Part I: Burning 

‘the whole library of the Maroons / exploded in a smoke…,’ writes poet Dannabang Kuwabong. He references two libraries: one in Dominica, burnt to the ground by rebels who destroyed millions of books on marronage, and one in Ancient Egypt. Calling these rebels ‘architects of amnesias’, Kuwabong compares the Dominican library to the historic library in Alexandria, which is believed to have been set alight by Julius Caeser when he invaded the region in 48 BCE: ancient science, philosophy, and histories lost with it.

Closer to home, the ashen University of Cape Town Jagger Library was, in April 2021, a site of collective heartbreak as scholars, students, and citizens mourned the loss of special collections, mostly African studies, and manuscripts not yet digitised. The city felt the grief of what was lost — at what we didn’t know and perhaps never will.

Part II: Makers of civilisation 

Location: Cape Town, South Africa

How do you re-build what has vanished? Across District Six, barren lands are stroked by dry grass, the air filled with weighted memory. Since the apartheid government exiled the neighbourhood’s mixed population to the outskirts of the city in the 1960s, the area has never been the same. After the suburb was declared ‘white-only’, 60 000 residents were forcibly removed and their homes bulldozed. If it’s true, as Dannabang Kuwabong says, that the library is a pillar of civilisation itself, and its inhabitants — destroyers or preservers — the ‘makers of civilization’, architects too must ask what form of civilisation the library retains: which memories, whose stories, and whose lives it will touch. 

In The MAAK’s recent project, rubble from the demolished homes and local clay were used to create bricks for the construction of a new library at Rahmaniyeh Primary School in District Six. The structure literally embodies material memory — preserving what is left, embracing the fullness of the site’s history despite the lingering violence and grief. Their collaborative art-architecture exhibition, ‘Clay, Library, Land Studies’, presented at Cape Town Design Week last year, displayed clay tiles painted by the schoolchildren tasked with creating patterns inspired by objects of meaning. Integrating his practice with community, Max Melvill, who co-founded The MAAK along with Ashleigh Killa, compares their architectural approach to ‘midwifery’ — a vehicle to rebirth, rather than a destination.

In the next ‘act of listening’, as Max calls it, the architects were companions of the students at the school, together designing bookshelves for the interior of the building. During the workshops, imagination had no limits: from a rainbow-cloud-lava tower to castles and dinosaur-shaped shelves. Together with the Otto Foundation and Cape Town–based furniture designers Pedersen + Lennard, the team created a modular bookshelf range informed by the students’ visions. Made from folded steel and recycled plastic board, it is a playful, colourful sight infused with a youthful soul. Titled the ‘Rahmah-Rama bookshelves’, this limited-edition furniture is available for the public to collect for their own libraries. Next to the bookshelves, a reading pit is submerged into the floor, a sunken circle lined by a pattern of bricks. Its circular form encloses and protects — like a compassionate embrace. Rahmah, from the Arabic term meaning mercy or kindness, is integrated into the library’s name and forms, a reminder to rebuild with care and kindness, even in the midst of collective dispossession.

Part III: Architects of remembrance

Location: Pretoria, South Africa

In South Africa, oral histories and material culture — non-written forms — are just as important to preserve knowledge. Universities have long understood this, with their art centres, museums, and galleries preserving a different form of intelligence — a different kind of ink and mark. Mathews + Associates Architects proposes an architecture to protect public knowledge at the University of Pretoria’s Javett Art Centre where squares and galleries are designed for performances, artwork, and installations. After all, practitioners in various parts of Africa are questioning the library’s sole purpose to store words, with many seeking to create a ‘visual library’ typology. Conceived as a ‘vault’ protecting Mapungubwe artefacts from the 11th and 12th centuries, the centre is marked by a bold, sculptural mass of exposed concrete referencing the Mapungubwe hill where the objects were found. Designed by architect Pieter Mathews who sees the provocative nature of brutalism as generative, its harsh exterior reflects the rugged environment that the Mapungubwe artefacts, permanently on display, originate from. The art centre preserves visual and written material as a space for book and film clubs, creative writing workshops, sculptures, mixed media artworks, and notably, Willem Boshoff’s word artistry. The Word Woesexhibition, like Moonwords(38 Khoisan words for the moon), uses spatiality to re-represent language. Boshoff’s words are laid out in cabinets, above bookshelves, and against walls, a chance for the gallery — acting as a ‘visual library’ — to perform a questioning where words and architecture coalesce.

Moonwords, by Willem Boshoff

Part IV: Houses of wisdom

Location: Dandaji, Niger 

What is the future of this ancient architectural form? In 2027, a new presidential library in Liberia, dedicated to the country’s former president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, will be opened to the public. Featuring an exhibition space designed by South African architect Sumayya Vally, the library is informed by Mariam Issoufou Architects’ localised approach. The team has experience in knowledge preservation, having previously interrogated the demarcation of sacred and secular thought when they transformed a derelict mosque — abandoned for 20 years — into a flexible library. Hikma Library, located in the village of Dandaji, was named after Bayt al-Hikma, or House of Wisdom, a historic library from the 9th century where the Abbasid civilisation documented their wealth of scientific discoveries and theological studies. Compressed Earth Bricks (CEB) made from local soil were used, improving thermal performance and lowering energy consumption. In undoing the binary between secular and sacred, Mariam Issoufou Architects reminds us that every form of knowledge has its place in the library, filled for wisdom once more.

“Hikma Library, located in the village of Dandaji, was named after Bayt al-Hikma, or House of Wisdom, a historic library from the 9th century.”