ABSTRACT
What I do see is a new voice coming out of Africa, speaking of African experience in a world-wide language.
The campus of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Nigeria, the fi rst phase of which was built in the years 1962-76, presents one of the most interesting examples of modernist architecture in Africa (Figure 1). As a case study of a large-scale national commission that acquired specifi c regional signifi cance as well, the OAU campus provides important perspectives when discussing the assimilation of the modernist style in post-colonial Africa. Its design is intriguing also due to the fact that it was built by Israeli architect Arieh Sharon (1900-84), aided by his son, Eldar Sharon (1933-94). Arieh Sharon, one of the most important fi gures in the history of Israeli architecture, was a graduate of the Bauhaus school in Dessau, and became a leading exponent of the International Style in Israel/Palestine from the mid-1930s onwards.
