African City of Music

Ecole Africaine des Métiers d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme (EAMAU) a Lomé (Togo)

Project idea

Establishing a high place for African music, inventing a landscape where Africans enjoy the delights of music when architecture orchestrates all the harmonies is the essence of this project.
It comes as an oasis in the desert to quench the thirst of music lovers who are thirsty for music, especially African music, which is still an alternative to the "labyrinth of Babel's semantics." For it is acknowledged that when men come together, and begin to speak for a long time, there is seldom agreement. Now music has the advantage not only of expressing itself by chords, but of tuning hearts, minds, and the world.
Thus, as a lighthouse on the beach piercing the shadow of the night, the project of an African city of music is a guide for African music and an initiative to be renewed again and again until each country, each island of the continent knows the pleasures of African music when architecture participates in its sublimation.

Project description

We formulate a project to give a new image of African music, that of a "cultural product", an essential factor of development, a "sound ore" now listed on the stock exchange. We want to create a physical environment that promotes the training of music professionals, the broadcasting of sung shows, and the preservation of African musical heritage (collection of endangered oral traditions such as musical instruments, musical scores, Sound recordings, etc.).
We want this project to be a reflection of Africa in its traditional and urban music, and that it also take into account contemporary trends in space design dedicated to musical practices.
We want it to stand at the top of the city of Yaoundé as a monument, as a beacon, as a signpost that would guide Africa in the "fight against poverty exclusion and acculturation, and in the search for Sustainable development based on socially, culturally and economically sound bases".
Finally, we want it to be a model to be considered elsewhere, and finally that it encourages the sharing of African musical cultures.
Our project will integrate the new orientations and objectives that we have set ourselves. In order to do so, arrangements have been made in the manner of conceiving this place. First of all, the introduction of flexibility, accessibility, rapture and cordiality in spaces in order to facilitate the integration of users and users. Then, the site must become a place of welcome, exchanges, citizenship, sociability, encounters, leisure, learning. Finally, it must be open to the outside world, in order to address an ever-growing public, well beyond national or African borders and address the world. It must be able to be a sort of agora of intellectual and artistic exchange, a space of openness to the contemporary world.

Technical information

The implementation of this project will mobilize the most advanced technologies in each of the fields solicited here. From the question of acoustics to the question of fire safety and the accessibility of people with reduced mobility, it will be a question of deploying the best in each situation.

Co-authors

M. Claude V. NDJINGA NDJINGA - Architect
M. Achille NDONGO NGUENDIA - Architect