Status and Mimicry: African Colonial Period Architecture in Coastal Ghana

Status and Mimicry: African Colonial Period Architecture in Coastal Ghana looks at Anomabo, a historically significant port, as a case study to examine hybrid African colonial period architecture in coastal Ghana, formerly known as the Gold Coast Colony. Between the 1870s and 1920s, numerous residences with façades inspired by British styles were built for and by Africans in Anomabo. Courtnay Micots examines these houses as reflections of a deliberately constructed hybrid style of architecture with exteriors appropriated from the Italianate and Queen Anne styles of nineteenth-century England and interior plans utilizing borrowed and local elements. This hybrid architecture in colonial Ghana reflects status, modernity, and resistance to British hegemony. Through close analysis of five residences and the potential motivations of their patrons, Micots shows these houses to be markers of selfhood and cultural belonging, local forms that were refashioned to counter the growing authority of the British administration.