Starting a Tradition

Architect Harry Weese was in trouble. He had just arrived in Accra, the palm-fringed capital of West Africa's Gold Coast, and what had seemed a minor problem back in his Chicago office suddenly began growing like a tropical weed. Young (41), function-minded Architect Weese had been commissioned by the State Department, on a low budget of $300,000, to design an embassy and staff residences in hot, humid Accra, with the stipulation that his design must harmonize with the indigenous architectural tradition. But apart from thatch or corrugated iron and adobe, he found that there was no indigenous architecture, let alone any tradition, to harmonize with.

Hail to the Chieftain. About the only buildings in sight that could qualify as architecture were some modern boxy structures put up by Europeans. But they were Mediterranean in style, not equatorial, and were made of concrete, which soaks up the sun's blasts all day and reradiates them all night. In addition, air conditioning could not be trusted, as Accra's sparse electric power often fails.

In this black picture Weese found a spot of light: a picture postcard on sale at his hotel. It showed a provincial chieftain's long adobe hut, with evenly-spaced, pointed buttresses made of mud that speared high above the slanted roof. Weese tucked it away for future reference. Then he went hunting for mahogany, which turned out to be so plentiful in Accra that it is used for Coca-Cola crates. Using that primitive tool of building research, the knife, he personally verified two facts: 1) termites feast on mahogany (the reason builders had stopped using it), but. 2) heartwood mahogany, placed well up from the ground, had resisted the white ants 60 years and more. He also checked his belief that, treated with modern preservatives, mahogany would last indefinitely. Then, telling himself that "if there is no native architectural tradition, you have to start one," he set about solving his problem.

Going Native. Stone-and-Steel Man Weese went native, decided to use mahogany, with the help of modern protective chemicals, and based his design on the primitive postcard hut--upside down. He designed the embassy as a hollow square raised high up from a concrete platform on graceful stilts, shaded by a broad mahogany overhang and centered on a pool and an airy stairway in the interior court. Though the offices are to be individually air conditioned, the hollow building is designed to be cool on its own. It is one room deep all around for through ventilation, with a veranda-corridor rimming the interior court. The roof is a wooden parasol. Jalousies with mahogany slats protect the windows from noonday heat and glare. The entire mahogany structure literally comes up for air.

This month, when Britain gives the Gold Coast its independence, and it becomes the Commonwealth nation of Ghana, workmen hope to begin turning Weese's design into reality. What he has created is original without being bizarre, dignified without being conventional, functional without being depressing, and it should fit into the landscape as if it were homegrown.

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