Abstract:

This essay theorizes the architectural history of Ghana’s National Theatre Movement as the material instantiation of national culture. By attending to the architectural trajectory of the national theatre, it explores how the burgeoning state used the edifice to construct a national identity both rooted in a cultural past and representative of their aspirations for a national future by mobilizing the Indigenous concept of Sankofa. The essay focuses on the evolution of the theatre building during three separate periods in Ghana’s history: the pre-independence era, under Kwame Nkrumah’s leadership, and the Jerry John Rawlings presidential era. A close consideration of questions like who led the architectural conversation and who designed, constructed, and funded the theatre building during each respective time period offers a case study of the process by which (post)colonial ideology gets spatially inscribed onto the national terrain. As Sankofa transforms from an abstract cultural symbol to an actualized and grounded national site, its manifestation in the material environment is shaped, challenged, done, and undone by the nation’s fluctuating relationship to the larger global community.

摘要：

本文将加纳国家戏剧运动的建筑历史理论化为民族文化的物质实例。通过关注国家剧院的建筑轨迹，它探索了新兴国家如何利用这座建筑通过动员桑科法的土著概念来构建一个植根于文化过去并代表他们对国家未来愿望的民族认同. 这篇文章重点介绍了加纳历史上三个不同时期剧院建筑的演变：独立前时期，在夸梅·恩克鲁玛的领导下，以及杰里·约翰·罗林斯总统时期。仔细考虑谁领导了建筑对话以及谁在各个时期设计、建造和资助了剧院建筑等问题，提供了（后）殖民意识形态在空间上铭刻在国家领土上的过程的案例研究。随着桑科法从一个抽象的文化符号转变为一个现实的和扎根的国家遗址，它在物质环境中的表现被国家与更大的全球社区的波动关系所塑造、挑战、完成和破坏。