Itohan Osayimwese: Africa, ornament and architecture.
From A is for Architecture Podcast by Ambrose Gillick
March 5, 2026 · 1h 11m · Episode 192
About this episode
Itohan Osayimwese discusses the impact of colonialism on African architecture and cultural heritage in her book.
In Episode 192 of the A is for Architecture Podcast, Itohan Osayimwese, Professor of the History of Art & Architecture and Urban Studies and Department Chair at Brown University, discusses small parts of her big book, Africa's Buildings: Architecture and the Displacement of Cultural Heritage , published with Princeton University Press in October last year. In our conversation, Itohan argues that during the age of European empire, colonizers not only expropriated African art and artifacts but systematically – strategically - dismembered buildings, removing them piece-by-piece. In doing so, structural and ornamental components became, in the alienating setting of European and North American museums, reduced to craft artefacts, denuded of weight and depth of cultural knowledge and meaning. This fragmentation, Itohan argues, has contributed to scholarly and popular silences about African architectural histories, erasing built environments as sites of cultural expression, social life and technological innovation. The book reframes these displaced elements as architecture proper, challenging stereotypes that reduce African building traditions to tasteful ethnographic curiosities…
People in this episode
Host: Ambrose Gillick
Guest: Itohan Osayimwese
Topics covered
- African architecture
- cultural heritage
- colonialism
- art and artifacts
- architectural history
- restitution
Keywords
- African architecture
- cultural heritage
- colonialism
- artifacts
- architectural history
- restitution
- cultural expression
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Brown University, Princeton University Press
Books & works: Africa's Buildings: Architecture and the Displacement of Cultural Heritage
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