The Necessity of Demas Nwoko’s Natural Synthesis
At 89, Demas Nwoko invites us to prioritize local community impact over international glamour and to rethink the trajectory of African art and architecture.
Editor’s note: This essay is available in our print issue, Demas Nwoko’s Natural Synthesis and the Rise of African Architecture. Buy the issue here.
Nigeria doesn’t happen to me; I happen to Nigeria,’ Demas Nwoko, the celebrated painter, sculptor, architect and dramatist, said, while reflecting on his attempt at running for Nigeria’s president in the 1990s (fun fact: for some time, he and M.K.O. Abiola were rivals in the same party). Nwoko and I were on a turbulent Zoom call in November 2024, only a few months after I had visited one of his building projects, the New Culture Studio, in Ibadan. Many times, our call threatened to fail and, during one such moment, Nwoko, who will be 90 this year in December, did not hesitate to criticize me for not visiting him in Delta State and conducting the interview in person. Still, he remained exceptionally patient: ‘I always like talking to people,’ he later confessed. ‘I can do this for a whole day. If you are here with me for one year, I’ll be talking to you for all that one year.’
At 89, Nwoko stands tall in the discourse on African architecture and design, which in recent years has experienced a surge in global attention. Consider the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, the international exhibition highly revered among architects worldwide, and where Nwoko and Nigerian-American architect and visual artist, Olalekan Jeyifous, won the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement and the Silver Lion for a ‘promising young participant’ respectively. Lesley Lokko, the biennale’s Scottish-Ghanaian curator, was also its first Black curator. Active and prominent across several artistic fields, Nwoko resists easy categorization, insisting instead on the blending (and sometimes even transcendence) of these fields. ‘I think I was brought up to just live to create,’ he said. Nwoko is one of the last living members of the Zaria Art Society, the post-colonial movement also known as the ‘Zaria Rebels’, that sought to break away from colonial artistic traditions and assert a uniquely African aesthetic—led by illustrator, Uche Okeke, they would later translate this philosophy into what they called ‘Natural Synthesis’. ‘European contemporary artists had already recognized the aesthetics of African traditional art to the extent that they decided to allow it influence them, to move them away from naturalistic to other forms of plastic, aesthetic influences,’ Nwoko recalled of his time as a student. ‘We were able to say: okay, why won’t you teach us also about our traditional art?’
During our interview, I had the opportunity to engage with Nwoko’s thoughts on art, architecture and design, and to look back on his career, philosophy and impact on the spirited discourse African architecture and design continue to inspire.
Nwoko’s journey began in Idumuje-Ugboko, the kingdom in Delta State, where he was born into a royal family. His father’s architectural vision for the palace, he recalls, was an early influence, along with ‘a lot of the culture and way of life of my hometown or my home kingdom.’ After studying Fine Arts at the College of Arts, Science and Technology in Zaria and later Theatre Design in France, he returned to Nigeria, determined to bring a new visual dimension to the already vibrant storytelling of Nigerian theatre. After all, he said, ‘an artist has to have a community he belongs to and works for.’ Today, Nwoko’s works, his buildings, in particular, are known for how they integrate communal and cultural functions. ‘I do all my work for a definite community,’ he told me. ‘I work only to their aesthetic culture.’ And because he works for a specific culture, naturally such buildings also emphasize sustainability and the use of local materials.
At the heart of our interview, Nwoko argued that he failed to find similar mindfulness and community-centeredness in contemporary Nigerian artists and architects. Despite having mentored a few of them, he argued that such artists and architects have abandoned their local communities in pursuit of global recognition. ‘They are all traders,’ he said, ‘they are international, and there is nothing like that. Over there, those people are national. So, the works that they are aping are the tradition of some other person ... Nigeria is not growing anywhere, technologically or anything else, because the present generation has abandoned Nigeria.’
I was curious about this perspective, considering that Nwoko has received several international awards. In 2023, he received, perhaps, the most prominent of such awards: the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Architecture Biennale. ‘I don’t care what the outside world thinks about me,’ he said, when I asked him about his international recognition. ‘I care how the people here feel about what I have done … Any recognition I have got out there now is because of what I did here.’
Reading over my notes, this interview struck me as not merely a conversation but an invitation to rethink the trajectory of African art and architecture. Nwoko’s words serve as both a historical reflection and a manifesto for the future. ‘Sustainability can only be produced by you,’ is one among several critical observations he made during our conversation. Likewise, his perspective on his legacy was particularly perceptive: ‘If my influence did not amount to a visible change now, I hope that it will in future … Because, you see, aesthetic creations are truth—absolute truths. The value will never change. So, if the people of today don’t understand you, people of tomorrow might.’
Our interview continues below and has been edited for brevity and clarity...
This essay features in our print issue, ‘Demas Nwoko’s Natural Synthesis and the Rise of African Architecture’, and is available to read for free. Simply register for a Free Pass to continue reading.
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