French Colonial Dakar : The Morphogenesis of an African Regional Capital

Chronicles the design of Dakar as a regional capital, and suggests a connection between the French colonial doctrines of assimilation and association and French colonial planning and architectural policies in sub-Saharan Africa. -- .

This book deals with the planning culture and architectural endeavours that shaped the model space of French colonial Dakar, a prominent city in West Africa. The extra-European planning history of Europe is a burgeoning field in scholarly study and literature, particularly in the last few decades, but there has been a clear tendency to focus on the more privileged colonies in the contemporary colonial order, such as British India and the French colonies in North Africa. Colonial urban space in sub-Saharan Africa has been left relatively untreated. This book is a pioneer in attesting the connection between the French colonial doctrines of assimilation and association and French colonial planning and architectural policies in sub-Saharan Africa.French colonial Dakar incorporates a rich variety of historical material and visual evidence from both primary and secondary sources, collected from multilateral channels in Europe and Senegal. It includes an analysis of a variety of planning and architectural models, metropolitan-cum-indigenous. With a focus on the period from the establishment of the city in the mid-nineteenth century until the interwar years, this investigation of the design of Dakar as a regional capital reveals a multiplicity of ''top-down'' and ''bottom-up'' forces. These include a variety of urban politics, policies, practices and agencies, and complex negotiations on both the physical and conceptual levels. It will be of particular interest to scholars in history, geography, architecture, urban planning, African studies and Global South studies.