Mass-Media Architectures of Africa and the Colonial Worlds of the Twentieth Century
Architectures mass-médiatiques de l'Afrique et des mondes coloniaux du XXe siècle
Histories of telecommunications, radio, and television infrastructures in colonised and decolonised territories, 1900-1980
Histoire des infrastructures de télécommunications, radio et télévision, dans les territoires colonisés et décolonisés, 1900-1980
Abstract
With a multidisciplinary team combining architecture and history, we decided to shed light on the relationships between audiovisual media and architectural works created as part of their rise to prominence in the colonized and decolonized spaces of the 20th century. As with other colonial institutions, the architecture of radio stations and transmitters was a means of reinforcing the visibility of the colonial presence. After the Second World War, the contexts of the Cold War and decolonisation gave rise to other instrumental uses : displays of power, cultural imperialism, and the assertion of identity and national sovereignty.
Announcement
Argument
Following the logic of media critic Marshall McLuhan’s statement that “the medium is the message,” what can mass-media architectures in colonial and postcolonial contexts teach us ? Radio emerged as a medium at the moment when the European colonial empires founded in the nineteenth century were reaching their height. Radio therefore appeared as one of the “techniques of the occupier2,” participating in the remodelling of societies and spaces according to the “civilising mission” claimed by the metropolitan powers. As with other colonial institutions, the architecture of radio stations and transmitters was a means of reinforcing the visibility of the colonial presence . After the Second World War, television continued this policy, but the contexts of the Cold War and decolonisation gave rise to other instrumental uses : displays of power, cultural imperialism, and the assertion of identity and national sovereignty . However, the link between the architecture of mass-media infrastructures and the imperial continuum, together with its transformations up to the end of the twentieth century, remains poorly understood.
Yet, from the end of the nineteenth century onwards, radiotelephone stations punctuated colonial empires. During the interwar period, they were followed by broadcasting stations that developed in varied forms. However, it was at the end of the 1930s that the expansion of the medium became a more important concern for imperial powers, particularly the British, French, Portuguese and Belgian empires, but also for the white settler colonies of southern Africa, such as South Africa and the Rhodesias. Colonisers developed radio transmissions and introduced programmes in indigenous languages in order to strengthen their hold over public opinion, to support the war effort between 1939 and 1945, and to sustain the developmentalist policies of late empires . The post-war years were therefore marked by the construction of radio facilities across the continent, with the British acting as pioneers in this field . In the aftermath of independence, the young states of the Third World continued this momentum within the framework of development policies. Telecommunications infrastructures appeared both as essential signs of sovereignty and as visible instruments of the “modernisation” of societies .
Thus, during these decades, broadcasting was never only a matter of content. It was also a question of architecture, infrastructure and landscape. Broadcasting and television houses, transmitting stations and relay chains, antenna landscapes, telecommunications cable networks and monumental television towers were all constructions that acquired political force as instruments of government and as visible affirmations of sovereignty. Such projects were part of the architectural currents of the period, especially tropical architecture, which made adaptation to climate a central problem of design while translating local conditions into a modernist technical language shaped by colonial power8. Broadcasting houses established themselves as a distinct architectural type, in which technical constraints, administrative requirements, and the production and transmission of information were coordinated through plan, circulation, acoustic conditions and control rooms9. Broadcasting infrastructure, in this sense, was not only the support system for media circulation ; it formed part of a broader built environment through which modernity, authority and the State were staged in material form, as shown by the emblematic example of the Rádio Nacional de Angola (1963-67), formerly the Centro de Radiodifusão de Angola, which illustrates these dynamics as a work of Portuguese tropical modernism from late colonialism10.
We therefore propose the metaphor of the gilded cage in order to examine the contradictions of these media infrastructures in the twentieth century. Broadcasting systems were presented as modernising, but at the same time they were designed to direct a territory, shape publics and regulate speech. To embody this contradiction without simplifying it, we draw inspiration from Maya Angelou’s reflection in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings : the melody formed inside the cage can become more concentrated, more profound, than that of the bird in freedom . In the context of this call, the cage is the architecturo-technological apparatus : buildings and infrastructures, operational doctrines, personnel training, political control, schedules and routines. The bird’s song is music, speech, culture and moving image produced and disseminated through stations, studios, schools and screens. The song may travel freely while remaining deeply shaped by the filtering and control of which radio buildings and infrastructures are the principal manifestation.
Thus, as Alfredo Thiermann has written in relation to Cold War Berlin, the role of architecture and architects in the design and implementation of radio infrastructures is of great importance. This role remains to be explored in relation to twentieth-century
8 Hannah Le Roux, “Building on the Boundary - Modern Architecture in the Tropics,” Social Identities : Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture 10, no. 4 (2004) : 439-53. 9 Alfredo Riesco Thiermann, “The Broadcasting House,” in Radio-Activities : Architecture and Broadcasting in Cold-War Berlin (Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 2024).
10 Marissa J. Moorman, Powerful Frequencies : Radio, State Power, and the Cold War in Angola, 1931-2002 (Athens : Ohio University Press, 2019).
Africa and other colonised territories. Paper proposals may fall within the following thematic fields :
Infrastructure and power : within this axis, we invite proposals that directly address buildings and broadcasting infrastructures (radio-television houses, monumental television towers, studios, transmitters, telecommunications cable networks, or listening and projection buildings). What practical, political or symbolic objectives did they pursue ? What elements marked their integration into the colonial and/or postcolonial world ? Was there a search for architectural syncretism between contributions from the metropole and those from the colony ? What link was made between the form of the building and its function ? How were these buildings perceived by the political forces in play ? We also welcome work on adjacent and overlapping media architectures - cinemas, projection circuits, film units, mobile cinemas and exhibition infrastructures - when they intersect with broadcasting, state communication, cultural policy and the formation of publics.
Design, labour and expertise : Who designed, built and operated these systems (public works departments, architects, engineers, consultants, contractors, suppliers ; technicians, producers, projectionists, administrators), and how were expertise and hierarchies transformed during decolonisation ? What methods allow historians and architects today to decolonise and reread media archives and the archives of building designers ?
Networks of exchange : How did networks of technological, political, architectural and musical exchange, as well as the circulation of actors, shape the broadcasting and television infrastructures of formerly colonised countries of the Global South (training, supply, standards, consultancy missions, cooperation) ? What continuities or transformations did they produce between the age of colonial domination and that of independence and the Cold War ?
Contemporary legacies : this axis also invites papers on the legacy of buildings. The notion of legacy does not refer only to processes of heritagemaking, but also includes other trajectories, such as demolition, conversion or abandonment. At a time when there is increasing discussion about the restitution of works of art stolen during colonial conquest, how are radio buildings constructed during or after the colonial period perceived today by populations and States ? What policies of valorisation or heritage recognition are being considered or implemented ?
Although the call is open to all parts of the world that experienced the second colonisation, Africa is a field that seems particularly underexplored and deserves special attention.
Submission guidelines
Format
- Presentation : 20 minutes + discussion
Proposals
Please send your proposal in PDF format, following the instructions below :
- Title and proposal + abstract (250–350 words)
- Biographical note (max. 150 words)
- Email address for submitting proposals : radioarchiafricaproject@gmail.com
- File name : [SurnameFirstName]
Important dates :
- Proposal submission deadline : 20 September 2026
- Response to authors : 14 December 2026
- Study day : 13-14 or 20-21 May 2027
Organisation and scientific committee
- Jared FANTASIA ( Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto )
- Thomas LEYRIS ( University of Lille, HARTIS Laboratory )
- Raphaël BOURDIER ( ENSA Paris La villette, LAVUE )
Bibliography
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Cooper, Frederick. L’Afrique depuis 1940. Paris : Payot, 2012.
Daro, Carlotta. Paysages de lignes, esthétiques et télécommunications. Genève, MetisPresses, 2022.
Ericson, Staffan, and Kristina Riegert, eds. Media Houses : Architecture, Media, and the Production of Centrality. New York : Peter Lang, 2010.
Fanon, Frantz. “This Is the Voice of Algeria.” In A Dying Colonialism. New York : Grove Press, 1965.
Goodman, Steve. Sonic Warfare : Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear. Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 2010.
Gunner, Liz. Radio Soundings : South Africa and the Black Modern. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Gunner, Liz, Dumisani Ligaga, and Don Moyo, eds. Radio in Africa : Publics, Cultures, Communities. Johannesburg : Wits University Press, 2011.
Harwood, John. “Wires, Walls and Wireless : Notes toward an Investigation of Radio Architecture.” Media-N : Journal of the New Media Caucus 10, no. 1 (2014). https://median.newmediacaucus.org/art-infrastructures-hardware/wires-walls-and-wirelessnotes-toward-an-investigation-of-radio-architecture/.
Larkin, Brian. Signal and Noise : Media, Infrastructure, and Urban Culture in Nigeria. Durham, NC : Duke University Press, 2008.
Le Roux, Hannah. “Building on the Boundary - Modern Architecture in the Tropics.” Social Identities : Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture 10, no. 4 (2004) : 439–53.
Lekgoathi, Sekibakiba Peter, Tshepo Moloi, and Avelino R. S. Saíde, eds. Guerrilla Radios in Southern Africa : Broadcasters, Technology, Propaganda Wars, and the Armed Struggle. Lanham, MD : Rowman & Littlefield, 2020.
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media. Boston, MIT Press, 1964.
Metcalf Thomas, An imperial vision : Indian architecture and Britain’s Raj (London, Boston : Faber and Faber, 1989).
Moorman, Marissa J. Intonations : A Social History of Music and Nation in Luanda, Angola, from 1945 to Recent Times. Athens : Ohio University Press, 2008.
Moorman, Marissa J. Powerful Frequencies : Radio, State Power, and the Cold War in Angola, 1931–2002. Athens : Ohio University Press, 2019.
Nkoala, Sisanda, Christina Chan-Meetoo, Jacinta Mwende Maweu, Marissa J. Moorman, Modestus Fosu, and Stanley Tsarwe. “100 Years of Radio in Africa : From Propaganda to People’s Power.” The Conversation. February 12, 2024. https://doi.org/10.64628/AAJ.wxd6prqxc.
Ouzounian, Gascia. Stereophonica : Sound and Space in Science, Technology, and the Arts. Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 2020.
Potter, Simon, Daniel Clayton, Flora Kovacs, Vincent Kuitenbrouwer, Nelson Ribeiro, Rebecca Scales, and Anne-Lise Stanton. The Wireless World : Global Histories of International Radiobroadcasting. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2022.
Ribeiro, Nelson. “Broadcasting to the Portuguese Empire in Africa : Salazar’s Singular Broadcasting Policy.” Critical Arts 28, no. 6 (2014) : 920–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2014.990630.
Riesco Thiermann, Alfredo. Radio-Activities : Architecture and Broadcasting in Cold-War Berlin. Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 2024.
Thompson, Emily. The Soundscape of Modernity : Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900–1933. Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 2002.
Tudesq, André-Jean. La radio en Afrique noire. Paris : Pédone, 1983.
Von Borries, Friedrich ; Böttger, Matthias ; Heilmeyer, Florian. TV Towers - 8,559 Meters Politics and Architecture. Berlin, Jovis, 2009 [2006].
Yusaf, Sameen. Broadcasting Buildings : Architecture on the Wireless, 1927–1945. Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 2014.
Places
- Université de Lille, laboratoire HARTIS
Lille, France (59)
Event attendance modalities
Hybrid event (on site and online)
Attached files
Keywords
- architecture, radio, télévision, afrique, colonisation, décolonisation, architecte, antennes, émetteurs, maison de la radio
Contact(s)
- Thomas Leyris
courriel : radioarchiafricaproject [at] gmail [dot] com
Reference Urls
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Mass-Media Architectures of Africa and the Colonial Worlds of the Twentieth Century », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Thursday, June 25, 2026, https://doi.org/10.58079/16gsi
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