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GLOBALIZATION CULTURE AND ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION IN NIGERIA. By Dr Adedeji Daramola, Wole Alagbe, Bridgette Aduwo. e-mail: sadaramola2000@yahoo. com School of Architecture, Covenant University, Ota – Nigeria. Abstract: Globalization has exerted so much pressure on every aspect of the global economy. This pressure is fast affecting the economy of most underdeveloped and developing world. The precipitation of the World Trade Organization principles, which compelled participating nations to open up their boarders to foreign goods and services, has finally compelled indigenous culture and economy to untold competition and imminent collapse.
This paper considers the inherent and apparent effects of globalization culture on architectural education as well as curriculum development in Nigerian Schools of Architecture. It opined that there is a need to marry both the unique tropical Nigerian environment with its cultural background, while embracing the loftiness of foreign design concept and flavour that are initiated through globalization. It asserted that while globalization principles can be embraced, great caution should be exercised.
Finally, both environmental harmony as well as sustainability factors must be given due considerations in harnessing any global design concept. This will avert the intractable architectural misdemeanours prevailing in Nigeria communities. Through appropriate architectural education, so much can be achieved in re-orientating the Nigerian architects. INTRODUCTION In April, 1988, the Commonwealth Association of Architects (CAA) in collaboration with the Nigerian Institute of Architects organised an international symposium with the theme ‘Towards A New Direction in Architectural Education in Africa at the Sheraton Hotels.
Many architects and Scholars from Africa and Britain gathered to share their experiences. At the symposium, the following suggestion were reflected in the communique 1. The political emphasis of Africa and its sub regions should aim at improving the general standard of the rural dwellers. 2. Re-focus on the plight of economy of African states. Broaden the roles of the architects, thereby becoming proficient not only as designers but largely gaining understanding of the allied professionals in the building industry (Odeleye, 1991).
Armed with this communique, and going by the fundamental quality it holds, on the 8-9 March, 1991, the Commonwealth Association of Architects, in collaboration with the Congress of Heads of Schools of Architecture in the African Region, organised another conference to drive home the resolution reached at the 1988 symposium. At the conference Arc Mbanefo, the president of Nigerian Institute of Architects, urged the conference to critically concentrate on three major points of the 1988 communique.
The meeting also reviewed among others that there is definitely need for change in the training of Architects in Africa to produce the right calibre manpower for Africa’s architectural needs. Consequently, the conference agreed to revisit the drawing boards and redesign appropriate direction of architectural education for Africa. The design was to consider the socio-economic, cultural environment of the region in the design. This is aimed at making them more versatile, more relevant and responsive to the changing needs of the changing environment.
This would in turn enable them to play and keep his role as the head of the building team (Odeleye, 1991). GLOBALISATION AND NIGERIAN ECONOMY The state of African economy where the GDP is fast dwindling at a disturbing rate with the average per capital income for the 53 African states cumulating at about $800 per head in 1980 and at crashing down to about $350 per head in 2003 is most pathetic. In Nigeria specifically, in 1980, the per capital income was $2,400, while in 2003, it is about $350. This however does not reflect the experience in European and American countries.
In Germany for instance, in 1980, they had $20,000 per head, but in 2003, it shot up to about $32,000 per head. While the per capital income of the developed world have continue to double, African income per head has nose-dived by 80% making the African poorer and poorer in 2003 than as rich in 1980 (Aluko, 2001). The worst scenario is that in 1986, there were terrific moves by the IMF/World Bank to convince the then Nigerian military government into adopting their Structural Adjustment Program. This move eventually succeeded and thus the beginning of Nigeria’s greatest economic calamity.
Marketing Boards were disbanded; public enterprises were deregulated, government intervention in the economy became discredited, monetary and fiscal policies of government were relaxed, and the free trade economy was imbibed. This resulted in the immediate crash in the economy of Nigerian cocoa from about 400,000 tons a year in 1986 to 150,000 tons in 2000. The production of cotton, groundnuts, hides and skin, rubber, and palm produce decreased to between 25% and 35% of the 1986. Coal production was also affected with this development. The production of coal fell from 360,000 tons in 1980 to 19,000 tons in 2000.
Per capita income of Nigerians fell from $760 per annum in 1985 to $360 in 2000. Food imports replaced food exports. The value of the naira, Nigeria’s currency, crashed heavily from N1=$1 in 1985, to N115=$1 today, at the Central Bank exchange rate. All these culminated in the Nigerian currency upturn which began and grew since 1985, to become N140=$1 today (Aluko, 2001; Daramola, 2004) The IMF/WorldBank and their Western sponsors have now stated, with the approval of Nigeria’s monetary sector, that the naira is even over-valued at the existing rate of exchange.
The IMF has targeted the naira at N550=$1 as its real market rate of exchange. Nigerian biggest challenge is their inability to identify food from poison. African countries are noted to remain a “follower continent” and unless it rediscovers itself, its faith and independence shall be anchored on the western world (Aluko, 2001). The much talked about foreign debt hanging on Nigeria started at independence in 1960 rising intractably to $1 billion in 1979, up to $33. 2 billion in 1990 and still growing to 435 billion in 2000. It is worth mentioning that Nigeria actually borrowed about $17. 5 billion.
Nevertheless, ignorantly between 1979 and 2001, it has repaid a total sum of $33 billion and still owing $35 billion. Today, Nigeria debt has risen to about 80% of our GDP. The process of globalization creates multiplicity of linkages and interconnectivities across the global space, brought about this arrangement. International organizations like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation (WTO) have constantly exerted increasing measure of influences on inter-state relations. There are increasing inter boundary influences through the socio-political governance institutions of most nations.
The WTO set-up was so domineering that most developing nations have absolutely no saying in policy decisions. For example, the WTO regular staff membership consists of about 151 French, 78 British, 27 Canadians, 24, Americans, 41, Spanish and 34 Swiss. On the other hand, it has 1 Nigerian, 3 Ghanaian, 1 Kenyan, 1 South African, 2 Nicaraguan, 2 Malaysians, 1 Ivorian, 1 Ethiopian and 1 Cameroonian. From this allocation, it is clear that there are more prospects for the developed nations in WTO than the under developed nations (Aremu, 2003). Globalization has incontestably created new market economy.
New markets for various economic actors within the globe have emerged. It however, has equally brought about increased competition between them at the detriment of the many weaker nations. Many governments in the developing countries have been forced to lower protective barriers. This has reduced opportunities for direct and indirect support for domestic products, while stronger international policy harmonization and integration are on the increase. One important factor to note about the WTO was that it was put in place in 1995 as a replacement of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariff (GATT).
It is a new set of binding commitments on member sates irrespective of their economic development. The IMF was established in July 1944, after the 2nd War world. Its objectives were basically to control the global economy by lessening the degree of disequilibrium in International Balance of Payment (BOP) of its members. While IMF does not have a direct control over internal economic policies of its member, it is however to be overseeing their policies and exchange rates. With the establishment of the International Bank, the Bretton Woods created the World Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD).
This is the largest and most predominant public development institution in the world today. It exerts pressures on several aspects of global policies. In the 1950s, the World Bank focused on public sector development programmes where power stations projects, road construction and other transport investments were much in favour of the institution’s lending structures. In the 1960s, attention was on lending towards farming, education, population control and urban development. This era saw the establishment of the International Development Agency (IDA).
With the IDA, loans are raised through subscriptions from rich nations and lent out to least developed countries (countries with per capital income less than $300). Borrowers of such funds are given about 50 years to repay. In year 2000, the World Bank lent $19. 5 billion to clients’ countries. However, with the rising discomfort amongst the developed and underdeveloped member nations resulting in the collapse of the trade talks in Cancun, Mexico in 2003, there are serious feelings that all is not well at all (Aremu, 2003). GLOBALISATION AND ARCHITECTURE
Globalisation culture has little or no provision for indigenous ideas. In fact, it aims at competing critically with whatever products or culture that is prevailing in the home countries. Globalisation is not meant to be friendly, rather it is an aggressive free world of the survival of the fittest. It has no human face. Exposing the nation’s destiny to full global world would end up in neo-colonisation. It is our opinion that the inability to carry out the use of other options of building materials is simply because of the extensive acceptance of cement as the only binding material for building components.
Stabilised bricks have the capacity of reducing the cost of building by 40%. Yet, it is yet to be popular simply because the training of architects only refers to the use of cement and its products. Most curricula of building components and method hardly emphasise the use of stabilised bricks and yet this is the most relevant technology affordable to majority of Nigerian populace. Projecting from a research conducted by (Awotona, 1983), it was discovered that in Lagos, the centre of Nigeria excellence, only 42. 3% of the residential buildings could be considered as good based on the minimum building standards. 7. 4% are described as ‘fair’ while 40. 3 are ‘bad’. This is a clear indication of the true position of things today. The Nigerian population growth rate of about 3. 5%/annum is particularly very high. Most disturbing is the inequality in the growth of this population, as many of the major urban centres have doubled their population within the past three decades, while the rural population are continuously depleted. It is on record that the federal capital of Nigeria, Abuja is the fastest growing city in the world. This simply implies that the city is fast developing into an urban slum.
There is no corresponding growth in infrastructures and physical developments thus creating more urban challenges. These are some of the peculiarity in Nigerian situation that requires peculiar architectural training. Nigerian cities and urban centres are growing phenomenally in area and population without planned direction due to the strain and stress of urbanisation and modernisation. This is reflected in the colossal deficiencies in housing, growth of urban slum, congestion of traffic, concentration of industries, social disorders and economic distress to mention but a few (Olateru-Olagbegi, 1982, Daramola, 2004).
At present, the architecture schools in developing Africa suffer a great deal from lack of indigenous curriculum development. There is an excessive reliance on the foreign standards and materials. Most textbooks are foreign and lack empirical indigenous interpretation. This further alienated the students as most of the text cannot possibly be experienced on site. Contemporaryresearch should form an important and integral part of planning education and the training of physical planners. Core focus should be on the interaction between urbanisation and society.
In order to have a meaningful built environment, African architectural training must fully understand the behavioural consequences of design (Uji, 1991). Generally, over the years the peoples of developing countries of most third world countries have evolved distinct styles of forms of their dwelling units in accordance with the values and requirements which are mostly formulated by the culture and tradition, based on the predominant skill, technology and materials, (Rapoport, 1969). By the mid of 20th century, changes in the socio-economic cum political life were eminent.
This is necessitated by the granting of political independence from the colonialists. This development brought about corresponding changes in physical and industrial development which invariably required specialised scientific and skilled manpower in most fields. However, regardless of the political independence of most African states, the newly established schools of architecture had to depend largely on the curricula of foreign schools and thus produced architects whose orientation are facsimile of the foreign ones.
It is clear that this elitist orientation cannot go too far as it has further alienated the designers from the users. It is a common thing to discover that in most cases, the designer does not have a full understanding of the peculiarity of the users. This development has caused more harm than solving any. Awotona (1987) in his first reaction to this phenomenon, stated that both the architects and other environmental designers in Nigeria qualified either in Europe and North America or under an European biased curriculum here at home and have thus traditionally looked to the West for guidance and approval of all the steps taken.
It was then not unusual to have design imported from Western countries regardless of their level of technical inappropriateness, architectural, misplacement, and economic invalidity. This series of designs that were imported were located strategically in our mega cities and thus began the seed of our architectural discordance. There are evidences that most clients do not readily know their needs (Uji, 1991, Daramola, 2002).
They rely on the designers for guidance, and where such designer’s orientation is strange to the indigenous state of the environment, there is a design crisis. The word indigenous does not necessarily mean local, rather it has to do with the immediate habitat where the users live. The volatile nature of what constitutes needs of a particular set of people as a function of economic and social environment. The challenge before us in this millennium according to Adeyemi (2000), is not globalisation, rather on what legacy of architecture are we bequeathing o the coming generations? An architecture truly deriving from our cultural past and heritage, with distinctive national character, or an international biased architecture best suitable for the very few elites with the antecedent cry of tormenting our already dwindled foreign reserve? There is indeed no better time than now for Nigerian and indeed African architects developed a holistic review of the entire practice vis a vis the components of practice as well as the ingredients of construction.
There are indeed many abuses on our practice today. It is a very common phenomenon that most of our cities today can boast of wonderfully designed and built skyscrapers while the hinterland can not boast of simple built and locally finished houses Adeyemi (2000) queried? Daramola, (2005) was of the opinion that the level of bastardisation is gradually penetrating the rural set-up with the alienating foreign design concept that has no bearing with the village architecture.
Awotona (1987) went further in his analysis that the overall consequence of this undue pre-occupation with visual order and the aesthetic of the spatial environment in the Western sense is that we are now gradually abandoning our local ways of life, specific needs and local ways of doing things. This has led to destruction of the positive features of the traditional patterns. The appropriateness of the courtyard system within the context of a tropical climate, form the integral part of our domestic architecture.
As a private space, one identifies with it; while as a personal, it helps to compensate for the anonymity and stress of urbanism. In complete contrast to this, is the now-fashionable blocks of flats and the public, impersonal open space in the housing estates development. This began the journey that polluted the sanctities of our village architectural heritage. The infiltration was very slow, but effective. Today these western design and construction technology have pervaded the streets of Nigeria towns that up till almost half a century after independence, the country still operate a BS (British Standard).
This has grossly affected the popularity and development of local building materials like the stabilized earth bricks, adobe etc. CONCLUSION Finally, it is our suggestion that globalisation should not be the major emphasis in architectural education; rather we should evolve indigenous curricula, while the foreign curricula act as a spring board for a leap into unexplored depths, within our socio-cultural and political economic terrain. Nigerian curricula should not be seen as local but be encouraged for further development through the emphasis on the indigenous architectural grammar, (Uji, 1991).
Housing standards in any country is a product of the building technology as well as the available economic resources to execute it. It is an aberration to specify utopian standards that are far ahead of the current level of technology. Standard are set up on a gradual level in view of the gradual rate of development and growth. Social values placed on housing will in turn influence its standard. Experience in Nigeria affirmed that the current housing standards currently in place as officially adopted, are hardly relevant to the existing reality in Nigeria.
This is largely because the building regulation standards were first enacted at the beginning of the twentieth century under the protectorate of the British officials and traders (Awotona, 1982). According to Geary, (1965), the unwritten reasoning behind the standard set for domestic buildings during the colonial era was clearly a European standard lifted from Europe. It was aimed first at preventing the European from being bitten by mosquitoes, secondly, to eradicate mosquitoes completely and thirdly to segregate Europeans to such a distance from infected natives.
At such standards, the cost of building a house became practically expensive beyond the resources of 85% of Nigerians, and thus became practically impossible to meet the standards. As usual the people broke the standards and resulted to illegal construction. In agreement with Adeyemi, (2000) emphasis should be laid on the crystallization of variations of concepts and ideas to reflect our past to research and re-identify the lost glory. Variations derived from traditional culture would be more authentic and long lasting than variations arising from official fiats or imposed conditions and concepts.
This is a way of requesting Nigerian architects to be inward looking in search for more rewarding challenges to help the society. Revisionism is the base of all social, political economic and even cultural activities. This paper agrees generally that the training of architects in Nigerian Schools of Architecture should also be refocused. Community development initiatives should be a new priority. Training of Nigerian architects should now focus on services rather than financial gain. Imbibe the spirit of teamwork rather than individualistic orientation.
It should be emphasised that Nigerian Schools of Architecture should produce versatile graduates for the job market. Modern materials and technology should be used to create architecture indigenous to the environment. Use of wood, stone, laterite and other similar materials so that relevant local character can be discernible. The advantages globalisation especially in the areas of electronic mail (E??? Mail) and Internet facilities as well as AutoCAD packages to facilitate faster and effective ways to present design concepts and co-ordinate with other professionals far away without being physically present is highly credible.
With wider and versatile use of the computer the Architect can work as an analyst, 3D presenter, furniture developer, hospital specialist, Architectural historian, interior designer, landscape designer, urban designer. The latest version of AutoCAD series released in 2005, include Autodesk Revit Series 8 Edu, Autodesk VIZ 20006 EDU, Autodesk MapGuide 6. 5, Autodesk Inventor Professional 10 EDU and Autodesk Land Desktop 2006 EDU among others. These versions are quite expensive but relevant to keeping the students up to date in the Auto world.
Never the less, this paper concludes that Globalisation should not be given a blanket acceptance in architectural education curriculum in Nigeria. It must be tailored towards the core objectives of the peculiar needs of Nigerians. REFERENCES Adeyemi, A. E. (2000) Lest we Forget, Association of Architectural Educator Journal (AARCHES) Vol. 1 No 5 Aluko, Sam, (2003) Conflicts and Economic Development in Africa, The Schiller Institute, New Bretton Woods panel of the Bad Schwalbach conference, UK Aluko, Sam, (2001) Peace through Development: The Nigerian Perspective,
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