Architecture and inequality
Lesley Lokko in the Wealth Inequality Initiative Podcast #2
Lesley Lokko is an academic in architecture and best-selling novelist and has been confronted with the issue of wealth inequality throughout her whole international career.
In this episode of the Wealth Inequality Initiative Podcast, Lokko touches on how architecture can lend a hand in closing the wealth gap and how novels were her first medium to gain confidence to tell the other story about Africa that is richer than chaos and poverty.
The shaping of our [African] space has to be designed, developed and put forward by us. It cannot be that we copy other paradigms.
Africa does not have to come to the table as the poor player. This paradigm may be true in terms of infrastructure and resources, but not in terms of imagination and possibilities. Lokko describes how Africa’s culture and heritage need to be bolstered in the architectural field because architecture is vital in equitable infrastructure.
Lesley senses a type of insecurity in Ghana in dealing with space and how to understand the city. The question of ownership and confidence are critical in shaping the future of a town. While Africa may lack resources, it is the world’s youngest continent with an average age of under 20. Imagination, dynamism and energy are key components in closing the wealth gap.
How a city works is often down to the level of resources available.
Lesley Lokko is an architect, academic and novelist. She built the first and only Graduate School of Architecture on the African continent in Johannesburg and taught at various Universities in the US and the UK. Today, she is committed to establishing the African Futures Institute (AFI) in Accra, Ghana.
For over twenty years, Lokko has been writing best-selling novels incorporating issues around cultural and racial identity. Lokko is the daughter of a Ghanian surgeon and a Scottish mother. She was born in Scotland and grew up in Ghana and Scotland. After boarding school in England, she studied architecture in both England and the US.
Nathalie Jean-Baptiste is the Deputy CEO and the Senior Programme Manager - Wealth Inequality at the Julius Baer Foundation, which she joined in March 2020. Prior to Julius Baer, she led an action research unit in East Africa for 4 years. Nathalie has an extensive research background, she was a Marie Curie Global Fellow and worked for the last 15 years in the field of urban studies. Her work focused on inequalities, urban vulnerabilities and transformation. Nathalie is an architect graduated in Mexico City and holds an MSc and PhD from the Bauhaus University. Her international experience bridging science and practice spreads across Mexico, Germany, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania as well as Australia. She is a board member of the International Association People-Environment Studies and currently serves as a mentor in the WISA - Women in Science and Art Program.
