There are striking differences between state buildings in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire and in how citizens living in each country’s capital city think and talk about them. In this article, we explore the degree to which these buildings illustrate very different ideas of statehood in West Africa. We draw on art theories from West Africa to argue that architectural aesthetics rest on juxtapositions of beauty and the sublime and we suggest ways these help establish state meaning. We then apply our aesthetic approach to citizens’ evaluations of their state buildings in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire and illustrate how differently the approach plays out, in Ghana where the state emerges as acclimatized and relatively robust and in Côte d’Ivoire where the state emerges as idealized and fragile.

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国家美学和国家意义：加纳和科特迪瓦的政治建筑

加纳和科特迪瓦的国家建筑以及居住在两国首都的公民对它们的看法和谈论方式存在显着差异。在本文中，我们探讨了这些建筑在何种程度上说明了西非非常不同的建国理念。我们借鉴西非的艺术理论来论证建筑美学建立在美与崇高的并列之上，我们提出了这些有助于建立国家意义的方法。然后，我们将我们的美学方法应用于公民对其在加纳和科特迪瓦的国家建筑的评估，并说明这种方法在加纳的表现有多么不同，在加纳，国家出现了适应环境并相对稳健，而在科特迪瓦，国家出现了显得理想化和脆弱。