Dear Oluwatoyin,
Sorry for the late reply. I am just seeing this email.
I have been in Ibadan.
Let me just give you the link to a few papers that I and colleagues wrote on the campus. We were part of Bauhaus 100 (the centennial celebration of the Bauhaus Architecture School). The worldwide exhibition by Bauhaus Imaginista featured a documentary on the campus by Isreali Historian - Prof Zvi Efrat- that we just did a paper on together. The link to the paper is below and the link of my paper that elaborates on the socio-political context during the establishment of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria (formerly University of Ife). There are other links too.
Most of the pictures you may need have been taken. I have taken some at different times. Iwan Baan, a renowned Architectural photographer was in Ile-Ife to take a lot of pictures for a publication some time ago and we have taken a lot of pictures too during this process of the Getty CMP Project. The CMP will be submitted to Getty at the end of this month and should be presented to the public after then, so you will have access to a lot of information then.
The conversation continues.
Best regards
Babatunde JAIYEOBA
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cura.12517
http://www.bauhaus-imaginista.org/articles/5550/bauhaus-modernism-and-the-nigerian-connection
https://www.archnet.org/publications/10790
Asojo A.O., Jaiyeoba E.B. (2016). Modernism and Cultural Expression in University Campus Design: The Nigerian Example. ArchNet-International Journal of Architectural Research, USA. 10 (3), 21-35.
https://www.bauhaus-imaginista.org/articles/6222/the-legacy-of-arieh-sharon-s
https://www.bauhaus-imaginista.org/articles/3797/...
You may want to download from:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Babatunde-Jaiyeoba
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7419-9951
E. Babatunde JAIYEOBA PhD
Professor of Architecture
Department of Architecture
Faculty of Environmental Design and Management
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
ebjaiye@oauife.edu.ng; tundejaiyeoba@yahoo.co.uk; +234 8037880023
On Sat, Oct 15, 2022 at 2:28 PM Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com> wrote:
Great thanks, Babatunde.I was hoping to engage with someone from OAU and I am honoured to get a response from you whose field is the natural and built environments.OAU Design Philosophy and HistoryGreat thanks for your summation of the philosophy of environmental management shaping the campus landscape and of the professional identity behind the design of the campus. Your summation beautifully presents a picture that can help one appreciate the vision represented by the space, and facilitate assessment of the relationship between aspiration and achievement it represents.
Your highlighting of the iconic names of Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus in relation to the design of the OAU campus demonstrates its link with summits in global architectural and design history. I wonder who the visionaries were who contracted such distinctive influences in creating the campus.
I think, however, that the University of Benin design for its academic offices in the faculties of social sciences and arts is more enriching than the face-me-I-face-you style of constructing office buildings which I observed at the dept of fine arts at OAU and possibly at SOAS at the University of London, in which offices face each other within a corridor, the Uniben offices being organised round an empty space ideally developed as a garden, though from my memory of Uniben up till 2002 when I left there the quality of utilisation of this space varied among academic units.It would be inspiring to know more about the ''Getty Keep-It-Modern 2020 Conservation Management Plan Project that provides a framework for facility maintenance of the core of the campus designed and executed by Arieh Sharon and cohorts between 1962 and 1980.''What can be done to address the inadequacies you describe in the attitudes and institutions contributing to the management of the OAU campus?Between Natural and Constructed SpaceBeautifully stated- ''Most of what feels like the unkempt forest is actually the low maintenance landscape that contributes to the natural setting of the campus.'' The forest is wonderful. The culture of stand alone trees, woods and forest is sublime.The entire landscape of the campus is magnificent, in its undulating formations across vast spaces, linked by finely tarred roads and the constant backdrop of forest, suggesting the mysterious beauty of nature's power and humanity's companionship with forms of being beyond itself, resonating in the otherness of vegetative density, alive with the twittering of insects, its hidden allure calling to the human being.Choosing to walk last night at the OAU campus, rather than take a bus from the main gate to RECTAS Kufoniyi guest house where I am staying, I stopped at intervals to marvel at the design genius represented by the integration of humanity and nature the campus represents.I walked the long stretch of road from the main gate to the main campus, bordered by heavily wooded space, rich with trees evocative of a forest, a natural landscape left partly untouched but carefully managed in its proximity to human habitation, the ebony density of these spaces projecting an air of mystery from which insect and myriad night sounds emerged.Enjoying my solitude with this natural universe, as car and motorcycle lights sped towards me and receded beyond me, I wished there was a pedestrian track for people to walk safely on rather than manage the road with cars or walk on the grass, there being more than enough space on the sides of the road to create both a pedestrian walkway and a cycle track.Most Nigerians, though, might need a lot of sensitisation to the recreational value of cycling since most people might associate it with poverty, emphasising the possession of cars.The OAU campus is an awesome environment for cycling, if the relevant cycle tracks are provided and people are educated about safety rules.Between Aspiration and AchievementA true assessment of the OAU campus is best achieved through pictures of the interior and exterior of every building and its surroundings and as much as possible of the natural environment, particularly the sections containing houses, even though the totality of the space, including those with ho houses, inspires picturing to demonstrate its visual power and suggest its further possibilities, visuality possible through both aerial and ground level photography.Perhaps my range of reactions is inspired by my being stunned by the obvious ambition represented by the character and scale of the campus and the challenges of the university in maintaining this great space.A lot is being done by the university but I get the impression that the task at hand might be beyond the university's resources, valuable as those are.Expanding Visibility, Suggesting Possibilities, Seeking AssistanceI am visually documenting, at a very limited level at the moment, the natural wonders of the campus in relation to those of the city in which it is built. I photograph and respond to some of these glories in my request for funding from any interested parties to visually document the natural wonders of that campus in relation to those of the city in which it is built.There is a need to draw global attention to the environmental wonder that is OAU, resonating with the academic ambitions of the university, in the context of one of Nigeria's most culturally significant cities, Ile-Ife.Such attention could help with more of the funds, ideas and skills required to adequately manage and develop the campus.Between Natural Landscape and the Built Environment in OAU Staff QuartersI felt so guilty about my comments on the staff quarters, particularly after further exposure to that vast landscape, demonstrating significant variations in the quality of the built environment within superb natural formations.I am also enjoying the kindness of people on campus, academics and non-academics, sensitizing me to the need to be careful in responding to the environment in which they live and work.Hence I made the amendment I made.
I was not in a position to make any summative statement on the staff quarters, having experienced only an infinitesimal sample of its huge scope. Of the very few houses I saw, a number had beautiful gardens and were finely painted.I was also disturbed, however, by the state of some of the houses and compounds I saw, houses that looked as if they had not been painted in ages, environments overgrown with grass, these being inhabited houses. Entering one multi-level residential building to make enquiries, the staircase and its walls were clearly caked with long use and deeply unappealing in their unmaintained look.Beyond infrastructural maintenance and environmental care, responding to the design of the houses, the aesthetics of some of the houses are significantly limited by the absolute focus on the utilitarian.From reports and observation, water supply seems to be a significant challenge in students' hostels and some staff quarters.The OAU campus is a magnificent testament to the power of nature and the construction of relationships between natural and human built space. The edifices are impressive.Challenges of Maintenance in OAU Academic StructuresThe buildings in the academic section, in particular, though, are sadly in serious need of intervention. The bookshop has fine books but one has to pass buckets which seem placed to receive water dripping from the ceiling. The display strategy for the books can also be more appealing.I was at a department in which rain falls through a section of the building designed to be open to the air, thereby flooding the place, meaning one has to pass through water to reach lecturers' offices. Is that a design flaw?I'm puzzled as to why some signboards on campus are allowed to fall into dereliction, and even then, remain standing, as evident at the Faculty of Science, where the lone wooden sign board indicating the location and its various departments has been weathered into decay through years, as suggested by the depth of its degeneration, and yet remains standing, while just beyond it is a beautiful, gravelled lawn, facing an elegant sculpture perched on the building's front. I wonder why those discrepancies.At the entrance to the fine arts department, facing the university biological gardens, is another signboard, its metal form twisted, like something from an abandoned town, yet left standing there. Entering the fine arts department, a building with beautifully expansive offices, one encounters a flooded basement as one moves through the space.These issues take me back to my own alma mater, University of Benin, where I also worked till 2002. I recall a superb statue in the open space bordered by the offices and classrooms of the social science faculty falling to the ground and left there for as long as I remember. All of us working there left it there as we went about our business.Were there efforts to get the relevant authorities to ''resurrect'' the statue to its upright position? I don't know and I did not mind it either. After all, what did that have to do with my job description, would have been my unstated and even unformed thoughts as I went about what I understood to be my job description.The Use of Environmental and Infrastructural WealthLooking back at the University of Benin, and currently, to OAU, vast natural, human and human made resources are evident, at various levels of care.James Axell's Wisdom's Workshop:The Rise of the Modern University, references impressive physical environments of US universities as central to the appeal of those institutions, contributing to the strategic role they came to occupy in national life and global prominence.I wonder if Cambridge, in the UK, for example, taking together all its academic units and colleges, has access to the kind of space occupied by OAU, but the extreme diligence with which their colleges care for the relatively little they have is amazing, as represented for example, by the only green space one at times sees inside the often magnificent structures of their colleges being a relatively small square of lawn around which the buildings are organised, a lawn mown with exquisite attention, radiant in its beauty.Some colleges have more green space and tend them with a religious devotion, after all, are these places not tourist attractions which people from various parts of the world come to see, even as these colleges are in an intense race with other colleges and other institutions across the world to attract students, such international attention also being strategic to income from students, tourists and grants?Beyond college residential buildings, Trinity College built the Cambridge Science Park, a technology hub probably inspired by Stanford's proximity to Silicon Valley, the Cambridge Science Park being a space of glorious landscaping, but big as the park is, is it not likely to be swallowed by a section of the OAU campus?Cemetery Aesthetics and Respect for the DepartedAs for the OAU cemetery, the environment was badly maintained, overgrown with grass, when I was there a few days ago, a situation disrespectful to the memory of those buried there.
I wonder why the attention being given to another stretch of landscape I observed being carefully mown as I left the cemetery after attending a ceremony there could not also be given to the cemetery as the final resting place of some of the university's staff, the last home of their physical remains.I'm particularly sensitive on this because I took part in the burial there a few days ago of a much admired family friend, a distinguished scientist and much revered mentor to students , and the state of the place in which he was being buried made me sad.I'm still on campus at least until tomorrow. Perhaps we could meet up. My number is 08051439554.Great thanksOluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju--On Fri, 14 Oct 2022 at 00:07, 'Mr. E. B. Jaiyeoba' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:Dear Oluwatoyin,There are more lines that are not factual.Most of the lines have extreme descriptions.Most buildings need a touch of maintenance, I agree; but, it is not that MOST BUILDINGS NEED TO BE TORN DOWN AND REBUILT. A few buildings that have not been occupied for some time in the staff quarters need rehabilitation, that's more like it.There are layers of landscaping in relation to maintainability in large scale built environment systems ranging from high maintenance inner central formal landscape through medium maintenance informal landscapes away from the inner core to low maintenance informal landscapes on the outskirts. It is true that landscape maintenance management is poorer now than the days of the first Vice Chancellor Hezekiah Oluwasanmi who the library is named after and the Parks and Gardens unit has gone moribund. Also, the University not being in session due to the protracted strike may have contributed to the total lack of attention. However, I still think you need to tone down your description. Most of what feels like the unkempt forest is actually the low maintenance landscape that contributes to the natural setting of the campus. The burial grounds should be of medium maintenance but we are so carefree these days about maintenance that even the formal landscapes are not adequately maintained these days.My summary is that our maintenance culture is terrible and "campus managers" within and without prefer to embark on new projects rather than pay attention to maintaining and conserving the old. Actually in the case of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria many people are not aware that it is important to the history of modern architecture. The campus was designed by Bauhaus trained Israeli Architect- Arieh Sharon- who was in the first set of the Bauhaus Architecture School in Germany. He is a protege of Walter Gropius and Hannes Meyer. We are presently rounding up a Getty Keep-It-Modern 2020 Conservation Management Plan Project that provides a framework for facility maintenance of the core of the campus designed and executed by Arieh Sharon and cohorts between 1962 and 1980.Please let's express our criticism without exaggeration.Thank you.Babatunde JAIYEOBAE. Babatunde JAIYEOBA PhDProfessor of ArchitectureDepartment of ArchitectureFaculty of Environmental Design and ManagementObafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeriaebjaiye@oauife.edu.ng; tundejaiyeoba@yahoo.co.uk; +234 8037880023--On Thu, Oct 13, 2022 at 9:47 PM Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com> wrote:--Apologies.The following line is not factual:"The staff quarters have the look of a ghetto."The landscape of the staff quarters is wonderful, but more attention to the vegetation around a good no of the houses is needed and a good number of the houses are in urgent need of refurbishing.ThanksToyinOn Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 11:59 Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com> wrote:--Right now, I'm physically exploring one of the most impactful universities in Nigerian history, Obafemi Awolowo University.A combination of majesty and degeneration.Sublime natural environment and glorious buildings, but buildings badly in need of maintenance, inconsistent management of vegetation, leading to well kept lawns coexisting with bushes.In my view, almost all the buildings in the staff quarters should be torn down and rebuilt.The staff quarters have the look of a ghetto.Yet this is the university of Nobel Laurete Wole Soyinka and other great ambassadors of Nigeria.The university bookshop has good books, but to reach them you have to pass through buckets positioned to catch water dripping from the ceiling.In attending a funeral at the cemetry there, one observes that the place is bushy and largely unkept, yet illustrious scholars like the one whose funeral I attended yesterday are buried there.I wonder how the academics there see themselves, living and working in an environment that in some cases looks like an abandoned space falling into ruin.Everyone has their perspective on what their self development and labour are worth in relation to their standard of living.By the time a person invests a good part of their life in self development through decades of specialised education and have to keep daily educating themselves on the job as well as developing others through this knowledge, such people particularly need to ask the value of what they are doing with their lives and how this value translates into quality of life.
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