians face as they shape a future for themselves in this “aftermodern” city (Enwezor 2010). These mismatches and mismappings are the subject of the book. Because this is a story told through built forms, Monrovia Modern is a book about architecture. But it is a book about architecture viewed through the prism of my own long thinking about violence in contemporary West Africa. As an anthropologist focused on this region’s recent conflicts and their aftermath, my approach to the built environment is rooted in a concern with how young people in Monrovia, particularly young ex- combatant men, in- habit the material world around them.