Under Studio NEiDA’s curatorship and Sonia Lawson’s commission, this African country is, for the very first time, presenting their historic architecture at one of the most prestigious architecture events. Scape reached out to Fabiola Büchele and Jeanne Autran-Edorh from Studio NEiDA to uncover how they managed this breakthrough, and what it means for Togolese architecture.  

What did the process of this project look like? How long did the research take and what was the timeline?  

The journey to the Togo Pavilion began with the first edition of Les Rencontres Architecurales de Lomé (RAL), which we curated in November 2024. Titled ‘Conservation / Transformation’, it was a three-day summit of West African architects and researchers. For the occasion we started thinking about what the definition of a Togolese architecture might be. We began by identifying the most striking modernist buildings in Lomé and eventually settled on 13 case studies; some in ruins, some still in use. Following this we commissioned photographers to take new photos of our list of buildings and we looked for archival material of what these buildings once looked like in order to piece together the history of each building.  Togolese architect Sabrine Bako was able to set up in person interviews with Togolese architects (or their descendants) who have often been overlooked or nearly erased from projects they worked on.  

To ground the modern legacy of the country, we dug into the Togolese architecture that came before and landed on three examples: the Nôk caves, the Tatas Tamberma and the Afro-Brazilian houses. Though each of them is very different, they show a throughline of an architectural heritage that needs to be valued and continued to be studied.  

The project displays everything from ancient Nôk cave dwellings to traditional construction techniques and modern architecture. Do you have a personal favourite?  

We do have a soft spot for the eccentric modernism found in Lomé. Especially the Hotel de la Paix, which, though under constant threat of demolition, has become an emblem of the city. It holds within it a more recent history of the building of national identity but also represents a certain melancholy to the state of architecture preservation in Togo today. We have even taken it upon ourselves to create an independent proposal for its adaptive reuse. We remain hopeful that understanding its greater value will happen fast enough for it to be saved. 

Togo has a difficult history and politics. Your project is able to embrace this in a way that’s almost healing. How do you see the relationship between architecture and its potential for regeneration (or ‘hope’ to say it in a cliché way!) in Togo?   

Architecture contains (hi)stories and the potential to give a distinct character to a cityscape. But at the same time architecture (especially the more institutional buildings we are showcasing) can feel unattainable or uninteresting to the broader population, if their potential to create a relationship between construction and building is missed. If valued properly however, and if a feeling of ownership by those living and interacting with them can be achieved, then this architecture has the potential of creating pride and a sense of identity and belonging to a place.  

How do you view borders and boundaries? As creatives from various parts of the world that have collaborated for the project, but also in terms of Togo’s architecture such as the Afro-Brazilian architecture and colonial influences.  

Ideally boundaries are fluid so that material, architectural styles and creative collaboration can flow easily and in both directions. Too often this is not the case. For example, while it was possible for European architects to build outlandish projects across the African continent after they gained their independence, the same opportunity was not awarded the other way around.  

Similarly, construction techniques were imported from elsewhere and pushed aside local knowledge. Though there are also examples of defiance of this very occurrence. The Afro-Brazilian architecture being such a case. Rather than replacing what existed with something from elsewhere, it merged the knowledge from another geography with what was available locally to create a hybrid unique to the region.  

In our work more broadly it is this latter way or cross-pollination that we aim for. A collaboration across boundaries that is respectful of a given reality and proposes ways of working together that arrive at something new, that is not imposed from outside.