Representation and Materialization of Architecture and Space in Zimbabwe: Between National Icons and Dispositifs 303147760X, 9783031477607

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Langtone Maunganidze

Representation and Materialization of Architecture and Space in Zimbabwe Between National Icons and Dispositifs

Representation and Materialization of Architecture and Space in Zimbabwe

Langtone Maunganidze

Representation and Materialization of Architecture and Space in Zimbabwe Between National Icons and Dispositifs

Langtone Maunganidze Faculty of Social Sciences Midlands State University Gweru, Zimbabwe

ISBN 978-3-031-47760-7    ISBN 978-3-031-47761-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47761-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

To my departed parents and all veterans of the Zimbabwe liberation struggle.

Acknowledgements

The development of the research idea and the book, my first single authored in the field of architectural sociology, could not have been successful without the support of DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) and Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability (SMUS), which facilitated my research stay at Technische Universitat (TU), Institute of Sociology (IfS), Berlin, Germany, in 2021. The series of workshops, public lectures and academic excursions to selected historic German towns inspired me to begin working on a book project focusing on architecture and space in Africa in general, and Zimbabwe in particular. I am grateful to colleagues at various SMUS partner institutions across the world for their encouragement and informal comments on some selected topics and themes throughout my writing journey. I remain greatly indebted to the Department of National Museums and Monuments in Zimbabwe (NMMZ) for granting me the research permit. The department personnel mainly curators, ethnographers and archaeologists, librarians and tour guides at different museums and heritage sites visited, were very welcoming and helpful in many respects. I also pay tribute to colleagues at the Midlands State University for the moral support and academic guidance throughout the project. My sincere gratitude goes to the editorial and publishing team at Springer/ Palgrave for the professional management of the process from the initial proposal submission to manuscript production. Finally, I wish to thank my dear wife, Omega, and children for the encouragement and moral support throughout the research and the subsequent writing process.

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Contents

1

Setting the Tone��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������     1 Take-Off ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������     1 Theoretical Mapping��������������������������������������������������������������������������������     7 Methodological Terrain����������������������������������������������������������������������������    10 Motivation and Justification��������������������������������������������������������������������    12 Layout of the Book����������������������������������������������������������������������������������    12 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    14

2

 Framing Iconic Architecture: Context and Dimensions����������������������   19 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    19 Iconic and Historic Architecture��������������������������������������������������������������    20 The Power of Architecture and Architecture of Power����������������������������    25 Between Iconicity and Elitism ����������������������������������������������������������������    27 Iconic Architecture and Non-elite Publics ����������������������������������������������    28 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    30 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    30

3

 Materiality, Architectural Re-figuration and Identity��������������������������   33 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    33 Architectural and Spatial Re-figuration: Place Naming and Name Making������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    34 Architecture and Identity ������������������������������������������������������������������������    38 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    42 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    42

4

 Museums, Monuments and Statues: A Critical Review ����������������������   45 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    45 The Great Zimbabwe ������������������������������������������������������������������������������    48 The Zimbabwe Bird: “Sovereign” Architecture��������������������������������������    50 The National Heroes’ Acre: The “Bridge” That Connects and Separates ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    53 Statues and Inscriptions of Identities ������������������������������������������������������    59 Community Museums and Monuments ��������������������������������������������������    63 ix

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Contents

Illusion of Collective Memorialization����������������������������������������������������    65 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    68 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    69 5

 Deconstructing Iconic and Historicist State Buildings ����������������������    73 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    73 State Personality and Architectural Representation��������������������������������    74 Decolonial Toponyms and Spatial Re-figuration ������������������������������������    77 The Post-modern Turn ����������������������������������������������������������������������������    80 Accessibility Enhancement����������������������������������������������������������������������    86 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    88 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    89

6

 Inside Indigeneity and Iconicity: The African Traditional Hut��������    93 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    93 Framing African Traditional Hut ������������������������������������������������������������    95 The Many Faces of the Hut����������������������������������������������������������������������   100 Materiality and Identity Formation����������������������������������������������������������   102 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   104 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   105

7

 Urban Informality: Sponsored or Agentive Materialization? ����������   107 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   107 Framing “Autogestive Informality” ��������������������������������������������������������   112 Methodological Orientation ��������������������������������������������������������������������   114 Drivers of Urban Informality ������������������������������������������������������������������   115 Discourses of Political Survival ��������������������������������������������������������������   117 State Fragility and Institutionalized Corruption��������������������������������������   118 Sponsored or Agentive Informality����������������������������������������������������������   120 Wicked and Fungible Materialization������������������������������������������������������   121 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   123 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   123

8

Gender, Architecture and Space ����������������������������������������������������������   127 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   127 Gendering Architecture and Space: The Connections ����������������������������   128 Gendered Representation and Materialization����������������������������������������   129 Women, Architecture and Space��������������������������������������������������������������   133 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   135 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   135

9

Reflection and Conclusion��������������������������������������������������������������������   137 Overview��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   137 Chapter Snippets��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   138 Representation, Materialization and Power: The Intersections���������������   140 Revisiting the Iconograghy-Dispositif Debate����������������������������������������   142 Conceptual Reflection and Research Implications����������������������������������   145 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   146

Index����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   149

About the Author

Langtone Maunganidze  holds a PhD in Sociology obtained from the University of Zimbabwe. He is an advanced researcher and senior faculty member at the Midlands State University in Zimbabwe and a visiting scholar at the Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability (GCSMUS), at Technische Universitat (TU) in Berlin, Germany. Dr. Maunganidze’s experience in advanced degree supervision and thesis examination has taken him to numerous universities in Africa. His teaching and research interest areas include Architectural Sociology, Corporate Citizenship, Society and Digital Media, Industrial Sociology and Spatial Methods, and has published numerous academic pieces mainly book chapters and journal pieces within the scope of the stated interest areas. He has also co-edited a widely read text: Corporate Citizenship:  Business and Society in Botswana,  Palgrave, Macmillan (2021).

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Abbreviations and Acronyms

ATR BSACo BWP CBD CDA ED ESAP FRELIMO GZ KG6 KICC MDC MPs NHA NMMZ NGOs OPC RBZ SDG ZANLA ZANU ZANUPF ZAOGA ZAPU ZCTU ZIPRA UNESCO USA

African Traditional Religion British South African Company Botswana Pula Central Business District Critical Discourse Analysis Emmerson Dambudzo Economic Structural Adjustment Programme Mozambique Liberation Front (Frente de Libertacao Mocambique) Great Zimbabwe King George V1 Kenya International Conference Centre Movement for Democratic Change Members of Parliament National Heroes’ Acre National Museums and Monuments Non-Governmental Organisations Office of the President and Cabinet Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Sustainable Development Goal Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army Zimbabwe African National Union Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front Zimbabwe Assemblies of God Africa Zimbabwe African People’s Union Zimbabwe Congress of Trades Union Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization United States of America

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List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 2.3 Fig. 2.4

Great Zimbabwe��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   22 Old Post Office, Bulawayo���������������������������������������������������������������   23 Cecil House, Harare��������������������������������������������������������������������������   24 The Residency, Harare����������������������������������������������������������������������   24

Fig. 3.1 Unchanged “1 Union Avenue”, Harare���������������������������������������������   36 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4 Fig. 4.5 Fig. 4.6 Fig. 4.7 Fig. 4.8

The Zimbabwe Bird portrait�������������������������������������������������������������   50 Flag of Rhodesia (1968–1979)����������������������������������������������������������   51 Zimbabwe Rhodesia Flag (1979–1980)��������������������������������������������   51 Independent Zimbabwe Flag (1980–…)�������������������������������������������   52 Colonial coat of arms (1924–1979)��������������������������������������������������   52 Post-colonial coat of arms�����������������������������������������������������������������   53 National Heroes’ Acre monument, Harare (western view)���������������   54 Aerial view of Heroes’ Acre overlooking Warren Park residential area, Harare���������������������������������������������������������������������   54 Fig. 4.9a Commemorative Statue at the National Heroes Acre�����������������������   55 Fig. 4.9b The Statue of Late former Vice President, Joshua Nkomo, Bulawayo������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   61 Fig. 4.9c Statue of Mbuya Nehanda (to the left in sky blue colour is part of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe), Harare��������������������������   62 Fig. 5.1 Munhumutapa Building, located along Samora Machel Avenue����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   78 Fig. 5.2 Old Parliament (former Cecil Hotel) – main entrance����������������������   79 Fig. 5.3 R.G. Mugabe International Airport (Harare)������������������������������������   81 Fig. 5.4 New Look Zimbabwe Parliament, Mt. Hampden�����������������������������   82 Fig. 5.5 Left: Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (Harare) entrance along Samora Machel Avenue, Right: Part of South View�������������������������   82 Fig. 5.6 Kaguvi Building Plaque, Harare�������������������������������������������������������   86 Fig. 6.1 Early Iron Age huts���������������������������������������������������������������������������   94 Fig. 6.2 Iqhugwana hut (pre-moderm ndebele hut)����������������������������������������   96 xv

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Fig. 6.3 Fig. 6.4 Fig. 6.5 Fig. 6.6 Fig. 6.7

List of Figures

Decorated kitchen hut�����������������������������������������������������������������������   97 Traditional pole and dagga kitchen hut���������������������������������������������   97 Traditional pole and dagga kitchen hut���������������������������������������������   98 Traditional grain storage hut�������������������������������������������������������������   99 The modern brick/stone kitchen hut�������������������������������������������������   99

Fig. 7.1 An informal settlement in Harare�����������������������������������������������������  108 Fig. 7.2 A bulldozer destroys an illegal/irregular house built on state land��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  108 Fig. 7.3 Partly demolished illegal structure����������������������������������������������������  109

List of Tables

Table 3.1 Colonial and post-colonial names in Harare����������������������������������   35 Table 3.2 New names in Bulawayo, 2020������������������������������������������������������   37 Table 3.3 Colonial and post-­colonial town names�����������������������������������������   41 Table 8.1 List of national heroines (1980–2022)�������������������������������������������  131

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Chapter 1

Setting the Tone

Take-Off The nature of interaction between humankind and the natural environment is often reflected by the way the built environment and spaces are appropriated and materialized to satisfy various societal and individual needs per given time. From the early Iron Age’s vernacular architectural and artistic products, and spaces to the contemporary period, both archaeological and ethnographic repositories demonstrate the extent to which empires, states, communities and individuals have persistently used architecture and space to serve both collective and parochial economic and political interests. Thus, it is not difficult to see the society’s structural and organizational transformations through the built environment. Architecture constructs identities and at the same time destroying others. Histories and stories of the past are (re)told to both succeeding generations, tourists and researchers through different modes of architectural representation and spatial re-figuration. Architectural products symbolize and communicate a given society’s identity, or group’s supremacy and conquest over others. Therefore, monuments and buildings can actually reflect state personalities and at the same time representing a particular group’s connection with the past. There are still buildings and statues in our midst constructed to commemorate knighted figures particularly under the imperial and fascist Europe and racist colonial Africa. In the same vein, after the fall of those political regimes and establishments, architecture that served as stark, iconic reminders of the sacrifices made by those who led the resistance were either constructed or renamed after the new heroes. Thus, with the advent of political independence in Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular, more indigenous and sovereign architecture and spaces were anticipated to replace the imperial and colonial ones. The historical dialectic between the social and spatial has been a subject of fervent interrogation by many design and architectural scholars. At a global level, there has been abundant research focusing on the various dimensions and processes of the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. Maunganidze, Representation and Materialization of Architecture and Space in Zimbabwe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47761-4_1

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1  Setting the Tone

interface between architecture and space, and in particular, the ways in which these have come about as part of a repertoire of political and cultural symbols. However, these have been largely within the realm of the disciplines of archaeology, history and human geography especially in an African context. In spite of this,  body of knowledge considering the political and cultural mobilization of architecture and spaces from a social sciences perspective also exist (Backovic & Masirevic, 2010; Borer, 2013; Cihanger, 2018; Jasper, 2017; Jones, 2006, 2011, 2020; Lang, 2013; Low, 2003, 2009; Vellinga, 2017). Most of these were building on earlier studies (Goss, 1988; Lasswell, 2017; Mallgrave, 1985; McGuire & Schiffer, 1983; Nesbitt, 1996; Vale, 1992), which attempted to theorize and intimate on representation, appropriation and materialization of the built environment for both national identity formation and hegemonic purposes. However, such works especially focusing on Zimbabwean architecture from pre-modern to contemporary period, to the best of my knowledge, have not received sufficient sociological interrogation. The ideas informing the book chapters have been strongly attracted to Archer’s (2005) and Jones’ (2011) thinking that the central task of a sociology of architecture should include situating architectural practice, and the objectified results of that practice within the politico-economic conditions that give rise to it. In addition, the subtle and intimate relations between built space and human existence and in particular the mediating role of power in the production of self, culture and society are also part of sociological investigation. This makes the book a timely intervention for both scholarship and practice in the field of architecture and space. Buoyed by critical anthropological and sociological ideas, the book seeks not to just explain the various architectural and spatial appropriative practices by different actors but rather to unravel the forms of power and potential resistance that exist. By doing so, the hope is not just to understand the interface between space and society in general but to demonstrate how architectural and spatial re-figurations can also serve as liberation and transformative technologies and artefacts for identity constructions. Globally, architecture and space have historically served as mediating agents and “soft technologies” for constructing and reconstructing power relations and national identities (Jones, 2011; Lefebvre, 2001; Moore & Wilson, 2013; Zieleniec, 2018). In particular, iconic architecture by way of heritage and historic state buildings and related built environment, streets and institutions facilitate the building of collective identities because of its ability to shape perceptions, values and actions. However, buildings and spaces can also shape and engender control over people (Bauman, 1976, cited in Dawson, 2016, p.  21). Architecture, in this sense, is no different from other forms of cultural production that produce and reproduce racial inequality, e.g., filmmaking (Erigha, 2018, cited in. Fu, 2021, p. 2). Thus, this book explores how the various forms of architectural and spatial appropriation and re-figuration in Zimbabwe have been mobilized in the (re)construction of identities and ideologies. Although a large chunk of illustrations in this book is drawn from the urban built environment and space fields, the dynamics of rural-­ urban interconnectedness motivate for the occasional and spasmodic inclusion of rural and peri-urban illustrations.

Take-Off

3

Architectural representation encompasses the means used to describe architectural entities (Castelo-Branco et al., 2022). Architectural representation is a discipline and a set of creations resulting from the architectural practice, which includes sketches, drawings, photographs, digital models, and physical models, among other artefacts (Scheer, 2014, cited in Castelo-Branco et al., 2022, p. 528). These artefacts are the most effective means we have to communicate to others since apart from communication; architectural representation serves other purposes, including organizing thought, making choices or understanding design constraints (Christensen, 2019). Representation pertains to the set of conventional means of conception and communication available to architectural design. Drawings and models refer to objects and materials in the real world, while simultaneously acting as design media and platforms for discourse (Norell, 2022). Representation in a societal context connotes something that shapes a wider audience‘s understanding of an issue of political significance, such as identity, gender, and ethnicity (ibid., p.  91). This book attempts to demonstrate how power moderates the interplay and tension between representation and materialization of architecture and spaces from the ancient to post-modern/digital times. The different forms and practices of representation through symbols, artefacts and technologies determine materiality and vice versa. In this book, the state determines the form and timing of representation and materialization. As Jones (2020) argued, the state mobilizes architecture relative to narratives of time. It has the power to “kill and resurrect” personalities and their histories. Through various institutions such as commissions of historicist buildings and monuments, the state and their architects sought actively to create cultural pasts; these political discourses were used to explore and gain authority over the political present (Jones, 2020, p. 62). The main argument weaving through the book is that over the years the different representation and materialization of architecture by individuals, groups, and the state particularly in cities and towns have been symptomatic of vacillation between two forms: national icons for constructing collective identities and dispositives (dispositifs-­Foucault’s concept for apparatus) of power and control. The deployment of the concept of “apparatus” to represent the dominant ideological and repressive ways used by state is also attributed to ideas of critical theorists such as Althusser, Deleuze, Foucault and Agamben. This is not a new phenomenon in both architectural literature and practice though. At a global level, history is replete with abundant evidence of “iconic” architecture in the form of statues that have ended up serving as propaganda apparati and symbols or signatures of power and supremacy. Notable examples include the communist and fascist Europe in particular the semiotic visual iconicity in Leninist “monumental” propaganda (Kruk, 2008), Roman portrait sculpture dating back to the Constantinian period (Trentinella, 2003) and Hitler’s propaganda art in the Nazi Germany (von Beyme, 1991; Sauquet, 2014), where architecture was de-immortalized when regimes collapsed with the coming of democracy. In the Leninist example, the subsequent change of political leadership resulted in damnatio memoriae—the destruction of visual images of political leaders from the previous regime. Leninist monumental propaganda perpetuated the Neoplatonist artistic tradition of the Russian Orthodox Church, which meant there

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1  Setting the Tone

was no clear distinction between the iconic sign and its referent (Kruk, 2008, p. 1). Africa has not been spared from such experience given its centuries of forced engagement with imperial Europe under both colonialism and apartheid Afrikaner regimes. However, in spite of such history, post-colonial architectural designs have continued to symbolize the veneration of authoritarian and monarchical tendencies. There has been also the temptation of repressive totalitarianism (Peterson, 2020), culture of personalization and sacralization (Mazrui, 1967, as cited in Maunganidze, 2017) and saffronization (Nayaran, 2006) of past and present political leaders. A survey of notable mausoleums (burial sites) belonging to former African Presidents namely Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park in Accra (Ghana), Jomo Kenyatta Park in Nairobi, Laurent-Desire Kabila in Kinshasa (DRC) and Julius Mwalimu Nyerere typifies classic sacralization of leaders. Apart from mausoleums, statuary and portraiture have been widely received as a memorializing apparati especially “monuments and statues”. In the case of Zimbabwe, one of the most visible acts of sacralization of leadership has been the treatment of the State President’s portrait by both state institutions and corporate community. It has become a prerequisite or “signature” office architecture representing the state president as an omnipresent and omniscient figure and essentially reduced to Bentham’s panoptic (Foucault, 1977). Other countries like Botswana have even extended this by inscribing former presidents (living or dead) onto the national currency namely 10-pula note (BWP10.00). From an African perspective, all these symbolize collective historic preservation of iconographical bridges connecting the people to their common past. Hence, on attainment of her independence in 1980, Zimbabwe immediately immortalized political icons who led the fight against colonialism namely George Silundika, Herbert Chitepo, Leopold Takawira and Josiah Tongogara, and pan– African luminaries such as Julius Mwalimu Nyerere (Tanzania), Samora Machel (Mozambique), Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia), Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana) and Nelson Mandela (South Africa). This did not only entail the renaming of cityscapes and state architecture in their honour but also mimicking some of their socialist ideas in the formulation of post-independent policies. However, this book acknowledges that these and many other cases of the place making and name making through immortalization of architecture and spaces have not necessarily been an art of propaganda but also authentic forms of building national identity and pride, as a response to calls for a decolonizing agenda and reclamation of national heritage. Over the years, African architecture and spaces have been subjected to different forms of appropriation and materialization with significant impact on individual and collective identities. In particular, its forced engagement with colonial powers left legacies of multi-layered iconic, elitist and totalitarian inscriptions on the continent. According to Jones (2011, p. 2) from the point of view of states, the promise of architecture lies in its potential to meaningfully connect citizens into political projects through material forms of buildings, which can resonate sufficiently with lived social experience. All interventions that are undertaken in the name of historical accuracy necessarily mean appropriation and alienation (Jenkins, 2005; Vinken, 2019). Attaching significance to an architectural object is not the product of a “natural” process in which collective symbols are deciphered. Rather, it is structured

Take-Off

5

upon meanings attributed to the buildings by agents of power; architects, politicians and any public figures who produce and reproduce what Geertz (1983) termed “local knowledge” (Yacobi, 2004). The process of constructing identities limits citizen power and participatory democracy (Albert, 2016; Tonnelat, 2010). Architectural appropriation and materialization tend to marginalize others such as women, children and minority ethnic groups. Of particular importance in this book are the gendered dimensions of the identity (re)constructions mediating the interface between the spatial and social to which a chapter has been fully dedicated. There are many faces to architectural representation and materialization leading to multiple spatial re-figurations. Consequently, the book has dedicated a full chapter to a discussion on “Urban Informality” as a discursive construction of architectural appropriation. Anchored on Henri Lefebvre’s autogestion thesis, it considers the emergence of irregular housing patterns and illegal structures in the city or peri-­ urban environs both sponsored and agential, and demonstrates how this discursively represented the limits of power. This is an example of non-state actors seeking to mobilize urban space and culture to produce surplus value capitalizing on the linkages between certain regimes of accumulation such as those associated with urban regeneration and the form and meanings attached to architecture (Jones, 2011). For example, the illegal occupation of urban spaces by informal traders in the cities represents a regime of both economic and political survival. Informality has grown out of the participation of “interested parties” with their multiple, varied and even contradictory interests (Banks et al., 2020; Lefebvre, 1992). Urban autogestion can create a new form of citizenship and democracy in the city. Residents continue to operate in organized clusters within irregular or shadow party structures. This agrees with Lefebvre’s argument that autogestion can serve to resist homogenization, and thus produce differential space at a variety of scales (Brenner & Elden, 2009). The chapter acknowledges the connections between the urban spatial re-figurations and fulfilment of sustainable development goals particularly SDG# 11: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. There are numerous definitions of architecture across literature. In spite of this, the book takes off with the one borrowed from Lawrence and Low (1990, cited in Smith & Bugni, 2006, p. 124); in which architecture comprises buildings such as office buildings, prisons, and bounded spaces, streets, and statuary and sculptural objects, monuments and shrines and many elements that are part of architectural design. This corroborates Fu’s (2021) characterization of architecture as one that refers to both the process of building structures and the material and cultural form of buildings Architecture can be represented by various binaries or dichotomies such as the ordinary/iconic, traditional/modern; modern/post-modern; colonial/post-­ colonial; indigenous/exotic; private/public; local/foreign (international), elite/egalitarian and hedonic/utilitarian. The aspect of distinctive binaries is consistent with structuralism. However, in practice, the distinctions are often blurred and the hyphen not suggesting any mechanistic connection and separation but based on form, function, time and space. Since this book mainly considers the dynamics of appropriation and materialization of iconic architecture and space, a take-off definition and parameterization will be helpful to readers. Iconic architecture and spaces have also

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been conceptualized by Atto’s (2009) as one with design assumptions and aesthetics reflecting uniqueness and historical achievements of nations regarded as forming a cultural identity and representing pride of nations. This resonates with Jones (2011) argument that architecture is a “discourse”, in as much as it is a form and set of practices through which social meanings are communicated and visions of the social world sustained. Iconic architecture transcends time and space in that whether in pre-modern or modern times and local or international levels its style remains unique and powerful. While architecture can be viewed as a mode of collective existence of societies (Delitz, 2017) it is also a symbol of both historic preservation and reconstruction of power and control. Thus, architecture is a field of symbolic conflicts over power and identity. It has also been used by elites to “flag” the nation and “discursively construct” identities (Jones, 2011). Thus, such architecture is “historicist” (Jones, 2020) for its ability to connect to the past. Societies have historically constituted and transformed themselves through architectural practices and symbolism. Architectural design is also a social and political process characterized by compromises and trade-offs regarding its production, use and maintenance (Lefebvre, 1991; McGuire & Schiffer, 1983). Architecture is therefore a political activity. It is not neutral or devoid of symbolic charge (Jones, 2006). As earlier observed by Beck (1998, p.  115), “architecture is politics with bricks and mortar”. As Goss (1988) intimated, “a buildings is an object of material culture…invested with ideology, and the space within, around, and between buildings is both produced and producing” (p. 392). It is also important to understand if architects and designers are free from political influence. Drawing from selected cases involving state buildings and monuments, this book reveals how the state through the built environment attempts to make its political activity culturally and economically resonant. The study that informed the book sought to examine the extent of representation and materialization of architecture and spaces in Zimbabwe, from the pre-modern to the contemporary period. In particular, the study considered how architectural products have been mobilized for collective identity formation and at the same time serving as apparatus of power and control. Specific questions that guided the study include • What are the different patterns and processes of iconic architectural products and spaces in Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular? • To what extent does the representation and appropriation of architecture and spaces during colonial period influenced the post-colonial patterns and processes? • How have the above processes been influenced by the Western or Asian approaches? • To what extent have the ancient and vernacular architecture been embedded into the modern forms? • How have the iconic architectural discourses in Zimbabwe been constructed and disseminated? • What roles do different actors play in the representation and materialization of architectural products and spaces?

Theoretical Mapping

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• What have been the reactions of non-state actors to the various forms of materialization and appropriation? • What are the relations of power in terms of gender, ideological and political and the underlying processes of attaching identities and rights to materialization of urban architecture and spaces? • How have the different forms of materialization of architectural products influenced identity formation?

Theoretical Mapping The book frames the representation and materialization of architecture within two theoretical strands: normative structuralism (or functionalism) and critical post-­ structuralism. In line with the normative structuralism architectural products represented and materialized as symbols of national pride and identity and considered stabilizing instruments. Under this paradigm, historicist buildings are regarded iconographic bridges that connect pasts to the present while at the same time acting as sites of unity, solidarity and symbols of national pride and collective identity. For example, liberation war monuments and museums serve as a prime mechanism for expressing and consolidating a consensual national identity (Simko, 2020). They attempt to “stabilize and sediment” the meanings of a historical event and its influence on other social and political processes (Wagner-Pacifici, 2017, cited in Simko, 2020, p. 57). Iconic architecture assumes a universalizing and homogenizing role serving collective interests of both the powerful and ordinary citizens. Memorialization of traumatic events such as the Rhodesian regime’s air raids and bombings of Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) and Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) refugee and guerrilla military training camps at Chimoio and Mukushi in neighbouring Mozambique and Zambia respectively, leave indelible marks upon group consciousness and tend to unify citizens particularly direct victims. Consistent with normative structuralism, architecture was expected to subordinate itself to the force-relations between an ensemble of discourses by institutions, politics and economics (Lee, 2011). The spatial structures are apprehended not only as invariant but also as complex patterns of relationships (Söderqvist, 2011). Individuals do not change them. Consequently, buildings and statues enhance collective identity formation and historic preservation. These effectively influence the form and dynamics of representation and materialization. Within structuralism, buildings, streets and public spaces perform a functionalist role of communicative signs and symbols and not controlled by any individuals. Thus, structuralism suggests that architecture is not ideologically laden. The built environment represents the ideas and structure of the society that creates it (Fu, 2021). As Crotty (2003), maintained structuralism posited a fixed relationship between the signifier and the signified. Thus from a structural functionalist perspective, the affinity between those who led and fought in the liberation struggle exemplifies a natural and intimate connection between society and space. Since the past

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was a shared one, architecture was expected to frame communication between society and space. “The societal function of architecture is thus to order and adapt society via the continuous provision and innovation of the built environment as a system of frames” (Schumacher, 2012, cited in Haddad, 2022, p. 2). Similarly, the representation and materialization of historic architecture namely the National Heroes Acre (NHA) and African Liberation Museum, serve as referent point for collective consciousness and connection with the spirit world, memorialization and national identity formation. They represent the symbiotic connection between space and society depicting the significance of nature and environment to the African people’s cosmology. Structuralism looks for decisive shaping factors in structural forms discoverable within society or the unconscious or both (Crotty, 2003). The aesthetic and instrumental aspects of a building were embraced by a single ontology according to which matter was “informed” and values were considered permanent across time, and transmittable from generation to the other (Moustafa, 1988). On the other end, representation and materialization of architecture and space are considered from a critical post-structuralism perspective, guided by a combination of Michel Foucault’s ideas on power and Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction thesis. The inspiration of post-structuralism is evident in the ideas of many of the scholars engaged and who have considered built environment as a technology and artefact or signature of power (Hökerberg, 2018) or propaganda (Lasswell, 2017; Sauquet, 2014). Thus, architecture functions as a techné, apparatus, apparel or “dispositive” (dispositif) (as coined by Foucault, 1977, 1980). According to Foucault (1980, as cited in Lee, 2011, p. 8), dispositif is “a thoroughly heterogeneous ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural forms, administrative measures, philosophical and philanthropic propositions and provides a means of justifying or masking a practice which itself remains silent”. A dispositif is “a set of practices and mechanisms … that aim to face an urgent need and to obtain an effect that is … immediate” (Foucault, 1980, cited in Lee, 2011, p.  4). Individuals and groups deploying dispositive seek to influence behaviours that support their agenda, be it knowledge production or political attitudes. From a Foucauldian approach, power is implicated in the process of legitimating knowledge. Relations of power circulate within discourse and in this way particular knowledge and meanings come to be normalized and considered legitimate over excluded others (Foucault, 1977, p. 199). Architecture demonstrates power by controlling architectural symbols and manipulating the structures used to envisage the world (Glenn, 2003). In Agamben’s own definition, the dispositif or apparatus is “literally anything that has in some way the capacity to capture, orient, determine, intercept, model, control, or secure the gestures, behaviors, opinions, or discourses of living beings” (Agamben, 2000, cited in Lee, 2016, p.14). Falling within the realm of the post-structural paradigm (Burrell & Morgan, 1979, 1992), the data analysis on which this book is based followed a deconstructive analytical framework, strongly influenced by critical social thinkers such as Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. According to Tošić (2017), Derrida’s deconstruction was a way of thinking which constantly examines the nature and possibilities of meaning. Consequently, the only solution for deconstruction in architecture is

Theoretical Mapping

9

continuous, and always open project (Jencks, 1988). Deconstruction brings into question a traditional attitude in architecture, and if it is about for example, function, deconstruction does not deny it, but takes away its priority (Tošić, 2017). Through examining the priority of a function of a building, one can conclude that it could be determined also during the design process, because the building’s aesthetics also conveys the meaning. The function is not superior to the form, but it is integrated into the essence of the building. Actors deconstruct architecture differently. Ordinary citizens are forced to experience and interact with various state-sponsored statuary and portraiture whose design process they are not aware of. The reading of elites and local publics of the architecture can be oppositional. Design values and perceptions of architecture as read by ruling elites and their sponsored architects do not tally with those of the public because architects often emphasize the aesthetic, while the ruling elites on behalf of state are often interested in the political values and the ordinary citizens’ focus on the utilitarian dimension. The assessment of the public follows the existential reality, which they experience (Bianco, 2017). For instance, while the Great Zimbabwe (GZ) stone works and soapstone birds were an amazing attraction to European explorers they were largely spiritual to the locals. Perhaps this explain why governments and architects tend to focus more on “star” architecture (symbols of power and supremacy) than affordable housing for the urban poor, neglecting living realities, values, and perceptions of the public (ibid, p. 98). This argument can best account for the position of some state buildings and monuments commissioned across the country which have become reified and alienated. Many of them have become “Big Man tools” rather than “People’s icons”. Deconstruction focuses on revealing the hidden power relations underlying the symbiosis between appropriative practices and symbols within the realm of culture, gender and politics. Therefore, the pursuit of collective memorialization and heritagization becomes a utopian. Assessing architecture from this perspective reveals that the literal and symbolic construction of landmark buildings is located within wider cultural and political discourses (Jones, 2011, 2020). The study also explored how architecture has become a special language and a mobilizing tool in the dissemination of particular political messages and the ways in which it legitimatizes the processes of constructing and transforming architectural designs and spaces in the interests of agenda-setting and giving space to dominant narratives. Throughout the book, with the exception of the African traditional kitchen hut and local museums, the form and function of architecture and space were largely a product of the ruling elites. The voices of the ordinary citizens who are ideally the primary users have remained marginalized. Managing the memories of different communities and reinterpreting them at the local level to suit the logic of a particular political group is an oft-observed phenomenon in the ongoing political processes (Nayaran, 2006, p. 4695). Consequently, truth or reality becomes a socio-linguistic artefact where justification lies in the discursive hegemony that is culturally specific to a “form” of life (Johnson & Duberley, 2003). Thus, deconstruction uncovers the other meanings denied and concealed by the dominating language (Han & Kuchinke, 2009). Consistent with Derridian and Foucauldian thinking, architecture and spaces are viewed as a text requiring deconstruction. The

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influence of architecture as an artefact of power was part of the language games in which it is a mediator. “Power is itself a generator of reality and meaning. It produces domains of objects and rituals of truth” (Sarup, 1993, cited in Crotty, 2003, p. 205). For example, the phenomena of urban informality and place naming semiotic and discursive constructions transform architecture and spaces into either authoritative or hegemonic pieces. With reference to urban informality, I have borrowed Michael Foucault’s ideas on Lefebvre’s thesis and approach the relationship of power and space by positing architecture as a political technology to bolster the interests of the state through spatial canalization of everyday life. Co-production of space transfers the control over the production of space to the inhabitants of lived pace and the producers of differential space (Wolf & Mahaffey, 2016, p. 62). There are also other cases in this book where language represents a specific materiality to suit appropriate contingencies: when colonial explorers and visitors first encountered the ancient stone architecture at Great Zimbabwe, Khami, Nyanga and Mapungubwe monuments, they labelled them “ruins” to signify a deserted and not owned by anyone around. In fact, this was reinforced by their belief that the Shona who lived there before could not have been capable of constructing such amazing and “genius” pieces. Perhaps this explains why the Zimbabwean Bird became materialized as crest to the coat of arms by both the racist and capitalist colonial state, and the post-colonial system. Realizing the cultural and spiritual significance of the sites to Zimbabwean people, the post-colonial state recognized these works and commissioned them as “monuments”. In spite of this, many visitors and locals continue to refer to the monuments as ruins. Similarly, the decision to rename cities and related cityscapes was not just part of semantic displacement and political rhetoric but also a declarative statement to communicate and confirm the decolonization agenda towards the making of sovereignty and nationhood.

Methodological Terrain The chapters in this book are dedicated to demonstrating the various representation and appropriative practices of architecture and spaces starting from the pre-modern to post-modern, and their mobilization and materialization for identity formation and serving as state-led instruments for legitimizing power and control. Urban architecture and space have historically been constant sites of struggles, accommodation and confluence of multiplicity. Thus, throughout the research and writing of the book, particular attention was paid to the multi-temporal and pluriversal forms of architectural representation and materialization and the concomitant spatial re-­figurations. Consequently, a multidimensional methodology was deployed. For example, the relative plasticity of the agents, their experiences and the consequent social constructions of the significance of architectural products mainly the iconic GZ stonework and its associated sculpture, National Heroes’ Acre, state-buildings and state-led statues, called for a methodological triangulation beyond the decolonization imperative essentially anchored on a coloniality/post-coloniality binary. Similarly, with respect to

Methodological Terrain

11

urban informality, it was important to move from methodological purism to “prism”, a triangulation of theories and methods, in order to have a better understanding of the relationships between socio-spatial constructions and the production of informal settlements. Methodologies that bridge the standard formal-­informal dualism facilitate better understanding of the dynamics of “place making” in the informal settlements (Friedman, 2007, cited in Lombard, 2014). To meet the aim of deconstructing how both the state and non-state actors mobilized various “land-mark” architecture and spaces, the study combined multi-case study, historiography and (spatial) design ethnography. According to Blomberg (1993) and Genzuk (2003) (both cited in Cihanger, 2018, p. 61), design ethnography provides an insightful analysis of the relationship between people and the physical environment. In the main, the study specifically followed a qualitative research approach that relied mainly on archival ethnographical, historiographical, archaeological records dating back to Stone Age and survey of available publications, complimented by direct observations, pictography, print media reports, and snippets of author’s lived experiences. Major cityscapes namely, the capital Harare and the second largest city, Bulawayo, the historic Masvingo town and the Great Zimbabwe Monument, community-based museums and their environs were purposively selected. Convenient sampling strategy guided purposive site visits, direct observation and pictography at selected monuments, historicist buildings, statues, city avenues and streets. Key informants that included curators and tour guides located at the selected museums and monuments were selected through both purposive and convenient self-selection availability techniques. For purposes of accessing national museums and monuments, the research adhered to ethically informed protocols, facilitated by a research permit granted by the relevant government department. Fieldwork occurred between September 2022 and August 2023. Although the permit facilitated easy access to selected state buildings, museums and monuments, and cityscapes, entry and gaining consent from key informants and tour guides required some negotiation. The potential bias of archaeological records, documentary survey and archival ethnography particularly in the light of the historically polarized and partisan archiving practices in the country was mitigated by triangulating diverse media sources with site visits, direct observations and published pictography. During visits to the selected museums and monuments I followed Decker and McKinlay’s (2021) advice to prioritize accounts that were informal, close in time and place, and relatively uncensored yet more difficult to interpret than the polished accounts found in memoirs, speeches, and histories. Since the study focused on architecture and spaces already in public domain, the actual names and locations of historicist buildings, places and spaces, iconic figures and personalities such as heroes of the liberation war served as referent points in the development of the book. All sources of published material such as photos and pictures in books, periodicals and newspapers have been acknowledged within the text and reference list. It is my conviction that declaration of own positionality and standpoint with respect to the research and subsequent development of the book could benefit readers. My experiential past as a citizen and permanent resident in the study setting especially during and after the war of liberation, and as an academic and researcher greater part of my adult life, provided me a useful template to reflect on each of the

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architectural products in the book. The war of liberation in Zimbabwe in mid-­ twentieth century (second Chimurenga beginning in the early1960s), is central to the positioning of representation and materialization of architecture and space, and thus deserves special mention since all collective memorialization and heritagization are predicated on it. Equally important, my own philosophical orientation as a critical social scientist, although flexible and receptive to alternatives of other disciplines, as evidenced by numerous publications in the form of books and chapters, and journal pieces on related themes, has largely motivated the conduct of the research and subsequent development this book.

Motivation and Justification The concern for revealing the underlying power relations inherent in the cultural and political strategies employed by both states and other political regimes has long been the focus of critical sociologists and other social sciences (Archer, 2005; Brenner, 2002; Heynen, 2012; Jones, 2011, 2020; Nayaran, 2006; Yacobi, 2004). However, attempts at problematizing the link between the social and spatial especially in the context of Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular have not attracted much scholarly attention. Although in the Zimbabwean context a few scholars mainly archaeologists and historians (Huffman & Vogel, 1991; Pikirayi, 2006, 2013; Thorp, 2009) have considered the connections between society and space, there has not been much attention paid to addressing epistemological (and ontological) issues within the realm of architectural sociology. Furthermore, an approach that cuts across seemingly unrelated disciplines such as the built environment and sociology is likely to be novel in the local context. Interrogating the patterns and processes of representation, appropriation and materialization of architecture and spaces in Zimbabwe is significant for both architectural scholarship and practice given the growing need for trans-disciplinary knowledge transfers needed to support interventions addressing twenty-first-century development challenges. In particular, underplaying the role played by the social and political production and use of urban architecture and spaces by both state institutions and individuals has the potential to undermine the achievement of United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) #11: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. Overall, the book serves as a useful reference point to both theory and practice in the sociology of architecture and space.

Layout of the Book The book chapters are systematically structured and based on a combination of conceptual papers and themes developed out of the research process. While the book focuses primarily on state-controlled urban architectural products and spaces,

Layout of the Book

13

a chapter is dedicated to the African vernacular and traditional kitchen hut, mainly found in the countryside, but remaining an icon in both the urban and rural spaces. The first chapter provides a take-off tone by introducing the paucity of the research on which the book is based and establishing the importance of the topic in the field of sociology of architecture and space. It also provides the synopsis of the theoretical and methodological issues. Chapter 2 is a conceptual and contextual mapping of iconic architecture. It briefly considers the available literature and contextual setting of iconic architecture in Zimbabwe while juxtaposing it with the global and African perspectives. Chapter 3 revisits the main theme weaving through the book by specifically reflecting on the debates surrounding the issue of architecture and spaces as discursive constructions and spatial re-figuration. It also analyses the place of power and language in mediating the architectural materialization and spatial re-­ figuration in the city. The remaining chapters, while occasionally conceptual, represent the findings of the study in the form of selected cases of iconic architecture. Chapter 4, primarily anchored on pictography, archival ethnography, archaeological survey and available literature, examines museums and monuments particularly as symbols of nationhood, collective memorialization and sacralization artefacts. It specifically considers the National Heroes Acre (NHA), Great Zimbabwe Monuments (GZ) and community museums, associated historicist portraiture and statuary such as Zimbabwe Bird, Joshua Nkomo and Mbuya Nehanda. Drawing on theoretical debates initiated in the first three chapters, Chap. 5 discusses patterns and processes of representation and materialization of iconic and historicist state-­ owned and/or controlled buildings which are home mainly to critical government ministries and departments, central bank, parliament and airport. Although some of the state buildings dating back to colonial era may arguably fit the characterization of totalitarian apparati, their material and symbolic existence has not been entirely for such purposes. Since the state is the custodian of symbols and artefacts of nationhood and statehood and attempts particularly by successive post-colonial governments there have been attempts at meeting such expectations through massive countrywide infrastructural development. Therefore, the chapter argues that state buildings in post-colonial era were a symbol of decolonizing agenda and to some extent hegemonic apparati. Chapter 6 considers the iconic African traditional kitchen hut. This appears an odd one out in a book dominated by state-led architecture and spaces. A chapter has been dedicated to this vernacular architectural piece because of its connectedness and widely revered influence on the designs of other iconic architecture in this book. It is a symbol of indigeneity and traditional planning heritage, reflecting a strong link between space, nature and space. In Chap. 7, the book slightly digresses from the conventional functionalist categorization of architectural and spatial appropriation and materialization to a post-structuralist one, with a focus on urban spaces particularly the (re)-production and maintenance of urban informality. With reference to selected urban informal settlements drawn from the capital, Harare, the chapter examines spatial re-figuration created by residents’ anarchistic tendencies of occupying urban and peri-urban spaces following unplanned and irregular means. It observes that the practices were largely a product of systematic representation and materialization for both economic and political

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expedience. Overall, it submits that urban informality benefited both elites and the subalterns. The process and pattern of informality also steadily vacillated between the agential and exogenous influences. Chapter 8 considers the gendered dimensions of architectural appropriation and materialization. The book dedicates an independent chapter to gender issues because they are both an object and product of dynamics weaving through the connection between architecture and spaces, and society. The book closes in Chap. 9 with a reflection on the main findings and arguments of each of main chapters focusing on the connections between materiality, space and society. In this final chapter, I acknowledge that attempts at narrowing the gap between the two discursive representations of architecture as iconographies and dispositives (dispositifs); that is, architecture and spaces as symbols of collective identity and solidarity on one end and apparatuses of power and control on the other, could be a futile project. Rather architectural appropriation and materialization are multi-dimensional and pluriversal. Architecture and spaces from medieval to post-­ modern forms and functions have been multi-fold and remained sites of struggle and contestations, containing varied components of both iconographic and dispositivist materialization.

References Albert, V. (2016). Citizens, sovereignty, and the state: The limits to citizen power: Participatory democracy and the entanglements of the state. Pluto Press. Archer, J. (2005). Social theory of space: Architecture and the production of self, culture and society. Journal of Society of Architectural Historians, 64(4), 430–433. Atto, F. N. S. (2009). Sovereign architecture: The enigma of power in the age of globalization. The Global Studies Journal, 9, 1–19. Backovic, V., & Masirevic, L. (2010). Social theory and architecture. UDK Brojevi, SAJ, 2, 227–238. Banks, N., Lombard, M., & Mitlin, D. (2020). Urban informality as a site of critical analysis. The Journal of Development Studies, 56(2), 223–238. Beck, U. (1998). Democracy without enemies. Polity Press. Bianco, L. (2017). Architecture, values and perception: Between rhetoric and reality. Frontiers of Architectural Research, 7, 92–99. Borer, M. I. (2013). Being in the city: The sociology of urban experiences. Sociology Compass, 7(11), 965–983. Brenner, N. (2002). State theory in the political conjuncture: Henry Lefebvre’s “comments on a new state”. Antipode, 33(5), 783–808. Brenner, N., & Elden, S. (2009). Henry Lefebvre on state, space and territory. International Political Sociology, 3, 353–377. Burrell, G., & Morgan, G. (1979). Sociological paradigms and organisational analysis. Heinemann Educational Books Ltd. Burrell, G., & Morgan, G. (1992). Sociological paradigms and organisational analysis: Elements of the corporate life. Ashgate. Castelo-Branco, R., Caetano, I., & Leitão, A. (2022). Digital representation methods: The case of algorithmic design. Frontiers of Architectural Research, 11(3), 527–541. Christensen, B. T. (2019). Advancing an understanding of design cognition and design metacognition: Progress and prospects. Design Studies, 65, 35–59.

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Lombard, M. (2014). Constructing ordinary places: Place making in urban informal settlements in Mexico. Progress in Planning, 94, 1–53. Low, S. M. (2003). Embodied spaces: Anthropological theories of body, space, and culture. Space and Culture, 6(1), 9–18. Low, S.  M. (2009). Towards an anthropological theory of space and place. Semiotica, 175(1/4), 21–37. Mallgrave, H. F. (1985). Gustav Klemm and Gottfried Semper: The meeting of ethnological and architectural theory. Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics, 9(Spring), 68–79. Maunganidze, L. (2017). Authoritarian legacy and democratic succession in Zimbabwe. Journal of Public Administration and Development Alternatives, 2(1.1), 64–79. McGuire, R.  H., & Schiffer, M.  B. (1983). A theory of architectural design. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2, 277–303. Moore, S. A., & Wilson, B. B. (2013). Questioning architectural judgement: The problem of codes in the United States. Routledge. Moustafa, A. A. (1988). Architectural representation and meaning: Towards a theory of interpretation. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Nayaran, B. (2006). Memories, saffronising statues and constructing communal politics. Economic and Political Weekly, 41(45), 4695–4701. Nesbitt, K. (1996). Theorizing a new agenda for architecture: An anthology of architecture theory. Princeton Architecture Press. Norell, D. (2022). Cultivating the erratic: Representation and materialization after the digital turn. Thesis for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. Peterson, D. (2020). Africa’s totalitarian temptation: The evolution of autocratic regimes. Lynne Rienner Publishers. Pikirayi, I. (2006). The kingdom, the power and forevermore: Zimbabwe culture in contemporary art and architecture. Journal of Southern African Studies, 32(4), 755–770. https://doi. org/10.1080/03057070600995681 Pikirayi, I. (2013). Stone architects and the development of power in Zimbabwe tradition, AD 1270–1830. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 48(2), 282–300. Sauquet, M. (2014). Propaganda art in Nazi Germany: The revival of classicism. The First-Year Papers (2010–present) (2014). Trinity College Digital Repository. https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/fypapers/51 Simko, C. (2020). Marking time in memorials and museums of terror: Temporality and cultural trauma. Sociological Theory, 38(1), 51–77. Smith, R.  W., & Bugni, V. (2006). Symbolic interaction theory and architecture. Symbolic Interaction, 29(2), 123–155. Söderqvist, L. (2011). Structuralism in architecture: A definition. Journal of Aesthetic and Culture, 3, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.3402/jac.v3i0.5414 Thorp, C. (2009). Excavations at Hlamba Mlonga Hill, Malilangwe Trust, South-Eastern Zimbabwe. Journal of African Archaeology, 7(2), 191–218. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/43135482 Tonnelat, S. (2010). The sociology of urban spaces. In H.  Wang, M.  Savy, & G.  Zhai (Eds.), Territorial evolution and planning solution: Experiences from China and France (pp. 84–92). Atlantis Press. Tošić, J. (2017). Deconstruction in architecture. AM Journal, 12, 99–107. https://doi.org/10.25038/ am.v0i12.170 Trentinella, R. (2003). Roman portrait sculpture: Republican through Constantinian. In Heilbrunn timeline of art history. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vale, L. (1992). Architecture, power and national identity. New Haven, CT Yale University. Vellinga, M. (2017). A conversation with architects: Paul Oliver and the anthropology of shelter. Architectural Theory Review, 21(1), 9–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/1326482 6.2016.1256332

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Chapter 2

Framing Iconic Architecture: Context and Dimensions

Introduction This chapter provides a theoretical and contextual mapping of iconic architecture in Zimbabwe. It further discusses the many faces and dimensions of iconicity while juxtaposing it within the African and global perspectives. The chapter also reviews related literature, largely dominated by Western contributions, and thus making a study of an African case a timely intervention to both scholarship and practice. Over the years, African architecture has been subjected to different forms of appropriation and materialization with significant impact on individual and collective identities. The dominant representation of African architecture is often split into two worlds: the architecture that was imported from Europe as part of the western-­ initiated modernization project and the cultural anthropologists’ romanticized image of the primitivity and nativity (Folkers & van Buiten, 2019). This is also supported by Avermaete and Nuijsink’s (2021) observation that entanglements and interconnections across nations and cultures that have produced a great deal of new architectural products. In particular, the forced engagement with colonial powers left legacies of multi-layered iconic, elitist and totalitarian inscriptions on the continent. From the point of view of states, the promise of architecture is in its potential to meaningfully connect citizens into political projects through material forms of buildings, which can resonate sufficiently with lived social experience (Jones, 2011, p. 2). Urban architecture and space in particular have historically been constant sites of struggles and confluence of multiplicity. Although a significant number of scholars, mainly archaeologists and historians (Chipunza, 1993; Huffman & Vogel, 1991; Mamvura, 2021a, b; Ndlovu, 2017; Pikirayi, 2006; Thorp, 2009) have considered the connection between society and space from a Zimbabwean perspective there has not been many sociological works directly addressing the construction and mobilization of iconic architecture. The chapter extends knowledge on the subject by examining the various motivations and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. Maunganidze, Representation and Materialization of Architecture and Space in Zimbabwe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47761-4_2

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practices of appropriation and materialization of iconic architecture in Zimbabwe. It specifically considers selected ancient, modern and contemporary state-controlled architectural products namely monuments, buildings, statues and cityscapes. However, the chapter purposively excludes church architecture and other non-state-­ sanctioned architecture. It relies mainly on evidence gathered from a triangulation of qualitative research methods namely related literature, pictography, and direct observation, archaeological and archival ethnography. The rest of this chapter is organized as follows; firstly, it presents the “framing of iconic architecture” by providing an overview of the variants of historicist or iconic architecture at both international and Zimbabwean contexts, as traced from the ancient to the contemporary period. Secondly, it provides a discussion based on the domain anchors namely iconic architecture and identity construction, power, iconicity and elitism, collective memorialization and heritagization.

Iconic and Historic Architecture Extant literature is replete with variants of iconic architecture. “Iconic buildings” have extraordinary structures and forms that attract attention, create metaphors, proclaim fame by their dominancy and attract tourists and money to their cities (Uluğ, 2009). Iconic architecture include landmark or event-defining buildings and sculptures functioning as historicist repertoires and symbols of collective memory and mobilized national identity formation (Jones, 2011). Other contemporary scholars have represented iconic architecture in different forms namely “cultural flagship or artefact” (Goss, 1988; Weidenfeld, 2010, cited in Alaily-Mattar et al., 2018, p. 3), “architectural genre” (Jenkins, 2005), “sovereign architecture” (Atto, 2009), “famous and symbolically laden building” (Sklair, 2006; Kaika, 2015), “star building” (Alaily-Mattar et  al., 2018), “propaganda signature” (Lasswell, 2017; Minkenberg, 2014; Sauquet, 2014), “memory dispositive” (Basu, 2011) and “soft technology of power” (Jones, 2011; Lefebvre, 2001; Moore & Wilson, 2013). In spite of the so many definitions, the book is most attracted to the one by Atto (2009), which considers iconic architecture as one with design assumptions and aesthetics, reflecting uniqueness and historical achievements of nations that are regarded as forming cultural identity and representing the pride of nations. This resonates with Jones’ (2011, 2020) and Grinceri’s (2016) characterization of architecture as a “discourse”, a form and set of practices through which social meaning is communicated and visions of the social world are sustained. Iconic architecture transcends time and space in that whether in pre-modern or modern times and local or international levels its style remains unique and powerful. It represents a state of exception and liberation that emerges from a system of principles, which are set by certain institutions and represent the accumulation of related knowledge and hence are powerful themselves (Atto, 2009). In this chapter and later parts of the book, iconic or historicist architecture refers mainly to state buildings (Chap. 5), museums, monuments and statues and sculptures (Chap. 4), and traditional or vernacular architectural

Iconic and Historic Architecture

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designs that are considered symbols of national pride and identity such as the African rural kitchen hut. Iconic architecture’s uniqueness and power lie in its ability to stay outside the norms of “ordinary architecture”, and in its highest form, it often assumes the status of “sovereignty”. Sovereign architecture is defined as a “state of exception attracting a great of adulation and standing as the same to itself. It is pure identity without differentiation. It is pure sameness” (Atto, 2009, p. 7). Although debatable, some examples of historicist and iconic architecture that can be represented as “sovereign” include the Great Zimbabwe monument, the iconic Zimbabwe Bird and the African traditional kitchen hut. In addition, the national heroes’ acre reflects how the liberation war is symbolized and materialized. Generally, iconicity and power co-exist. At an international level striking examples of appropriation of architecture as an expression of power and control include Adolfi Hitler’s gigantism of 1930s Berlin, the neo-classical monuments of Washington DC and Lincoln Memorial, Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, Berlin’s Parliament building (the Reichstag) and Berlaymont Building (home of the European Commission) (Williams, 2019). As Sauquet (2014), observed during the Nazi Germany era, the alliance between art and nationalism was very much strengthened with artists and architects of the time taking pride in their work that included designing and decorating products that supported the Nazi propaganda project. My academic research visit to the Nazi Commemorative Museum and Rally grounds in Nuremberg (Germany), in December 2021, together with lectures attended and historic documentaries reviewed, taught me a lot about the communicative power of propaganda architecture and in particular the role of architects and state-sponsored journalists. The demise of Nazi Germany, British Empire and fascist Italy prompted successive European democratic regimes particularly in Germany to embark on restorative and commemorative architectural transformation. This also illustrates that iconicity is never a permanent state. The representation and materialization of the Berlin Wall “remains” and their related paraphernalia by both the elite and publics is one of the most outstanding evidence in support of this. Architecture can and has been used with political effect by political institutions – especially by nation states (Schumacher, 2012). Without power, architecture can be easily reduced to ordinary brick and mortar. In Africa, the many years of exploitative appropriation and embellishment by both the colonial and post-colonial regimes have left a legacy of architecture that unsteadily vacillates between iconographies and dispositifs. Most examples of iconic and historicist products found include the marvelled medieval citadel of Egypt, the traditional Swazi beehive huts, clay palace of Ghardaïa of Algeria, the aesthetic and modernist Fiat Tagliero of Eritrea, Gambia National Assembly, dozens of multi-million dollar state-funded mausoleums for the many sacralized former state presidents including dictators. There are also iconographical statues of luminary leaders of African resistance to colonialism and apartheid such as that of Jomo Kenyatta in Nairobi, Kenya, Julius Nyerere (Goma, Tanzania) and Nelson Mandela (Pretoria, South Africa). In the Zimbabwean context, such iconic or star architecture can be traced to the ancient medieval monumental stone architecture at Great Zimbabwe (GZ). The modern mighty Birchenough Bridge, built in the 1930s,

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National Heroes’ Acre (1980–81), and the post-modernist towering Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (1993–1996) and the new Zimbabwe Parliament complex (2018–2022), the Joshua Nkomo (2010/2013) and Mbuya Nehanda (2021) statues complete the list of iconic Zimbabwean architecture in contemporary times. Apart from the statues, there are also buildings associated with liberation heritage particularly houses previously owned by national heroes such as Joshua Nkomo’s in Bulawayo and those of Robert Mugabe, Leopold Takawira and Herbert Chitepo in Harare. Such monumental architecture can be widely regarded “iconic bridges” or “symbols of collective” connecting the peoples’ past with the present and at the same time representing national identity and pride (Jones, 2011) (Fig. 2.1). Apart from the above list, there are also historic buildings and spaces some of which have either crumbled into ruins or gone “unrecognized” partly because of their close association with the colonial past and inadequate funding for maintenance and preservation. Historic buildings form an important part of the national collective heritage. According to the NMMZ archival records, architecture categorized as historic was one, which existed pre-1910. For example, in Masvingo (formerly Fort Victoria), the Curfew-Bell Tower currently located next to the High Court remains one of the few legacies of racist political architecture. Archaeological evidence indicates that the Tower was erected in 1892 as a monitoring point to guard the town during the first Chimurenga war and the bell in the tower was rang at 9 pm (2100 h) as a curfew signal to the black people to vacate town premises. In 1937, the then Historical Monument Commission of Rhodesia proclaimed the Tower as the most important building of the Old Fort preserved for posterity. Another historical piece in

Fig. 2.1 Great Zimbabwe. (Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shona. Accessed 29 March 2023)

Iconic and Historic Architecture

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Fig. 2.2  Old Post Office, Bulawayo. (Source: Jack, A.D. 1979. Bulawayo’s changing skyline, 1893–1980. Bulawayo: Books of Zimbabwe Rhodesia)

the Masvingo town is the Italian Chapel (now Chapel of St Francis) located next to the Zimbabwe National Army fourth Brigade Headquarters. It was a British camp of Fort Victoria for Italian soldiers during the Second World War. It is a memorial camp for the dead inmates from the five camps, Kadoma, Mvuma, Bulawayo, Harare and Fort Victoria. Seventy-one cremated prisoners’ corporeal remains still lie inside the chapel, which was now being used for retreat services. In Bulawayo, the old Post Office (Fig. 2.2), Market Square (currently the Bulawayo City Hall), Pioneer House (comer 8th Avenue and Fife Street), the Centenary Park and the Natural History Museum with the statue of Cecil Rhodes mounted at the back, lead the pack. In Harare, these include Harare Mayoral Mansion, World War 1 and 11 Memorial Square, Cecil House located at corner Central Avenue/2nd Street (Fig.  2.3) and “The Residency” (Fig. 2.4), at corner 92 Baines Avenue/2nd Street, both occupied by the Cecil John Rhodes-led British South African Company (BSACo) officials and resident commissioners from 1895 (Jackson, 1986). Although largely considered racist and hardly heralded, the buildings were proclaimed monuments in independent Zimbabwe. The advent of political independence in Africa brought a desire to re-present and recover lost history, memory sand heritage following years of architectural subjugation at the hands of western modernism and imperialism. This form of “arrested development” (Low, 2014) had supplanted the culturally grounded indigenous and vernacular architecture shared by the local and indigenous peoples. In particular, the new Zimbabwe state sought to transform both the built environment and space to reflect national and popular interests as a symbol of independence and preservation of heritage. National identity was closely related to buildings of national importance especially certain types of architecture such as museums and monuments, embassies, world fairs buildings and sports stadia (Jenkins, 2005; Vale, 2008). These are

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Fig. 2.3  Cecil House, Harare

Fig. 2.4  The Residency, Harare

products often designed by the respective indigenous people in their local environment in pre-modern times but becoming symbols of iconicity and national heritage in contemporary times. Over the years, iconic architectural products such as the Zimbabwe Bird have been represented in various forms including serving as crests to national coats of arms, emblems, national flags, and political party rigalia, security features on national identity cards, drivers’ license discs, passports and national currency. However, as argued by Yacobi (2004) attainment of iconicity was not a natural process but “midwifed” by power. Thus some buildings could have become ordinary and unimportant pieces of art had they not been immortalized by

The Power of Architecture and Architecture of Power

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respective regimes. Similarly, built environment and space are also differentially gendered. According to Jabeen (2019), social and political dynamics of gender are traced to a number of representational modes reflected in spatial practice. For example, it is widely believed that the chevron patterns of stone walls at the Great Zimbabwe signified the fertility of the king’s first wife. The book has reserved a chapter on “gender and architecture”, providing supporting evidence on the “gendered” dynamics of iconic architecture using the experiences of design and function of the traditional African hut. This is because space – as it is found, used, occupied and transformed through everyday activities – reflects cultural values and is necessarily gendered (Rendell, 2000).

The Power of Architecture and Architecture of Power Iconic and “star” architects and their “signature” designs have become the contemporary global architectural dialect largely due to the influence of political and capital power (Hökerberg, 2018; Minkenberg, 2014; Peterson, 2020; Pikirayi, 2013; Tuckey, 2021; Zieleniec, 2018). For example, in Europe, when the regimes eventually collapsed, they left a rich architectural legacy, which has remained as an evident and sometimes awkward part of the urban landscape (Hökerberg, 2018). The potential of an architect’s works to become iconic is only realized with the influence of power. In the Zimbabwean context, some of the architecture, which was once iconic under colonial rule, was stripped off that status or strategically neglected at independence and replaced by new symbols of power. The power of iconic architecture comes from its enigma and complexity of symbolism (Jenkins, 2005). The dynamics of architectural products and spaces are subject to the actions of and influenced by ideological and political power (Grinceri, 2016; Lasswell, 2017; Minkenberg, 2014; Vale, 2008; Zieleniec, 2018). Architecture often been called upon to give government buildings an outward expression prone to instil a sense of solemn respect for tradition and authority, or conversely, within contemporary democracies, it is often asked to imbue the institutions of government with a sense of understatement and approachability (Schumacher, 2012). This is why not all creative architecture or work of art, symbolic or otherwise has won the enigma of living iconic architecture (Atto, 2009). Relations of power are embodied in architecture, especially monumental architecture created by political powers. The relationship between power mechanisms and architectural implications is reciprocal. Power permeates every cell of society, thus it can be found in every domain (Taṣci & Ṣalgamcioḡlu, 2022). Leaders use monumental architecture as a means to represent their rule and demonstrate their power. Thus, architecture demonstrates possession of power and the nature of that power (Glenn, 2003). According to Dovey (2009, p. 45), the question is not whether architecture constructs identities and stabilizes meanings, but how and in whose interests? There is a need to disrupt the assumption that “architecture is an unproblematic signifier of national identities”. Architecture on its own cannot offer political direction, or project political alternatives without a powerful external

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stimulation and clear alignment with a specific political position (Schumacher, 2012). The more powerful and dominant groups have consciously edited both the colonial and post-colonial pasts. Those who want to be powerful lean towards monumental history and consider only the major accomplishments and heroes of the past worthy of study (Akcan, 2008, p. 144). Additions and deletions tend to suit the political agenda of the concerned dominant forces. Power operates in the making and recording of history (Trouillot, 2015). This resonates with Glenn’s (2003) characterization of monumental architecture as a part of a “political manifesto” or propaganda strategy. Indeed built environment depicts a leader’s ability to organize and mobilize resources to create a desired effect. In the Zimbabwean context the coming of a new political dispensation following the demise of Robert Mugabe in late 2017 punctuated by massive infrastructural development in the form of new state buildings, road network and airports at both national and regional levels. This supported a new thrust of devolution serving as a radical departure from the previous state-­ centric and authoritarian regime. Thus, it would be inaccurate to reduce all monumental architectural products to dispositives (dispositifs). Commemorative place naming is an administrative and political act, one that is presided over by the politically powerful in charge of creating the symbolic infrastructure of society by deciding historical figures and events that should be honoured (Azaryahu,1996, 2009, cited in Mamvura, 2021a, b, p. 27). As Delitz (2017) and Pikirayi (2013) argue, architecture is not a mere “reflection” or “mirror”, but rather a constitutive and transformative medium of the imaginary institution of society. As argued by some scholars in architectural design (Vale, 2008; Williams, 2019) although some ancient and contemporary cities may have the traditional emblems of the architecture of power this might not have been done in a conscious way. Power is represented in the contemporary city, but in ways that are furtive (Williams, 2019, p. 55). Architecture is a material and symbolic “mode” through which societies and individuals are constituted and transformed. All forms of representation involve the dual relationship between power and knowledge, and their political implications. The awarding of an iconic status to either the built environment or certain individuals is essentially a product of the powerful. According to Glenn (2003, p. 23) “architecture demonstrates power by controlling architectural symbols and manipulating the structures used to envisage the world, leaders create buildings as great symbols of power”. Perhaps front covers of today’s contemporary elementary history books would have been different had some power’ in the past selected to treat some ancient buildings and ruins differently. One would also wonder what would have been the situation today in the possibly remotest acceptance of a hypothesis that the ancient GZ and Khami Ruins could possibly been designed by some aliens and constructed through exploitation of indigenous commoners and to some extent slave labourers. Would today the surviving descendants conserve, preserve or just forget and let them “die in peace”? There is no consensus on whether a particular architectural design or product was a symbol of national identity (Atto, 2009) or “signature of power” (Lasswell, 2017). Identity is dynamic, negotiated and contested. There are also dual and multiple identities namely the urban and rural, national and tribal or ethnic, local and

Between Iconicity and Elitism

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western, elites and non-elites, male and females, old and young generation, political and religious. The architectural reconstruction and related mobilization strategies influence each of the groups differently. Historicist architecture by way of state buildings and related built environment such as statues and monuments can facilitate the building of collective identities because of its ability to shape perceptions, values and actions. Similarly, architecture can be (re)-shaped to engender control over people (Bauman, 1976, cited in Dawson, 2016, p. 21).

Between Iconicity and Elitism This book supports scholars such as Peterson’s (2020) observations that African architecture in general and state-commissioned and sanctioned projects in particular have for many years represented a sense of national pride and sovereignty, but occasionally tempted to become totalitarian and elitist. Series of architectural appropriation and materialization by succeeding regimes have forced architecture to vacillate unsteadily between iconicity and elitism. Scott (2008) and Schijf (2013) agree that elites are often related by positions of power and prestige within institutions and society. Since elites are those with powers to make decisions on which architectural product to be edified and commissioned as a monument, consequently the product is regarded elitist. This is because architecture regarded iconic has also largely become “grand” symbols of elitism and supremacy such as the new look Robert Mugabe International Airport and Parliament complex designed by state-sponsored or aligned architects. As observed by Mamvura (2021a, b) and Jones (2020), the representation of national narratives in the cultural landscape was presided over by political elites wanting to communicate their political ideas to the public. These grand buildings dating back to pre-modern times were constructed at the behest of elites (Berndt, 2007; Pikirayi, 2013). For example, the connection between elites and architectural design can even be traced to the design of the GZ and Khami ruins as fortified medieval kingdoms. According to Shenjere-Nyabezi and Pwiti (2021), excavations at other Zimbabwean cultural heritage sites such as Danangombe (Dhlohlo) showed some power and status differentiation in the production of stone walls and related architectural constructions suggesting location of rulers on hilltops and commoners on the lower landscape. This supports Chirikure et al. (2018) and Pikirayi’s (2013) observations that the process of creating architecture was also a process of creating social and political roles and not necessarily a mere reflection or mirror of society. The nature of social and elite power itself was partially shaped by the temporal act of producing architecture that itself was also a recursive act of human engagement with natural power (Pikirayi, 2013, p. 285). When “iconicity” reaches a state of “sovereignty”, it represents the convergence of individualization and totalization reflecting multiple types of power (Atto, 2009). Various forms of state architecture particularly in capital cities have also assumed the symbol of totalitarian propaganda (Hökerberg, 2018; Peterson, 2020; Sauquet,  2014), expressing or hiding ideological beliefs and political agenda

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(Minkenberg, 2014). In many cases, they have remained strictly protected and alienated from ordinary citizens. For example, the architectural designing, choice of location and construction of state-sanctioned mega-projects such as the state-owned and Chinese-funded new Parliament complex outside Harare have only been in the public domain through spasmodic partisan media coverage. Physical structures are profoundly affected by the purposes, assumptions and identities of those people who plan or change them. Many of these are a significant expression of states’ and ruling elites’ desire both to engage in a politics of recognition and to position themselves relative to pasts and futures. However, designating an architectural product either icon or elite is rarely straightforward; the process is multi-authored and obscure. In particular, the post-modern times characterized by hybridity, complexity, and pluriversality present an opportunity for attending to the concerns and voices of those marginalized and alienated given its philosophy of privileging difference and resistance. All forms of architectural appropriation and materialization generate new dimensions of social relations, which imply complex identities. As argued by Sklair (2006), iconicity cannot be accounted from a solely symbolic perspective but rather the way the capitalist class and institutions have increasingly come to define the times, places and audiences that make buildings and spaces iconic. Similarly, while some iconic architecture may closely fit the elite characterization they can also be authentic symbols of reclamation of lost cultural indigeneity and nationhood. This reflects “the interconnectedness of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of individuals with all living things and with the earth, the star world, and the universe” (Lavallėe, 2009, p. 23, cited in Snow et al., 2016, p. 368). The form of ancient architecture and sculpture around the country symbolizes how society is connected to both nature and space.

Iconic Architecture and Non-elite Publics Studies have also shown that elites (and sub-elites) and ordinary citizens explain and interpret architecture differently. Approaching iconicity from either a structural object-centric or functionalist approach may run the risk of mystifying the social relations that are constitutive “outsiders” of architectural production and the broader political projects they help make meaningful (Jones, 2011; Nayaran, 2006). The world views, values and attitudes of elites and non-elites especially those of architects and ordinary public do not match. Similarly, it would be inaccurate to consider all indigenous non-elites as holding similar views towards the same architectural products. There are differences between and within both the elites and non-elites sub-groups. The interaction between society and space is not neutral, permanent and universal. The value and perceptions of the ordinary citizens may not necessarily match those of the contemporary architects. As Bianco (2017) found in a study in India and Lebanon design values and perceptions of architecture as read by members of the architectural profession did not tally with those of the public. Architects may emphasis on aesthetic while non-architects focus on the utilitarian dimension.

Iconic Architecture and Non-elite Publics

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There is often a clash between monumentalism, which emphasizes tourism, and user and consumption rights for the benefits of the livelihoods of the locals. As also observed by Gallagher et  al. (2021), in selected African countries including Zimbabwe, non-elites may relate to “iconic” state-architecture with acceptance, avoidance and fear, while for elites the same may project political power, express ideology and carry collective memories. The architectural stories, often in “official” narrative portraits, as told by the elites such as politicians, predominantly foreign archaeologists and architects, curators and tour–guides at national museums and monuments are partial recollections of the past and essentially “edited” truths (Power et al., 2011). The stories were not original and not to be treated as original, primary and sacrosanct cultural and narrative constructions (Nayaran, 2006). Key informants such as curators and archaeologists who are also largely elitist tend to disseminate slanted interpretations and so becoming inextricably bound up with the highly politicized context. This presents dilemma for framing research problems given the multiple and conflicting theories and mythologies attached to the historical origins of ancient architecture particularly the Zimbabwe Bird and its ironical immortalization by both the colonial and post-colonial states. Assumption of a consensus with respect to meanings and functions is problematic because while “institutions” like the National Heroes Acre (NHA) and the Parliament have been widely considered symbols of both nationhood and statehood, they have also evoked diverse emotions and experiences in a deeply polarized Zimbabwean polity. There is also no consensus on the meanings attached to nationhood and statehood. A country’s citizens may share the same experiences of nationhood but disagreeing on issues relating to statehood. For example for many years the process of giving individuals a “national hero or heroine status” was largely exclusionary and a pseudo-prerogative of the ruling party elites. This tended to be at variance with what obtained during the colonial era and strangely so given the dominant decolonization narrative under the post-colonial era. Institutions such as the Commission for the Preservation of Natural and Historical Monuments and Relics and the Historical Monuments Commission of Rhodesia managed the recommendation for proclamations. However, in colonial times, these were largely racist. In post-colonial Zimbabwe, the seemingly meticulous and consultative official processes including “nomination assessment and survey reports” were compromised by lack of democracy and transparency particularly during the conferment of a national hero status. This has effectively marginalized and peripheralized many equally disserving citizens. As observed by Schumacher (2012), such forms of democratic deficit places architecture and art at the burden of becoming vehicles of political expression. Over the years, particularly under the Robert Mugabe regime (1980–2017) some well-deserving individuals were not immortalized at the behest of ruling party faction leaders, who had themselves become agents of discursive peripheralization (Plűschke-Altof, 2016) and de-­ commemoration and re-commemoration (Fabiszak & Rubdy, 2021). This has rendered the process largely partisan and not reflective of collective identity. As observed elsewhere by Vinken (2021), even those ruins entering the twilight of their years in “untouched” beauty only become monuments through systematic measures, such as the allocation of a special status.

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Conclusion The chapter has demonstrated how both the colonial and post-colonial regimes systematically “mid-wifed” the appropriation and materialization of architectural products and spaces for identity (de)-formation. The mediating influence of political power in the construction of these “grand” structures has led them to vacillate between iconicity and elitism. The chapter’s observation resonates with that of other scholars elsewhere (Nayaran, 2006; Sweeting, 2016; Williams, 2019) that designing architecture involved something of a bind: a combination of significance, contestability and asymmetry. For example, the relative plasticity of the agents, their experiences and the consequent social constructions of the significance of either the iconic Zimbabwe Ruins or National Heroes’ Acre and related statues in their space call for a methodological triangulation beyond the decolonization imperative that is essentially anchored on a coloniality/post-coloniality binary. The representation and materialization of the “grand” structures in the form of heritage sites and intentional monuments have reduced many of them to memory dispositifs serving to entrench power and control instead of serving as beacons of national identity formation. The role of architecture sometimes aligned with a series of oppressive regimes as an instrument of control and possibly played an exclusionary role. The multi-temporal and multi-dimensional forms of architectural appropriation calls for research agendas extending beyond the traditional decolonizing research imperative.

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Pikirayi, I. (2013). Stone architects and the development of power in Zimbabwe tradition AD 1270–1830. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 48(2), 282–300. Plűschke-Altof, B. (2016). Rural as periphery per se? Unravelling the discursive node. The Social Studies, 2, 11–28. Rendell, J. (2000). Introduction: Gender, space. In J.  Rendell, B.  Penner, & I.  Borden (Eds.), Gender, space, architecture (pp. 101–112). Routledge. Sauquet, M. (2014). “Propaganda art in Nazi Germany: The revival of classicism”. The first-year papers (2010–present). Trinity College Digital Repository. https://digitalrepository.trincoll. edu/fypapers/51 Schijf, H. (2013). Researching elites: Old and new perspectives. In J.  Abbink & T.  Salverda (Eds.), The anthropology of elites (pp.  29–44). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi. org/10.1057/9781137290557_2 Schumacher, P. (2012). The autopoiesis of architecture, volume 2: A new agenda for architecture. Wiley. Scott, J. (2008). Modes of power and the re-conceptualization of elites. The Sociological Review, 56(1), 25–43. Shenjere-Nyabezi, P., & Pwiti, G. (2021). Ancient urban assemblages and complex spatial and socio-political organisation in iron age archaeological sites from southern Africa. In C. Fortes-­ Lima, E. Mtetwa, & C. Schlebusch (Eds.), Africa, the cradle of human diversity (pp. 111–147). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004500228_006 Sklair, L. (2006). Iconic architecture and capitalist globalization. City, 10(1), 21–47. https://doi. org/10.1080/13604810600594613 Snow, K. C., Hays, D. G., Caliwagan, G., et al. (2016). Guiding principles for indigenous research practices. Action Research, 14(4), 357–375. Sweeting, B. (2016). The ethics of ethics and the ethics of architecture. Proceedings of RSD 5 symposium, Toronto. Taṣci, M.  H., & Ṣalgamcioḡlu, M.  E. (2022). Politically in-correct buildings: Transmission of different power attitudes through architecture. Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering, 22(2), 977–994. Thorp, C. (2009). Excavations at Hlamba Mlonga Hill, Malilangwe Trust, south-eastern Zimbabwe. Journal of African Archaeology, 7(2), 191–218. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43135482 Trouillot, M. (2015). Silencing the past: Power and production of history. Beacon Press. Tuckey, E. (2021). A third space: Architecture through a lens of decolonisation. MSc Thesis, Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington. Uluğ, E. (2009, April). Investigating methods in iconic architecture comparison of design methods between iconic and conventional design. Conference: Communicating (by) design. At: Saint-­ Lucas Brussels. Vale, L. (2008). Architecture, power and national identity. Routledge. Vinken, G. (2021). Zones of tradition-places of identity: Cities and their heritage. Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH. Williams, R. J. (2019). Why cities look the way they do. Polity. Yacobi, H. (2004). Form follows metaphors: A critical discourse analysis of the construction of the Israeli supreme court building in Jerusalem. The Journal of Architecture, 9(2), 219–239. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360236042000230215 Zieleniec, A. (2018). Lefebvre’s politics of space: Planning the urban as oeuvre. Urban Planning, 3(3), 5–15.

Chapter 3

Materiality, Architectural Re-figuration and Identity

Introduction urban toponyms act to reify a particular set of political values in the urban landscape and in this way they are instrumental in substantiating the ruling socio-political order and its particular ‘theory of the world’ in the city space. (Azaryahu, 1996, cited in Light & Young, 2018, p. 1)

This chapter positions the running theme of the book as a representation of a wider resurgence of interest in the material aspects of national identity construction and their relationships with the different types of urban and nonurban spaces in Zimbabwe. It revisits the book’s main theme reflecting on the debates surrounding the issue of urban architecture and spaces as discursive constructions. It also analyses the place of power and language in mediating the materialization of architecture. The mediating role played by power and elitism in intertwining architecture and national identities has been widely acknowledged at global level (Alfred & Corntassel, 2005; Dayaratne, 2016; Azaryahu, 1996; Gallagher et al., 2021; Jones, 2011; Lasswell, 2017; von Beyme, 1991). Attaching significance to an architectural object is not the product of a natural process in which collective symbols are deciphered. Rather, it is structured upon meanings attributed to the buildings by agents of power; architects, politicians or public figures who produce and reproduce what Geetz (1983) termed “local knowledge” (Yacobi, 2004). A significant component of high-profile architectural products centres on the “discursive construction” of an appropriate social meaning relative to their material architecture (Wodak et  al., 1999, cited in Jones, 2011, p. 6). In the African context and Zimbabwe in particular, colonial cities have been “laboratories of a colonial power’s representation” (Anderson, 1991) and mimicry of the British modern architectural designs (Micots, 2015). All interventions that are undertaken in the name of historical accuracy necessarily mean appropriation and alienation (Jenkins, 2005; Vinken, 2021). Apart from naming the cities, buildings and streets after immortalized and knighted British personalities such as Queen Victoria, Cecil John Rhodes, David Livingstone, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. Maunganidze, Representation and Materialization of Architecture and Space in Zimbabwe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47761-4_3

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Andrew Fleming and King George V1, architecture in colonies became a mirror image of the European social, religious and political structures. Burial sites such as that of Rhodes, widely regarded “Rhodesia’s founding father”, had become national sanctuaries and places of memory and pilgrimage for Rhodesians (Tredgold, 1968, cited in Fisher, 2010, p. 66). On attainment of political independence from the mid-­ to-­late twentieth century, the decolonization process affected the urban design of capitals much more directly by inspiring new city landscapes as independent nation-­ states regarded architectural reconstruction a mechanism to shore up their rule (Kirkwood, 2013; Vale, 2006). Architectural products such as the towering Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Building, new look Robert Mugabe International Airport and Parliament of Zimbabwe complex represent the role of spectacular “iconic” architecture in rebranding the city of Harare while at the same time communicating to both citizens and outside world the new government’s commitment to transform country’s economy through modernized infrastructural development.

 rchitectural and Spatial Re-figuration: Place Naming A and Name Making Since the colonial era the Zimbabwean architecture has gone through symbolic architectural and spatial “embellishment and reconstruction” (Vinken, 2021). Over the years, state-centric and exclusionary commemorative place naming has characterized both the colonial and post-colonial eras. A striking example is the immortalization of Cecil John Rhodes while being silent about the contribution of King Lobengula to the formation of nationhood and statehood. For example, the Centenary Park (former North Park) in Bulawayo derives its name from the outstanding Rhodes Centenary Exhibition held there in 1953 to mark the centenary of the birth of Cecil John Rhodes (Jack, 1979). This is similar to what Harley (2001, cited in Mamvura, 2021, p.  21) termed “toponymical silence” regarding an all-Shona inscription of commemorative street and building names in the city of Harare under Robert Mugabe’s regime (1980–2017) at the expense of Ndebele religious and political leaders. This is because ruling elites usually control commemorative place naming, ensuring that they select convenient pasts to serve present political purposes. A case in point is the dismantling of colonial place names and removal of Rhodesian monuments by the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANUPF)-led government immediately after attainment of political independence in 1980 and replacing them with those of the heroes of the struggle against colonialism (Fisher, 2010; Mamvura, 2021) (see Table 3.1). Worth noting is the fact that all the new or post-colonial names in Table  3.1 belonged to those who directly participated in the first and second Chimurenga and except Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals and Simon Mazorodze Avenue, both named after the two prominent African medical doctors in honour of their invaluable personal contribution to the struggle for independence. Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals

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Table 3.1  Colonial and post-colonial names in Harare Colonial name Andrew Fleming

Beatrice Road/Stuart Changler Way Baker Avenue

Post-colonial name Samuel Parirenyatwa Hospital Samora Machel Avenue Simon Mazorodze Way Nelson Mandela Way

Charter Street Cecil Square Coghlan Building

Fidel Catro Street Africa Unity Square Chaminuka Building

Earl Grey 1 Earl Grey 2 Hatfield Road Kingsway Crescent

Mukwati Building Kaguvi Building Seke Road Julius Nyerere Way

Manica Road West/ Umtali Milton Building

Robert Mugabe Road

Aliwal Street

Moffat Street North Avenue Pioneer Street Railway Avenue Rhodes Avenue Salisbury Street Union Avenue Victoria Street

Munhumutapa Building Leopold Takawira Street Josiah Tongogara Avenue Kaguvi Street Kenneth Kaunda Avenue Herbert Chitepo Avenue Harare Street Kwame Nkrumah Mbuya Nehanda Street

Commemorative status First black and patriotic Zimbabwean medical doctor African regional iconic leader: founding president of Mozambique Second Chimurenga hero African regional leader: founding president of South Africa Cuban revolutionary leader Pan-African general theme Pre-colonial figure/first Chimurenga hero (nineteenth century revolution hero) First Chimurenga hero Pre-colonial figure/first Chimurenga Pre-colonial figure/first Chimurenga hero African regional leader: founding president of former Tanzania Second Chimurenga hero Pre-colonial figure/first Chimurenga hero Second Chimurenga hero Second Chimurenga hero Pre-colonial figure/first Chimurenga hero African regional leader: founding president of Zambia Second Chimurenga hero Pre-colonial figure Founding president of Ghana Pre-colonial figure (first and second Chimurenga heroine)

Source: Extracted from Government of Zimbabwe, 1983 (cited in Mamvura, 2021, p. 22) and author’s own moderation

(formerly Andrew Fleming, special medical advisor to the BSACo.) was named after Samuel Parirenyatwa, who died in 1962 before the start of the second Chimurenga. He was considered the first black person in the country to qualify as a medical doctor and widely known as a close associate of Joshua Nkomo, then leader of Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) and later former Vice-President of independent Zimbabwe. However, the name changes were not accompanied by similar physical re-figurations. For example, decades after being renamed Kwame Nkrumah, the signpost “1 Union Avenue” remained on the walls (see Fig. 3.1). This

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Fig. 3.1 Unchanged “1 Union Avenue”, Harare. (Photoshoot: Author 4 August 2023)

is attributed either to cost implications or lack of commitment from authorities to enforce name changes as it was the responsibility of property owners. The decolonization of white supremacy and the narrative of national rebirth required a project of mental or imaginative disengagement (Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 1988, p. 90, cited in Fisher, 2010). Although all the changes were supposed to mark freedom from colonial rule at the time of this book’s development, only one building, the Seven Heroes Building in Chinhoyi, referred directly to the liberation/guerrilla war. It is widely believed that the first bullets were shot at “the battle of Sinoia (Chinhoyi)” (Chatambudza & Hove, 2019). It was a small military engagement fought between a small unit of Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) guerrillas and the Rhodesian police force on 28 April 1966. The battle in which all the seven perished is considered the first battle of the Second Chimurenga. The battle site became Mashonaland West Provincial Heroes Acre and commissioned as a site monument by the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe. However, these have not yet been immortalized as individuals and apart from being remembered as national heroes no building or street to the best of my knowledge has been named after any of the seven historic fighters, David Guzuzu, Arthur Maramba, Christopher Chatambudza, Simon Chinoza/Chimboza/Chongosha Nyandoro, Godfrey Manyerenyere, Godwin Dube and Chubby Savanhu, as individuals.  Iconic state architecture resembles technological codes and agents of “soft determinism” and “performativity” demonstrating how systematic power relations that guide architectural production remain in place after construction (Moore & Wilson, 2013). Over the years, the naming and renaming of urban buildings and spaces have transformed ordinary architecture into “landmark buildings”. Practices of place

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naming are infused with relations of power (Berg & Vuolteenaho, 2009, cited in Fabiszak & Rubdy, 2021, p.  1). While the process of renaming state buildings, places and streets in urban areas in Zimbabwe may be consistent with the social justice framework of reclaiming lost indigeneity this has been too overtly politicized and elitist to signify collective consciousness. These parts of built environment have a symbolic association with political projects through the construction of identities and stabilization of meanings (Dovey, 2009; Jones, 2011; Osborne, 2001; Zuvalinyenga, 2020). Place (re)-naming is a form of toponymic cleansing (RoseRedwood et al., 2018) and part of broader processes of landscape cleansing through which the official public landscape of the old regime is unmade through acts of symbolic retribution (Azaryahu, 2011, cited in Light & Young, 2018, p. 185). For example, the new political dispensation that came into place following Robert Mugabe’s departure in 2017 gazetted new street names in cities across the country to honour individuals believed to have been victims of peripheralization by the old regime and representing the desire to complete an unfinished project. For example, new street names in Bulawayo were gazetted through a Statutory Instrument (SI: 167/2020) (cf. Names (Alteration) Amendment of Schedule, Notice, 2020 (Table 3.2). Three observations on the schedule make interesting reading. Firstly, it was unprecedented for a city street not named after a liberation hero or an iconic personality (cf. 8th Avenue to Liberation Legacy Avenue). Secondly, two immortalized women from Matabeleland province made history as city streets were named after them. Fife street and Queens Road were renamed Queen Lozikeyi Street while 5th Avenue became Maria Msika Avenue. Thirdly, the schedule of new names shows an unsteady renaming pattern: roads changing to streets and ways, avenues to ways and Table 3.2  New names in Bulawayo, 2020 Old name 9th Avenue 12th Avenue 6th Avenue up to end of 6th Avenue Extension 8th Avenue 4th Avenue through to 7th Street up to King George 5th Avenue 1st Avenue 10th Avenue 11th Avenue 13th Avenue to include Anthony Taylor Avenue 14th Avenue Connaught Avenue Cecil Avenue continuing up to Wellington Road Fife Street and Queens Road Colenbrander Avenue

New name Simon Muzenda Avenue Joseph Msika Avenue Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa Way Liberation Legacy Way John Landa Avenue Maria Msika Avenue Lazarus Nkala Avenue Nikita Mangena Avenue Daniel Madzimbamuto Avenue Clement Mahachi Road George Nyandoro Avenue Cephas Cele Avenue Albert Nxele Way Queen Lozikeyi Street Lookout Masuku Avenue

Source: Extracted from Statutory Instrument 167 of 2020 (Government of Zimbabwe)

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so on. For example, 4th Avenue became John Landa Nkomo Avenue while 13th Avenue became Clement Mahachi Road. Such discursive (re)-constructions may need further investigation because in their current state they tend to conflate terms that may not represent the same thing in cityscape. Iconicity is derivative since buildings and streets only become iconic when they are historic or event defining and (re)-named after an immortalized individual as determined by the more dominant. Unfortunately, for big cities like Harare and Bulawayo, the previous renaming programmes had left very few roads unnamed. As a consequence, “star” and heroes like President Emmerson Mnangagwa had to settle for just “an extension” on the outskirt of Harare Central Business District (CBD) (formerly Enterprise Road leading into the N1-Harare-Mutoko Highway). Although place renaming represented an early declarative and rhetorical act of identity making by the new Zimbabwe government, there were some notable exceptions such as the iconic world attraction, Victoria Falls, and iconic Birchenough Bridge, which have both kept their names since their discovery and construction in the 1930s respectively. Similarly, while the process of (re)-naming historic places especially within the cities had covered much ground, by the time of writing this book, there were still notable exceptions such as Rowan Martin, the famous Harare Municipality banking hall that have been in use as a banking hall for payment of city property and water bills. There is also the historic Stoddard and Mai Musodzi Halls in Mbare high-density suburb (formerly a black only residential area) which have remained iconic since the colonial period. In addition, few other streets like Cameron and Bank in the southwestern part of Harare CBD had not been altered as at the beginning of 2023. In Bulawayo, striking examples of unaltered historical and colonial buildings include Tredgold Building, named after the former Chief Justice of the colonial Federal Supreme Court of Rhodesia, Sir Robert Tredgold (currently home to the Bulawayo Magistrates Courts) and the Pioneer House, commemorative signpost of the arrival of the British South African Company (BSACo). Another example is the popular and iconic Barbourfields Football Stadium built in the 1950s and named after Mr. HR Barbour former Mayor of colonial Bulawayo, who was believed to have been greatly interested in the welfare of indigenous populations.

Architecture and Identity Identity formation is widely regarded as one of the normative functions of architecture (Mamvura, 2021; Pikirayi, 2013; Sweeting, 2016). Since attainment of political independence many independent African countries have attempted both materially and symbolically to distance themselves from the previous colonial regimes either through de-commemorating colonial iconic architecture or frenetically monumentalizing public spaces by edifying their own heroes of the war of resistance to colonialism (Jones, 2011). For example, Akcan (2022) examined iconic architecture in Sudan through the lens of healing from colonialism. Mwale (2017) also observed elsewhere in Botswana, how within the power transition from colonialism to

Architecture and Identity

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independence the built environment had been subjected to both radical and gradual changes to reflect the new political order. Archaeological evidence in Zimbabwe shows how architecture has played a vital role in the invention and re-invention of national identity and patriotic iconography (Thondhlana et al., 2021). In particular, the state-owned National Heroes’ Acre, burial site for the national heroes of the liberation war, and located seven kilometres west of capital, Harare, was opened in 1981. It stands out as the most revered commemorative site established by the post-­ colonial state since attainment of independence. However, the ruling elites’ representation and appropriation of the Heroes’ Acre and heroes’ status, in the absence of democratic public participation have served to carve a skewed and narrow narrative on the meaning of “Zimbabweaness” meant to bolster ZANUPF’s hegemony (Mamvura, 2021; Mpofu, 2017). This has been reinforced by the construction of the statues of Joshua Nkomo and Mbuya Nehanda serving as perfect physical expressions of their outstanding contribution to the country’s liberation and an affirmation of their respective reverence as father and mother of the nation respectively. As heroes of the liberation struggle, they were regarded “exemplary citizens” (Fisher, 2010). Apart from serving as symbols of historic preservation, Mbuya Nehanda’s sacralization signifies the contribution of women as guardians of national identity. Architecture has historically been an important way that states have sought to codify collective identities. Architecture can and has been used with political effect by political institutions – especially by nation states (Schumacher, 2012). The state or government continues to mobilize architecture as part of a repertoire of cultural symbols that serve to present the category of the nation as a natural and inevitable social category (Jones, 2011). Thus, architectural products and spatial re-figuration potentially serve as both a signifier of collective identity and apparatus (dispositive) of power and control. The intertwined history of power and architecture and its influence on national identity formation is widely documented (Lowenthal, 2013; Mwale, 2017; Nayaran, 2006; Vale, 2008; Yeoh, 2003). Architectural appropriation and materialization is not neutral but a product of political and cultural discourses constructed in relation to the desire to articulate a sense of collective identity similar to what Anderson (1991) coined “imagined communities” and shaped to engender control over people (Bauman, 1976, cited in Dawson, 2016, p. 21). In the context of the decoloniality, it is critical to consider reconceptualization of identity in the light of political mobilization associated with the various architectural appropriation and materialization. It is strikingly interesting to note that while there were new street names in the commercial sections of cities particularly Harare, there was no significant transformation in the former white low-density suburbs, elite government and private trust-owned schools. Perhaps both authorities and ordinary city residents still found connection, affinity and attachment with the colonial names. Perhaps one can understand the prestige and power associated with owning and renting an apartment in those areas. When the ruling party and government, through the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, suggested the renaming of some selected government schools in honour of second Chimurenga liberation war veterans, the move was aborted after facing resistance from parents and residents associations. Popular resistance to place naming was not a new phenomenon. At some point

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when a new middle-income suburb was built just across and northside of Warren Park, a high-density area in Harare’s western suburbs, the new residents resisted its naming to Warren Park North arguing that would affect the market value of their properties. Bulawayo was a different story. Historical documentation (Jack, 1979; Wilson & Cooke, 1973) shows that after the settlement of the 1896 Matabele rebellion following Cecil Rhodes’ diplomacy, the two black and white communities lived and grew in an admirable measure of harmony into the post-colonial times. This has arguably become the cornerstone of Bulawayo’s stability as evidenced by the commemoration of African names in the naming of some suburbs such as Famona, Khumalo, and Malindela. In fact, Bulawayo remains the only Zimbabwean city to have retained its original African name since the nineteenth century. Furthermore, in 1943 it was granted a municipal coat of arms, which embodied the IsiNdebele motto: “Si Ye Pambili” (Let us go forward). Another association with the Matabele was the inclusion in the Arms of a heraldic stylization of an elephant that was the emblem of King Lobengula (Jack, 1979). The pretense of a “good colonizer” which created harmony and tolerance between the black and community in the city served as a “soft technology” reminiscence of a “dispositive”. Some architectural designs serve as instruments of political power and at the same time symbols of collective identity and national heritage. The multi-authored character of architecture generates various forms of identity-making practices (Avermaete & Nuijsink, 2021). For example, calendar events such as the Heroes and Defence Forces Days, observed as public holidays on 11 and 12 August respectively were deemed to be founding moments in the formation of both nation and statehood. Repetition of such commemorative events serves to remind society of important moments in history and ideology, influencing collective consciousness and memory. Thus, it becomes an oversimplification to lump all architectural re-­ figurations as a collective representative of statist political projects. While some iconic architecture largely signifies cultural and national identities (Atto, 2009; Yacobi, 2004) others serve both national and private economic interests (Sklair, 2006). The state apparati have become ever more deeply imbricated in producing, maintaining, and reproducing the basic socio-institutional and territorial preconditions for expanded capital accumulation (Brenner, 2002). Thus, urban designing and planning forms and arrangements may also reflect the ideological necessities and requirements of capital. For example, the expansion and successive renovations at the International Airport were partly driven by the country’s need to match expected volume of air-traffic following anticipated increased business and tourism under a new political dispensation premised on a mantra of “Zimbabwe is open for business” and constructive international (re)-engagement following decades of international isolation under Robert Mugabe regime, 1980–2017. Rolling out of massive nationwide infrastructural development projects including roads and dams under a new government led by Emmerson Mnangagwa from 2018 served as part of statist rebranding agenda. However, both the new parliament and extended airport celebrate pluralism and differentiation in which an architect speaks on at least two levels; that of international elite in a global profession and that of one inhabiting a local culture. Due to the multi-character of architecture and corresponding fluidity of identities, the traditional expressions of power no longer prevails. Meta-narratives

Architecture and Identity

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are thoroughly fragmented (Crotty, 2003). As reinforced by Williams (2019) the contemporary city no longer needed to deploy the language of power in overt way. This is consistent with Michel Foucault’s dispositif (dispositive) construct: a set of practices and mechanisms (both linguistic and non-linguistic, juridical, technical) that aim to face an urgent need and to obtain an effect that is more or less immediate. A dispositif appears at the intersection of power relations and relations of knowledge (Agamben, 2009, cited in Lee, 2016, p. 13). Architecture functions as an apparatus, apparel, or “dispositive” for identity making and communicating power relations. Ideologically imposed street names may undergo a process of “semantic displacement” (Azaryahu, 1996) through which the names become detached from the person or events commemorated. Many urban dwellers may not even know the significance of what or who was being commemorated by particular street names but still form mundane attachments to it as the place where they lived or socialized. Good examples include Karigamombe building that was believed named after Robert Mugabe’s grandfather but with whom ordinary residents might not have any collective attachment. However, to other commentators the building symbolized Mugabe’s celebration of his defeat of Joshua Nkomo during the 1980s “Gukurahundi” disturbances and the name “Karigamombe” meant “one that fells the bull”. Ironically, whether that was by design or coincidence, the complex was constructed on a site, which had housed the command centre of the widely condemned operations. With respect to toponymical changes, it is important to deconstruct the “de-­ colonial cleansing” narrative. A survey of town names in colonial Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) suggests that the British authorities did not necessarily use them to honour their knighted personalities. Apart from a few such as Salisbury (Harare), Fort Victoria (Masvingo), Hartely (Chegutu) and Enkledorn (Chivhu) many of them could not only have been products of imperial suppression but also the English man’s semantic suppression or calibration of vernacular dialects due to pronunciation challenges especially with the dominant Shona language which had no letter “L” (Table  3.3). For majority it was actually a change in spellings and rhymes. Table 3.3  Colonial and post-­colonial town names

Colonial name Gwelo Umtali Shabani Mine Mashaba Mine Inyanga Marandellas Gatoma Sinoia Kariba Que-Que Wankie

Post-colonial name Gweru Mutare Zvishavane Mashava Nyanga Marondera Kadoma Chinhoyi Kariba (Kariva) KweKwe Hwange

Source: Author’s own moderation (adapted from multiple sources)

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Although this approach was not radical, it had implications for identify formation, as local people would effectively begin to associate with the new names as a symbol of civilization and modernity. This is one of the few ways by which the British settlers demonstrated a bit of liberalism. It also served as a strategy to mute possible popular resistance. As what obtained in the city of Bulawayo, some white-only low-­ density suburbs were named after African Matabele names. There were also no changes to the names of main towns; Bulawayo, Beit Bridge, Victoria Falls and Plumtree, which have retained by the post-colonial state as well. Table 3.3 shows the local/vernacular names suppressed by the British with some Ndebele transliterations but restored in independence in Zimbabwe.

Conclusion Although the state appeared to possess autonomous power in the representation and materialization of architectural products, the practice and processes of (re)naming them were not necessarily one-way traffic. There was an unstated assumption that renaming the urban landscape for political ends was effective, as the ordinary citizens would naturally accept the new names and quickly absorb them into their everyday life (Azaryahu, 2009). Although examples of “toponymical cleansing” shown in this chapter indicate the influence of political power on new forms of re-­figuration, there is also evidence of some resistance. There is also the danger of portraying the implementation of street name changes as reflecting the aspirations of homogenous political elite. Similarly, renaming may just be a rhetorical act to politically deal with troublesome stakeholders. Thus, politically inspired toponymical changes can often unfold in a rather incoherent, inconclusive, spatially diverse and protracted manner (Light & Young, 2018). Overall, Matabeleland region and in particular the colonial Bulawayo cityscapes were an exception to the rule signifying more local iconographies than imposed memory dispositives. Perhaps the authorities at the time desired to appropriate architecture and space  as a symbol of being good and tolerant colonizers!

References Akcan, E. (2022). After the ‘last Ottoman generation’: Sudan at colonial and postcolonial crossroads. Paper in Empire’s province into national city: Architecture and the Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire symposium. Cornell University-University of Rochester, 14–15 March 2022, Ithaca-Rochester, USA, Alfred, T., & Corntassel, J. (2005). Being indigenous: Resurgences against contemporary colonialism. Government and Opposition, 40(4), 597–614. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1477-­7053.2005.00166.x Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities. Verso.

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Atto, F. N. S. (2009). Sovereign architecture: The enigma of power in the age of globalization. The Global Studies Journal, 9, 1–19. Avermaete, T., & Nuijsink, C. (2021). Architectural contact zones: Another way to write global histories of the post-war period? Architectural Theory Review, 25(3), 350–361. Azaryahu, M. (1996). The power of commemorative street names. Society and Space, 14(3), 311–330. Azaryahu, M. (2009). Naming the past: The significance of commemorative street names. In L. Berg & J. Vuolteenaho (Eds.), Critical toponymies: The contested politics of place naming (pp. 53–67). Ashgate. Brenner, N. (2002). State theory in the political conjuncture: Henry Lefebvre’s “comments on a new state”. Antipode, 33(5), 783–808. Chatambudza, T., & Hove, M. (2019). The Zimbabwe people’s revolutionary army military operations in Makonde district and the attack on Salisbury’s fuel storage tanks, 1965–1979. Small Wars and Insurgencies, 30(2), 367–391. https://doi.org/10.1080/09592318.2019.1603181 Crotty, M. (2003). The foundations of social research: Meaning and perspective in the research process. SAGE Publications. Dawson, M. (2016). Social theory for alternative societies. Palgrave. Dayaratne, R. (2016). Re-dignifying vernacular for constructing national identity: Elitism, grand traditions and cultural revival in Bahrain. ITU A/Z, A|Z ITU Journal of Faculty of Architecture, 13(1), 127–138. Dovey, K. (2009). Becoming places: urbanism/architecture/identity/power. Routledge. Fabiszak, M., & Rubdy, R. (2021). Media debates over the renaming of the cityscape. Linguistics Vanguard, 7(5), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-­2020-­0089 Fisher, J. L. (2010). Pionners, settlers, aliens, exiles: The deconstruction of white identity in Zimbabwe. Canberra: The Australian National University Gallagher, J., Mpere, D. L., & N’djoré, Y. A. B. (2021, July). State aesthetics and state meanings: Political architecture in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. African Affairs, 120(480), 333–364. https:// doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adab018 Jack, A. D. (1979). Bulawayo’s changing skyline 1893–1980. Books of Zimbabwe Rhodesia. Jenkins, C. (2005). The iconic building: The power of the enigma. Frances Lincoln. Jones, P. (2011). The sociology of architecture: Constructing identities. Liverpool University Press. Kirkwood, M.  L. E. (2013). Post-independence architecture through North Korean modes: Namibian Commissions of the Mansudae Overseas Project: A companion to modern African art. Wiley Blackwell. Lasswell, H. D. (2017). The signature of power: Buildings, communications, and policy. Routledge. Lee, S. (2016). Techné and dispositif of architecture. In M.-D.  Hosale, S.  Murrani, & A.  De Campo (Eds.), World making as Techné: Participatory art, music, and architecture (pp. 3–25). Riverside Architectural Press. Light, D., & Young, C. (2018). The politics of toponymic continuity: The limits of change and the ongoing lives of street names. In D. Rose-Redwood, D. Alderman, & M. Azaryahu (Eds.), The political life of urban streetscapes: Naming, politics and place (pp. 185–201). Routledge. Lowenthal, D. (2013). The past is a foreign currency-revisited. Cambridge University Press. Mamvura, Z. (2021). “Is Mugabe also among the national deities and kings?” Place renaming and the appropriation of African chieftainship ideals and spirituality in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 56(8), 1861–1878. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021909621992794 Micots, C. (2015). Status and mimcry: African colonial period architecture in Coastal Ghana. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 74(1), 41–62. Moore, S. A., & Wilson, B. B. (2013). Questioning architectural judgement: The problem of codes in the United States. Routledge. Mpofu, S. (2017). Making heroes, (un)making the nation? ZANU-PF’s imaginations of the heroes’ acre, heroes and construction of identity in Zimbabwe from 2000 to 2015. African Identities, 15(1), 62–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/14725843.2016.1175920

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Mwale, K. P. (2017). Culture, heritage and the politics of identity in national and tribal spaces: The city and the traditional village in Botswana. Phd Thesis, University of Sheffield. Nayaran, B. (2006). Memories, saffronising statues and constructing communal politics. Economic and Political Weekly, 41(45), 11–17. Osborne, B. S. (2001). Landscapes, memory, monuments, and commemoration: Putting identity in its place. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 33(3), 39–77. Pikirayi, I. (2013). Stone architects and the development of power in Zimbabwe tradition AD 1270–1830. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 48(2), 282–300. Rose-Redwood, D., Alderman, D., & Azaryahu, M. (2018). The political life of urban streetscapes: Naming, politics and place. Routledge. Schumacher, P. (2012). The autopoiesis of architecture, volume 2: A new agenda for architecture. Wiley. Sklair, L. (2006). Iconic architecture and capitalist globalization. City, 10(1), 21–47. https://doi. org/10.1080/13604810600594613 Sweeting, B. (2016). The ethics of ethics and the ethics of architecture. Proceedings of RSD5 symposium, Toronto. Thondhlana, T.  P., Chitima, S.  S., & Chirikure, S. (2021). Nation branding in Zimbabwe: Archaeological heritage, national cohesion, and corporate identities. Journal of Social Archaeology, 21(3), 283–305. Vale, L. (2006). The urban design of twentieth century capitals. In D. L. A. Gordon (Ed.), Planning twentieth century capitals (pp. 15–37). Routledge. Vale, L. (2008). Architecture, power and national identity. Routledge. Vinken, G. (2021). Zones of tradition-places of identity: Cities and their heritage. Wetzlar, Verlag, Bielefeld. von Beyme, K. (1991, April). Architecture and democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany. International Political Science Review/Revue Internationale De Science Politique, 12(2), 137–147. Williams, R. J. (2019). Why cities look the way they do. Polity. Wilson, V.  J., & Cooke, C.  K. (1973). A short history of the national museum Bulawayo. The Rhodesian Science News, 7(10), 277–280. Yacobi, H. (2004). Form follows metaphors: A critical discourse analysis of the construction of the Israeli supreme court building in Jerusalem. The Journal of Architecture, 9(2), 219–239. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360236042000230215 Yeoh, B. (2003). Contesting space in colonized Singapore: Power relations and the built environment. Singapore Press University. Zuvalinyenga, D. (2020). We shall know a place by its names: Co-existing place names in Bindura, Zimbabwe. EchoGéo [Online], 53. https://doi.org/10.4000/echogeo.

Chapter 4

Museums, Monuments and Statues: A Critical Review

Introduction World over, the characters of museums and monuments have historically been influenced by the purposes, assumptions, and identities of those who planned them. The existence, contents and prominence of sites of memory speak directly to the continuing impact of past events (Simko, 2020). In particular, the legacies of the intersections between colonial racism, genocidal violence and colonial monuments bequeathed to independent African societies provide a strong motivation for the pursuit of a decolonization agenda. For example, the establishment of the museums in colonial Rhodesia followed requests to the “Pioneer Father”, Cecil Rhodes by the then Rhodesia Scientific Association to accommodate and preserve their growing collection of mineral specimens (Dugmore, 1962; Wilson & Cooke, 1973). Thus, all monuments associated with Rhodes and other historic British South African Company (BSACo) personalities symbolize celebration of exploitation and colonial violence against the Africans. Thus, from an African perspective, processes of building museums and monuments are a sincere quest for the restoration of an authentic African identity previously destroyed by brutal imperialism and colonialism, and necessarily construed as a de-colonization project. Thus, monuments such as the statues of colonizers like Rhodes remain at the centre of hotly contested and debated identity politics (Prescott & Lahti, 2022). They have been widely considered monuments of colonial violence. For example, with reference to post-­ independent Africa particularly South Africa, Low (2014) observed that the number of museums and monuments being implemented reflects both the need to recover lost memory, to preserve current history and to encapture contemporary events as they unfold. However not only do they rupture healing wounds regarding injustices of the past, but more so temporally concretize memory with highly specific interpretations of events of collective memory. For example, the “Rhodes Must Fall” movement, which began with university student protests in South Africa, spread to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. Maunganidze, Representation and Materialization of Architecture and Space in Zimbabwe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47761-4_4

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4  Museums, Monuments and Statues: A Critical Review

become a global crusade against monuments and statues that symbolize colonial conquest, massacres and injustices. This agrees with Simko’s (2020) argument, that memorials and museums can also be traumatic: while some may become the basis for moral universalism, generating a capacity to forge connections between the in-­ group suffering and that of out-groups, others have the opposite effect, leading to particularism and closure. For example, at an international level, the construction of the Museum of African Liberation in Harare, located next to the National Heroes’ Acre symbolizes an iconic representation of Africa’s quest to concretize her solidaristic memorialization of centuries of struggle against slavery, imperialism and colonialism, and consolidation of pan-Africanism and continental sovereignty. The curators of the museum put emphasis on the need to tell a true African story. Such an iconic representation was a timely intervention that stressed Africa’s own narrative about its own liberation history. Its location in Zimbabwe is strategic. During the war of liberation, thousands of men and women including innocent children were tortured and massacred at the hands of the minority imperial Rhodesian security forces within Zimbabwe and, in guerrilla refugee and training camps in neighbouring countries especially Mozambique and Zambia. Many of these remain buried in mass graves at sites such as Chimoio, Tembwe and Nyadzonya in neighbouring Mozambique and Mukushi Freedom camp in Zambia. For a country sculpted by valour and patriotism, a sense of collective memorialization should inspire efforts at restoring and preserving the legacy of such sacrifices through museums and monuments at national and community levels. Museums and monuments are not just natural creations but products of the powerful. Many of these are a significant expression of the ruling class and powerful elites’ desire both to engage in a politics of recognition and to position themselves relative to pasts and futures. Like other forms of state architecture, monuments have tended to assume the symbol of totalitarian propaganda (Hökerberg, 2018; Peterson, 2020), expressing and hiding ideological beliefs and political agenda (Minkenberg, 2014). Designating an architectural product as a historicist piece is rarely a straightforward engagement. It is multi-authored and often obscure. Politically and economically powerful persons often sponsored monumental architecture as an expression of power (Cowgill, 2014, cited in Shenjere-Nyabezi & Pwiti, 2021). During both colonial and post-colonial periods, the creation and commissioning of particular architecture and sites as monuments and/or museums was conducted under the aegis of the state. Access to these institutions was mediated by power and consequently what is archived or stored in a museum is largely censored. For example, memorializing the infamous and near-genocidal Gukurahundi disturbances in the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces that engulfed the early post-independence period could evoke complex and contradictory reactions from different actors across the political divide. Perhaps the commemoration of such unforgettable traumatic events through the commissioning of monuments and museums could galvanize the spirit of unity and collective heritagization. Thus although the original intention of a particular monument could have been to bring people together it might lead to

Introduction

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unintended consequences. The connection between politics and architecture is not always overt. Architecture can act as an iconic bridge that both connects and separates. The partisan and exclusionary management of the institutions and commemorative events have not only trivialized them but also reduced them to propaganda machines (Bauday, 2021). This is similar to Subotic’s (2021) observations following an archival research on the holocaust remembrance in post-communist Europe (https://www.ehri-­project.eu/archivists-­gatekeeper-­digital-­age-European holocaust research infrastructure), which showed how archives and museums could ordinarily contain only material what gatekeepers’ would have deemed “legitimate” and “worthy history” but excluding diaries, letters, accounts, and testimonies of minorities and victims of political violence. Kim (2022) reinforces this position arguing that archives were actually locations of power as survival, transfer, digitization, reinforcement at the level of data collection and source biases at the level of record creation were products of how archives not as impartial repositories but rather institutions shaped by power. Elites make gatekeeping decisions (Deiuliis, 2015). Therefore, archivists are effectively gatekeepers in their own right serving the same role they play in offline research. For example, the absence of historical collections depicting the gukurahundi atrocities shows the extent to which museums and monuments can effectively become censored institutions. In line with the book’s running thematic thread, this chapter critically examines the multiple dimensions of museums and monuments in Zimbabwe and their representation and materialization at both national and community levels. It establishes the extent to which museums and monuments are situated in the context of either national iconographies or memory dispositifs (Basu, 2011). In a seminal piece on “marking time in memorials and museums of terror”, Simko (2020) considered the temporality and cultural trauma associated with these “sites of memory” through the lens of two seemingly competing but mutually reinforcing pillars: “acting out” and “working through”. Acting out is a process “re-experiencing a past event as the present” (reliving the traumatic experiences of the past) while “working through” is an open, questioning process that cultivates the capacity to either nurture or block visions for new futures. Over the years, the Zimbabwean situation has largely been a combination of the two both at the individual and group levels. Monuments such as the National Heroes Acre and shrines memorializing the massacres of defenceless war collaborators, trainees and refugees of the liberation war within and outside Zimbabwe will forever remain traumatic and not easily left out of the country’s historiography. However, they can also be used as both iconic unifiers and hegemonic apparati. Following Simko’s (2020) framing, the Zimbabwean situation may be easily represented more by “acting out” than “working through”. Although historic museums and monuments, heritage statuary and sculptures such as the Zimbabwe Bird can be represented as iconographical bridges to a common past, when materialized as political mobilization and survival instruments and strategies, they tend to block national identity formation.

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The Great Zimbabwe The Great Zimbabwe (GZ) (see Fig. 2.1 in Chap. 2) can be easily regarded as a sovereign monument having been appropriated as a cultural heritage site by both colonial and post-colonial regimes. It is also widely considered one of the most prominent symbols of archaeological heritage management in the country’s history. Modern archaeologists and ethnographers have recorded that the GZ was constructed between thirteenth and fifteenth centuries (AD 1250–1450) by the Bantu people, specifically the Shona (Pikirayi, 2006; Shenjere-Nyabezi & Pwiti, 2021). Building operations are believed to have begun about 200 AD but the finest examples of the stonework date from 1400 AD. The Shona called it “Dzimbabwes” (The house of stones). GZ was the capital of an African state, which flourished between 1250 and 1450 AD. The Bantu culture at GZ was believed to have been destroyed in the early nineteenth century when Zwangengdaba and his impis newly arrived in Matabeleland, on their northward trek, sacked the stronghold of the people of Zimbabwe. According to Smith (1979), more reliable evidence regarding the date of the ruins was gained from the two pieces of wood, which were discovered within one of the walls in 1950. These were subjected to radiocarbon testing at Chicago and London laboratories and showed that the trees, from which they were cut, had died about 1200 and 1300 years back. Many stories have been told about the GZ. For a fair appreciation of this piece, the following extract from Editors of Britannica is instructive; Great Zimbabwe was largely abandoned during the fifteenth century. With the city’s decline, its stone working and pottery-making techniques seem to have transferred southward to Khami (now also in ruins). Portuguese explorers probably encountered the ruins in the sixteenth century, but it was not until the late nineteenth century that the existence of the ruins was confirmed, generating much archaeological research. European explorers who visited the site in the late 1800s believed it to be the legendary city of Ophir, the site of King Solomon’s mines. Because of its stonework and further evidence of an advanced culture, the site was variously and erroneously, attributed to ancient civilizations such as the Phoenician, Greek, or Egyptian. In 1905, the English archaeologist David Randall-MacIver concluded that the ruins were medieval and of exclusively African origin. His findings were confirmed by the English archaeologist, Gertrude Caton-Thompson in 1929. (“https://www.britannica. com/topic”)

(Source: Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Great Zimbabwe”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 25 Mar. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/place/ Great-­Zimbabwe. Accessed 29 March 2023).

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Ethnographic collections also show that there were about 300 similar “Zimbabwes” in the country that include Khami Ruins (near Bulawayo) and Matendera (Buhera district, Manicaland province) and a few more in neighbouring Mozambique, Botswana and South Africa. Perhaps, the successive colonial regimes’ appropriation of GZ was more to do with the preservation of their own “history”, and to advance research through archaeological excavations and collections for the benefit of the European populations. The GZ was a victim of British racist plunder and exploitation of minerals, artefacts and all other materials believed valuable and exportable to Britain. It was one of the largest desecration in history. For that reason GZ site remained “ruins” until it was designated a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site in 1986. With its associated features such as the conical tower, great stonewalls and soapstone birds, the GZ forms one of the most unique architectural and dramatic historical landscapes in sub-Saharan Africa and its development is perhaps the most important historical and cultural symbol of African identity (Ndoro, 2001). Unlike the colonial regime, the Zimbabwe government sought to preserve its cultural heritage as a symbol of national identity. In particular, the cultural and political significance of conical tower is symbolized by its fusion into iconic contemporary architecture such as the new airport and parliament buildings. The connection between architecture and power can be easily traced to the design of the Great Zimbabwe as a fortified medieval kingdom. Pikirayi (2013) adds that the process of creating architecture was also a process of creating social and political roles and not necessarily a mere reflection or mirror of society. However, in the case of Great Zimbabwe although there is no empirical evidence directly indicating the existence of hierarchical structured society during the time of its construction the ruins suggest an internal design governed by elites. The connection between the different complexes at GZ and social structure is also deciphered from the following commentary by Greg Beyer (2023): “the prevailing archaeological belief is that the Hill Complex was the religious centre of the site, while the Great Enclosure, which housed only a few hundred people at most, was the residence of the social elite. The Valley Complex housed the rest of the population, which at its peak could have been as high as 18,000 people living in mud-brick dwellings”. The nature of social and elite power itself was partially shaped by the temporal act of producing architecture that itself was also a recursive act of human engagement with natural power (Pikirayi, 2013). Ndoro (2001) observed that the transfer of the ownership of much of the cultural and archaeological resources to the state through designation also resulted in displacement and disempowerment of local people regarding control and access to cultural resource utilization and management. In many cases, proclaimed monuments have remained strictly guarded/ protected and alienated from ordinary citizens. While the government and key stakeholders such as UNESCO regard it as both part of national heritage and a tourist attraction, many locals and those from afar, still consider it as a shrine for their reconnection with the spiritual past and present.

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The Zimbabwe Bird: “Sovereign” Architecture This part provides an analysis of the Zimbabwe Bird, an iconic medieval sculptural product and a simulacrum to the fish eagle (refer to the portrait in Fig. 4.1). It could have been easily lumped with the Great Zimbabwe monument but due to the unique connection between its documented historical significance and its wide contemporary reverence at a global and local scale an independent section became justifiable. According to evidence from consulting a sizable but under-used corpus of ethnographic collections and written historical sources, namely published and archival Portuguese documents concerning the political and religious systems of the Mocaranga from the beginning of the sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, one of the most notable artefacts found at GZ were the soapstone birds (Roufe, 2016). Other soapstone objects found at the GZ included carved pedestal, carved soapstone and bowl fragments. These were the artefacts which were most looted by the European visitors and traders. According to Dugmore (1962) the soapstone birds, symbolic of the living fish eagle, were found at the Zimbabwe ruins by a curator, R.H.  Hall in 1903. Perhaps what may need consideration are the seemingly inconclusive archaeological records regarding the type of the bird and its connection to the Shona cosmology. Ethnographic data from oral evidence suggests that the birds represented the dead mambos (chiefs/kings), or rulers of the Rozwi through whose spirits, prayers were offered to Mwari (God). The bateleur or fish eagle or the hungwe is popularly known among the Shona and Nambya in Southern and Northwestern parts of Zimbabwe respectively. It is also the totem of many such groups found in the Southern and Northwestern parts of present-day Zimbabwe. What is also not clear is why the early inhabitants at and around the Great Zimbabwe chose that particular bird species? Was it the only bird type around? Was the Fig. 4.1  The Zimbabwe Bird portrait

The Zimbabwe Bird: “Sovereign” Architecture

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sculptural product a representation of any aesthetic, cultural, religious or economic values? Perhaps responses to these and many other questions concerning its indigeneity can enhance knowledge on the assumed congruence of its representation and materialization from the medieval to the post-modern era. The soapstone birds originally installed on walls and monoliths within the city are unique to GZ; nothing like them has been discovered elsewhere (Hall & Stefoff, 2006). Archaeological records and previous publications show that the birds were eight, six large and two small ones, and that there had probably originally been more as there were several additional stone pedestals of which the tops had been broken off. Since the colonists erroneously attributed GZ design to ancient Mediterranean builders, believing native Africans to be incapable of constructing such an amazing and complex structure, they attributed the birds, wholly erroneously, to the Phoenicians. Perhaps that was the reason the bird became a symbol of the colony since 1924 and materialized as an icon as the successive racist regimes would not have celebrated the artistry of the indigenous population. The famous “Zimbabwe Bird” was appropriated by the colonial Rhodesian regime from 1924 to 1979 as a symbol of the colony (Figs.  4.2 and 4.3) and became crest to its coat of arms (Fig. 4.5) and the short-lived six-month-long and white-sponsored Abel Muzorewa government (Fig. 4.3). The Zimbabwe Bird remained a symbol of national identity

Fig. 4.2  Flag of Rhodesia (1968–1979)

Fig. 4.3  Zimbabwe Rhodesia Flag (1979–1980)

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4  Museums, Monuments and Statues: A Critical Review

Fig. 4.4  Independent Zimbabwe Flag (1980–…)

Fig. 4.5  Colonial coat of arms (1924–1979)

in post-colonial Zimbabwe (see Figs. 4.4 and 4.6). It was also a remarkable coincidence that the symbol, which was of great significance to the racist Rhodesia became a national emblem in an independent Zimbabwe. It has been represented as a state symbol in different forms mainly part of national flag, engraved on currency, military emblems and corporate logs. According to Matenga (2001), it has become the definitive icon of independent Zimbabwe. Its widely revered “umbilical” association with the GZ ruins is well represented in the coat of arms (Figs. 4.5 and 4.6), and national identity documents. This is why it easily fits Atto’s (2016) characterization of a “sovereign” architecture. However, why the representation of the sculptural products (bird and antelopes) on the colonial coat of arms from 1924 is identical to the post-colonial one remains a mystery!

The National Heroes’ Acre: The “Bridge” That Connects and Separates

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Fig. 4.6  Post-colonial coat of arms

 he National Heroes’ Acre: The “Bridge” That Connects T and Separates One of the most venerated architectural products in post-independent independence is the National Heroes Acre (NHA) (Fig. 4.7), designated in terms of the Heroes’ Acre Act (Chapter 10: 06) as the burial site for the liberation war fighters. Premised on remembering and honouring extraordinary sons and daughters who sacrificed greater part of their lives to the struggle for independence, the Heroes’ Acre was chosen as the place where the country’s finest political and developmental minds would be buried. Apart from being a tourist attraction, it is also considered the bastion of patriotism (Charamba, 2015). Constructed by the North Korean architects, the actual monument itself was modelled after two AK-47s lying back-to-back; the graves are meant to resemble their magazines (ibid., 2015). It closely mirrors the design of the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery in Taesong-guyŏk, just outside Pyongyang, North Korea (Kirkwood, 2013). The main attractions are the Eternal Tower/Flame (Figs. 4.7 and 4.8) and statue representing the tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Fig. 4.9a), the murals depicting stages of the liberation struggle, as well as the museum (Heroes’ Gallery) which holds various exhibitions. In particular, the Liberation War heritage sites reveal not only a place to honour the dead, but a narrative landscape on which ideas of patriotism and nationalism become drivers of a new national identity (Zukas, 2019). The symbolic meaning of landmark buildings and the contribution of national heroes to the country’s attainment of independence have continued to be “re-told and re-storied” as new

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Fig. 4.7  National Heroes’ Acre monument, Harare (western view)

Fig. 4.8  Aerial view of Heroes’ Acre overlooking Warren Park residential area, Harare

meanings are fixed and to some extent falsified as people selectively remember and conveniently forget (Narayan, 2006). For example, when “iconicity” reaches a state of “sovereignty” it represents the convergence of individualization and totalization reflecting multiple types of power (Atto, 2009), creating the temptation to deconstruct dominant stories as representative of collective memory and produce texts which are also essentially “edited truth” (Power et al., 2011). As observed with the Great Zimbabwe and Khami monuments, where the voices regarded as of those of

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Fig. 4.9a  Commemorative Statue at the National Heroes Acre

first people at the ruins may essentially belong to the dominant and elites of that time, it is the same with the Heroes’ Acre. Members of the ruling elites dominate the shrine as their histories and stories have become “the history” of the nation. Therefore, the histories and pasts of architecture are more useful than the history and past as archived and re-storied by the dominant voices. Thus, the celebrated symbols of collective memorialization of the past by way of monuments and flags may actually be part of an ethnic or factional commemoration. Essentially histories are not only preserved but reconstructed (Ndlovu-Gatsheni & Willems, 2010). As Heynen (1999), observed, museums and monuments are paradoxical: on one hand, they are iconographies connecting people to the past and on the other hand, they are power-radiators. The heritage industry conspires “to create a shallow screen that intervenes between our present lives, and our history” (Heynen, 1999, p.  369). However, the narrative of the symbiotic connection between power and monumental representation of the shrine does not necessarily dilute the political and spiritual iconicity with which it is widely associated. At the time of developing this manuscript, Zimbabwe unlike other African countries such as Ghana, Zambia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya, had not constructed any mausoleum for the memorialization and sacralization of her prominent leaders and founding fathers of the nation. Perhaps this is one of the notable exceptions in post-colonial Africa. Indeed figures who would have easily made the grade for such saffronization included Josiah Tongogara, Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe. However as intimated in other chapters of this book, the institution of the national heroes’ acre has been used as a covert weapon for the materialization of the political interests of a particular group or regime. For example, following the military-­assisted removal of Robert Mugabe in 2017, attempts were made to symbolically “dishonour” or erase him from the country’s history. The de-sacralization of Robert Mugabe through his omission from the national heroes’ acre and subsequent burial and reburial contestations as represented in the Zimbabwean media and

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courts could for years remain a controversy in the “pontification” of the national shrine. However, this is not the first time some individuals widely considered icons of the struggle did not receive such an honour. Examples include former ZIPRA commanders like Lookout Masuku, and the popular revolutionary and liberation war musician, and ardent critic of Robert Mugabe, Mr. Dick Chingaira, popularly known as “Comrade Chinx” and Ndabaningi Sithole, founder of Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and later leader of the opposition ZANU (Ndonga). Such lack of consistency and transparency was often exemplified by the numerous cases of delayed or posthumous pronouncement or conferment of heroes’ stati. In some cases, this occurred immediately after one had already been buried while others have been declared national heroes the same day they would have passed on. In other cases, the best recognition one gets is a state-assisted funeral or district and provincial hero. On a majority of cases, such individuals are buried at their rural homesteads or self-selected urban cemeteries shunning away from the largely neglected and busy district or provincial burial sites. Although the conferment of the National Heroes status is a prerogative of the State President, the exclusionary and partisan practice of selecting and declaring individuals as heroes and heroines reduces it to a largely ZANUPF identity formation project. The institution has traditionally been more attracted to the party faithful than ordinary citizens as all preparatory logistics, before and during the burial ceremonies have always been at the behest of the ruling party structures. When a national institution becomes partisan, it is also perceived as an art or instrument of propaganda. Although to the best of my knowledge, there have not been any scholarly works at the time of developing this book, addressing the issue of genuine political orientation of attendees to the commemorative events, the behaviour pattern in most urban areas evinced induced attendances at the shrine. The most common attendants include party-sponsored urban informal settlers, traders and vendors and some partisan religious sects and groupings. All forms of architectural appropriation and materialization generate new dimensions of social relations, which imply complex identities. Party-sponsored informal traders pay back the ruling party and political elites by attending the burial and memorialization events at the National Heroes’ Acre resembling a political-­ economic trade-off between the ordinary and the powerful. For this group, comprising mainly illegal informal traders, artisanal miners, vendors, transport operators and urban land invaders, such national events were part of “paying-back” time or “insurance” or protection against any possible future eviction by authorities. As a way of possibly insulating themselves against President Mnangagwa’s newly declared anti-corruption crusade, such individuals needed to feign loyalty as insurance against possible prosecution and persecution. In particular, ahead of the 2023 elections, which the ruling party won, party faithful individuals and groups mobilized around formations supportive to the ruling party leader Emmerson Mnangagwa (ED) such as Women for Economic Development (WED) but believed to actually represent Women for Emmerson Dambudzo (President’s forenames). This followed a litany of other similar formations including “Miners for ED”, “Teachers/Lecturers” for ED, “nurses and doctors” for ED, “Members of Parliament (MPs) for ED” and “Lawyers for ED”. For some of these groups attending ZANUPF-sanctioned or

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controlled national events may not necessarily reflect any affinity with party philosophies but just economic survival strategy. However, it would be too simplistic to assume that since the National Heroes’ Acre was widely considered a ZANUPF project, there would always be consensus between and among the ruling elites and ordinary regular members. The institution has fallen prey to intra-party factionalism as well. As acknowledged elsewhere in this book, there were some seemingly deserving individuals omitted from recognition. Admittedly, such omissions or exclusion potentially polarize the nation. Some highly decorated liberation war fighters and collaborators were not immortalized partly for sharing belonging to different political party or having ideas. Consequently, since attainment of independence, the institution has faced a legitimation crisis as opposition political party leaders and their followers had not been attending most burial and commemorative ceremonies at the national and provincial heroes’ acres. For instance, following the controversial land reform programme at the turn of the century, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supported by the displaced white commercial farmers and an internationally sponsored civil society have often boycotted the events to register its disquiet with the process. Perhaps, the period of Government of National Unity (2009–2013) following an agreement signed between Robert Mugabe’s ZANUPF and Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC could have provided an opportunity to democratize and nationalize the institution. Thus over the years, one of the most common reasons for one to be omitted from recognition was belonging to an opposition political party or wrong faction within the ruling party. However, under a new ZANUPF leadership following Mugabe’s departure, there were attempts at broadening, nationalizing and democratizing the process with the enactment of supportive administrative legislation and establishment of an Independent Commission and Veterans of the Liberation Board. Although there is no evidence of such institutions getting to work, some individuals were honoured regardless of their political affiliation and direct participation in the liberation war. In any case, immortalization of liberation fighters and collaborators was consistent with the provisions of the Constitution of Zimbabwe as read with Veterans of Liberation Struggle Act (Chapter 17: 12, no. 3/2020). According to the Act a “veteran of the liberation struggle” means (a), a liberation fighter; or (b), an ex-political prisoner, detainee or restrictee; or (c), a person who assisted the fighters in the war of liberation, that is to say a war collaborator or a non-combatant cadre. The criteria expanded to recognition of non-­ war veterans with outstanding contribution to national development in post-colonial times. Consequently, notable cases of such individuals included a Harare-based Roman Catholic priest, Reverend Fr. Ribeiro, founding leader of Zimbabwe Assemblies of God Africa (ZAOGA) church, Ezekiel Guti, popular musician, Oliver Mtukudzi and advocate for the rights of people living with disabilities and special advisor to the President, Mr. Joshua Malinga. Even Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of opposition MDC and an ardent critic of the ruling party and government was granted a state-assisted funeral although not accorded hero’s status. In spite of this, there has hardly been an existing broad-based and inclusive independent nomination committee actually ever getting to do their work, as it had been subdued by the ruling party and State President, who sometimes without any formal

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recommendations from ruling party structures applied own discretion or wisdom in according a hero’s status to an individual. However, this could be understandable given that at the time of writing this book, there were very few most decorated and senior veterans of the struggle within the ruling party leadership structures, outside the military and security, with sufficient institutional memory to vet nominees. For one to be interned at the national shrine was once a symbol of great honour and adorned achievement marked by commemorative ceremonies that attracted huge and enthusiastic crowds. For many years, the site represented a form of patriotic iconography. However, in the later years of independence coupled with ZANUPF’s dwindling urban support, with the entrance into the political space of the labour and civil society-driven opposition political party, MDC, attendance at burial and commemorative events declined. Often many citizens only get to know of the passing on of a national hero(ine) when a national flag is flown at half-mast. The event has largely been reduced to just a public holiday on the country’s year calendar. On many occasions during fieldwork, informal interaction with citizens both urban and rural revealed lack of awareness of the actual names of some of those declared heroes. Over the years, the institution’s significance as a “moral compass” for the aspirations of both liberation war veterans and the citizenry has been sadly withering. Perhaps one of the reasons could be the increase and frequency of such declarations particularly in the later years of independence. In addition, and admittedly so, due to their advanced ages, many of the liberation icons and political leaders have succumbed to chronic diseases such as cancer and hypertension especially during the 2020–2022 Covid-19 era. Since then many veterans have passed on. There have also been limited public formal communication structures strategically disseminating the information to the ordinary citizens across the political divide apart from spasmodic and partisan reportage in the form of radio, television, and print and digital media. Another challenge is the advent of private and so-called independent media that have tended to politicize national events in support of reactionary and Eurocentric opposition narratives. The 2011 case in which Harare City Council workers cut off an aged tree located at the corner of Tongogara Avenue and Second Street (Joshua Nkomo extension) and widely believed to be the site where Mbuya Nehanda was hanged in 1898 could possibly reflect lack of a national heritage preservation policy. However, given that opposition, MDC and its associated historical disaffection with liberation heritage controlled the cityscape, it can easily be concluded that the cutting of the tree could not have been accidental. The other challenge was the tree had not been proclaimed as a national heritage site or monument at the time of its removal. The seemingly lack of awareness and disinterest by both authorities and the citizenry, and mythicization of the issue may require a separate systematic investigation beyond the scope of this book to inform both scholarship and practice. Over the years, the process and pattern of memorializing and heritagizing have reduced the national heroes’ status to an elitist and partisan project reducing the idea to a collective historic preservation fallacy. It has almost become a common cause for the ruling class such as government ministers, military and security chiefs, high-­ ranking officials within the ruling party and war veterans’ structures to be

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automatically accorded the status. Since elites are those with powers to make decisions on an architectural product to be edified and commissioned as a monument, consequently renders the product relatively elitist. Although there is no fixed architectural language for representing political, it does not follow that architecture lacks the potential to promote a political agenda rather, it does so in the discursive process (Grinceri, 2016, p.  12). Thus, the materialization of the national heroes’ status through practice and supporting legislation has become a symbol of discursive peripheralization. This is supported by Mamvura’s (2021) observation that the representation of national narratives in the built environment is prescribed over by political elites who want to communicate their political ideas to the public. Chirikure et al. (2018) and Pikirayi’s (2013) added that the process of creating architecture was also a process of creating social and political roles and not necessarily a mere reflection or mirror of society. The nature of social and elite power itself was partially shaped by the temporal act of producing architecture that itself was also a recursive act of human engagement with natural power (Pikirayi, 2013, p. 285). As argued by Sklair (2006), iconicity cannot be accounted from a solely symbolic perspective but rather by the way the capitalist class and institutions have increasingly come to define the times, places and audiences that make buildings and spaces iconic. Just as already intimated elsewhere in this book with respect to the Great Zimbabwe Monuments and iconic statues, even though the national shrine may closely fit the elite characterization, for some citizens especially those who fought in the war of liberation, it remained an authentic symbol of reclamation of lost political and cultural indigeneity, and nationhood. College and school students from all corners of the country and international leaders and tourists still revere the institution and regularly visit the national shrine. This supports Archer’s (2005) argument that the built environment becomes a reference system within which knowledge was produced and applied. In spite of the controversies and mythicized ritualization associated with the National Heroes status, the shrine has remained an iconic bridge connecting the past, present and future. It is materialized as an honorific memorial stone and ark of testimony. It is still largely regarded as a bastion of patriotism depicting the richness of the people’s struggle against the oppressive and racist colonial regime. Although there could have been some dissenting voices and doubts regarding the political credibility and rigour of the nomination and conferment processes especially in the later years of Zimbabwe’s independence, the first crop of war heroes interned at the national shrine have remained revered icons of historic preservation and collective memorialization of national pride and sacrifice. Overall, the institution remains widely considered a national icon.

Statues and Inscriptions of Identities Monumental statuary and portraiture have historically served as both honorific icons and propaganda instruments. Globally, memorial stones and sculptural products in the form of statues and inscriptions have historically been part of everyday

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life especially during the period of the Roman Empire in countries such as Germany and Italy. Although some of the statues, particularly those of rulers and emperors remain part of the modern European cityscapes making mainly religious and political statements, majority of them have become virtually extinct (Eck, 2008). This has been most pronounced in the history of fascist and communist Europe and in particular Hitler’s German Nazi regime era, where classicist architecture and art became the most comprehensible and venerated propaganda apparati. Statues are a fertile subject of study regarding memorialization and national identity formation (Ndlovu, 2017). Honorific statues are intended to communicate key political ideas often to a largely illiterate citizenry. In both colonial and post-colonial Africa, the history of statues was marked by both veneration and de-sacralization. In colonial Africa, one of the most recorded statues is that of Cecil John Rhodes, leader of the imperial British South Africa Company through which the southern African territory of Rhodesia (now independent Zimbabwe) was founded. The statue was erected in Bulawayo city centre in 1904 and after Zimbabwe’s independence; the statue was removed from the city centre and relocated to the centenary park behind the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe. Rhodes’ statue was also erected at various places in South Africa including the University of Cape Town (South Africa) but was removed after being decapitated and vandalized in 2015 following student protests led by the #RhodesMustFall movement sparking mixed global reactions. However, Rhodes remains part of the history of Zimbabwe as he is still buried in Matobo National Park, near Bulawayo (https://www.sahistory.org.za, http://www.bulawayo1872. com). Apart from Cecil Rhodes there were also other statues constructed in honour of British heroes particularly David Livingstone, the expeditor and explorer who was believed to have discovered the mighty Zambezi River Falls, which he named after Queen Victoria). He was revered as one of the most popular British heroes of the late nineteenth century. Other British imperialist occupation luminaries and heroes of resource looting included Coughlan, Moffatt and Jameson who were not only honoured through statues but the (re)naming of state buildings, museums, streets, white-only schools and recreation facilities. In independent Africa, notable honorific and historicist representations symbolizing memorialization of resistance to colonialism include the statue of seated “Mzee” Jomo Kenyatta, the founding President of Kenya and located at the entrance of Kenya International Conference Centre (KICC) in Nairobi. The statue of Julius Nyerere, the first President of Tanzania is located in the city of Dodoma, while the gigantic Nelson Mandela statue at Union Buildings (Government complex) in Pretoria. In Botswana, the statues of three founding fathers and paramount chiefs (Khama III of the Bangwato, Sebele I of the Bakwena, and Bathoen I of the Bangwaketse), who negotiated for the country’s political independence from being a British Protectorate, are mounted next to Parliament premises in Gaborone (Ifezue, 2015). In Mozambique the iconic bronze sculpture, depicting Samora Machel the revolutionary leader of the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frente de Libertacao Mcambique) (FRELIMO) and founding President of Mozambique is located in the centre of Praca da Independênt, Maputo. Unlike in other African countries, where honorific statues and patriotic iconographies were erected immediately following

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the attainment of political independence and/or the demise of iconic figures such as Julius Nyerere, Kwame Nkrumah and Samora Machel, in the Zimbabwean case the process took a much longer. One may assume that perhaps since the founding President was still alive he might have been disinterested in the idea. Iconic figures who could have automatically deserved such an honour included heroes of the First Chimurenga (nineteenth-century resistance against white occupation) such as Kaguvi, Chingaira, Mukwati and Charwe Nehanda Nyakasikana popularly known as Mbuya Nehanda, Kings Mzilikazi and Lobengula and luminaries and founding fathers of the contemporary war of liberation, namely Hebert Chitepo, Joshua Nkomo and Leopold Takawira. Perhaps during the time, statuary was not deemed an effective political communication tool. Statues only became part of the post-­colonial ideological and political repertoire three decades after the attainment of independence. The first statue was that of Joshua Nkomo (see Fig. 4.9b), which was only erected in 2013, more than a decade after his death, and largely in response to political pressure from former ZAPU members within the ruling party. This is partly because statues did not reflect the aspirations of the homogenous elite. Other political formations especially the opposition fraternity argued that the erection of the statue was just part of propaganda and political hypocrisy on the part of Robert Mugabe’s government given Nkomo and other prominent political leaders’ persecution and general marginalization of the Matabeleland region. However, the other view is that there should have been another one erected in the capital city, Harare given Nkomo’s national political iconicity as “Father Zimbabwe”, as illustrated by Fig. 4.9b  The Statue of Late former Vice President, Joshua Nkomo, Bulawayo

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his immense contribution to the liberation struggle and the development of the country after independence. Thus, as Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Willems (2010), the changing identities of Nkomo served the purposes and interests of a variety of political actors, ranging from the ruling ZANUPF party  to the emerging opposition formations. Although statuary and portraiture in the Zimbabwean historiography can be an effective tool in the formation of national identity, literature shows that the process is fraught with contestation (Cummings, 2013, p.  525, cited in Ndlovu, 2017, p. 435). Statues alert us to the polymorphous meaning of monuments and the salient point that statuary is neither passive nor disinterested. Materialization of statues can represent a form of regime legitimation and political survival strategy. Politics involves the appropriation of certain representative tools such as architecture in order to portray, represent and preserve an imagined sense of identity (Grinceri, 2016, p.11). The statue of Mbuya Nehanda (see Fig.  4.9c), a nineteenth-century anti-colonialist and icon of indigenous resistance to white invasion, represents both an iconic and dispositive way of reinserting her into the country’s historiography. She is the first female Zimbabwean to lead a revolution against the Cecil John Rhodes led-British occupation and subsequent colonization of the country. The featuring of Mbuya Nehanda on the country’s currency (ZW$50.00 bond note) that went into circulation as a legal tender in 2020 exemplified state attempts to represent her sovereign iconicity in spite of the fact that currency was effectively valueless/useless. However, this was not a durable and effective signifier of historic Fig. 4.9c  Statue of Mbuya Nehanda (to the left in sky blue colour is part of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe), Harare

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preservation as the currency denomination quickly went out of circulation due to hyperinflation. Perhaps an inscription on the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) issued gold-backed coins could be more a suitable store of value befitting the iconicity of Mbuya Nehanda. The reverence of Nkomo and Nehanda among the ZIPRA and ZANLA cadres and the ordinary citizens in Matabeleland and Mashonaland provinces respectively is widely documented (Mamvura, 2021; Ndlovu, 2017). Both statues exemplified iconic and symbolic representation, resonating with Calvillo’s (2011) observation that they attempt to either express themselves or construct a symbolic shape by having the same shape as the objects they want to represent without any mediation or abstraction. The tendency to reconstruct histories to satisfy parochial interests may actually represent symbolic violence against other groups. With respect to the two statues, there is no consensus among the citizenry regarding the contributions of the historic figures. While some would consider them as iconic liberation heritage symbols and serving as stark reminders to the fight against imperialism and colonialism, others particularly those opposed to historic and heritage preservations may not identify with them finding them politically divisive and offensive. To Grinceri (2016, p. 12), architecture not only serves to provide shape and form to certain discursive practices but also facilitates certain activities, sometimes to the exclusion of others. This is an inevitable fate though but particularly important when dealing with oral historiography. For example, with respect to the statue of Mbuya Nehanda, there have been theories and myths regarding its location. There is one puzzle that may remain unresolved: if the site of the statue was as historic as represented, the place believed to have been the water point in a stream from which she used to fetch water have been a more iconic representation than the place where she was executed? In spite of that, there had not been any documented attempts to immortalize it. Perhaps this can be another potential viable research area to consider for both knowledge production and policy formulation.

Community Museums and Monuments The museums and monuments in Zimbabwe are a form of ancient architecture and sculpture around the country symbolizing society’s connection to both nature and space. This reflects “the interconnectedness of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of individuals with all living things and with the earth, the star world, and the universe” (Lavallėe, 2009, p. 23, cited in Snow et al., 2016, p. 368). Historically national museums in Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular tended to be largely influenced by euro-centric ontologies and epistemologies. The emergence of community and living museums anchored on a local culture and heritage management narrative can be regarded as a de-colonial methodology that is being embraced by local people in response to the exclusion or misrepresentation in state-controlled national museums (Chipangura & Chipangura, 2019). The content of the museums hardly resonated with indigenous interests particularly minority

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ethnic and cultural groups. In Zimbabwe, the establishment of indigenous or community-­ based museums in selected rural districts with the support of the NMMZ, has provided an opportunity for representing and materializing cultural and political histories at a local level. This development symbolizes the new political dispensation’s thrust of devolution and inclusivity ensuring no one was left behind. Good cases in point include the BaTonga Community Museum in Binga District, Matabeleland North province and Marange Community Museum in Manicaland province and Joshua Nkomo museum, located at his former private residence in Bulawayo. Although the influence of power on the structure and content of the local and community museums is inevitable, they remain a formidable force in the promotion of participatory heritage management. They are important cases by which to analyse the decolonization process, the promotion of indigenous cultures, and relationship building with communities through inclusivity. This resonates with the Zimbabwe National Development Strategy (NDS1) and makes a significant contribution to the achievement of United Nations’ SDGs namely; G11: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”, and G11.4: “Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage”. Community museums can act as a useful reference point to both theory and practice in the discipline of heritage management and architectural sociology. This provides impetus for the restoration of architectural sovereignty and heritage consolidation. Community museums and monuments signify a departure from the authoritative and hegemonic heritage management towards community empowerment. Setting up museums and monuments in local communities particularly rural areas has a unique significance in the Zimbabwean context given that it was in the countryside where the effect of the racist brutality of colonial security forces was most felt. Furthermore, the political disturbances that rocked the country in the early years of gaining political independence also left traumatic scars among rural communities. Thus, localization of monuments would significantly contribute to the enhancement of collective memorialization and reconciliation. Although this book has represented architectural products and spaces particularly those state-owned or controlled, as largely “grand” symbols of elitism and supremacy, there are also cases in which the weak and minority interests have informed the direction and character of decolonizing heritage management. Expectedly, community museums contain biographies and portraits of iconic personalities from the community apart from international figures. Ideally, community museums are iconic bridges connecting the present to the past and also collapsing diverse contexts through dialogue, collaboration and sharing experiences since they are expected to be owned and managed by the local community. The BaTonga Community Museum is considered one of the first museums to serve a minority ethnic group, and is an important case by which to analyse the decolonization process, the promotion of indigenous cultures, and relationship building with communities. According to ethnographic records (https://naturalhistorymuseumzimbabwe. com/batonga/), the community museum located on the shores of Lake Kariba, in Binga district in Matabeleland North province, opened in September 2004, seeking to promote and empower the local communities and the Tonga culture, displaying

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the traditions, science, beliefs and ingenuity of the local people. The museum demonstrates the extent of the state’s commitment to cultural and historic preservation. Another case is that of Marange Community Museum which illustrates how local communities can document and preserve cultural values for themselves and for future generations outside the traditional authorized framework of national museums (Chipangura & Chipangura, 2019). A community museum houses cultural, historical and religious objects that are an enduring symbol connecting the past with the present and future. As “contact zones”, community museums act as sources of indigenous knowledge and catalysts for new relationships within and between communities (Peers & Brown, 2003, cited in Chipangura & Chipangura, 2019, p. 3). Although they are effective tools for the promotion of participatory heritage management, they can also become local dispositifs when captured by state-sponsored elites and institutions from within and outside the communities.

Illusion of Collective Memorialization Although the place of national museums and monuments in the process of heritagization and identity construction is widely revered, there is also the danger of homogenizing their representation and materialization. As argued by Lowenthal (2013), the mobilization of the past may be related to a sense of nostalgia associated with the need to venerate particular events, places and buildings. Ruling elites usually control commemorative place naming and related processes of immortalizing personalities (Narayan, 2006; Mamvura, 2021). The celebrated symbols of collective memorialization of the past by way of monuments and statues may actually be part of ethnic or factional commemoration and not necessarily a form of collective historic preservation. The substantial labour and inputs invested in the monumental architecture at sites such as Great Zimbabwe and Mapungubwe in South Africa could be an instrument of ideological control where inequalities and outright exploitation are masked (Shenjere-Nyabezi & Pwiti, 2021). It is largely illusory and fallacious to reduce all monuments and artefacts in museums as reflecting collective memorialization and preservation, and reclamation of national heritage. For example, the construction and mounting of Mbuya Nehanda statue in Harare at the intersection of one the busiest streets, Samora Machel Avenue and Julius Nyerere Way followed by the inscription of its image on the country’s local currency in 2021, was one case of history and myths being evoked to represent and produce “heritage” as part of identity formation. Why it took nearly four decades to immortalize such iconic personalities of the resistance to colonialism could be anyone’s guess. The mythmaking process around either the person or spirit of Mbuya Nehanda or the Zimbabwe Bird can be regarded as a form of legitimization and acceptance involving multiple actors and institutions. According to Fu (2021) “stories” of such monuments are potentially manufactured and effectively reducing them to “icons of manufactured mythology” and “memory dispositifs” (Basu, 2011). According to Ndlovu (2017), heritage is a contested and inherently divisive. This supports Zukas

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(2019) argument that statues effectively served as a mediator between the presence and absence of women in political struggles. This can be a form of “induced” remembering (Stone & Hirst, 2014) and symbolic “violence” which potentially generates resistance. For example, ordinary citizens particularly the underprivileged urban dwellers and youth with very little knowledge of the country’s history, walking or driving past the “monument” may not necessarily share the collective identity the statue initially meant to project. This supports Stone and Hirst (2014, p. 315) argument that “if collective memories are to serve as a foundation on which to build a collective identity, then what is not remembered is as critical to forming this identity as what is remembered”. Induced collective memorialization drives citizens to a state of collective forgetting which may over time reduce the monument to an ordinary architecture because its mythic status will begin to be subdued by the iconicity of the “forgotten” real heroes of its time. This resonates with what Maciuika (2014) coined “historic preservation fallacy”: architectural monuments are reconstructed as part of historic preservation while seeking to advance group values or notions of identity. This is also supported by Mwale (2017) argument that identities are politicized in some cases to frame a certain interpretation of heritage such as regarding ancient or historical buildings as a representation of particular identity despite the fact that these buildings may not have been necessarily built as such. Many of the monumental and archived collections are a significant expression of the ruling class and powerful elites’ desire both to engage in a politics of recognition and to position themselves relative to pasts and futures. For many years authorities have tended to concentrate on commemorating prominent figures of the struggle mainly those who actually fought in the war while neglecting the grassroots fighters and war collaborators at the local/village level. For example, widows and widowers, and children of fallen heroes lived in penury/poverty failing to meet basic day-to-­ day needs years after their loved ones passed away in spite of their immense contribution to the struggle for independence. Perhaps as a way of redressing the anomaly, the new political dispensation after Mugabe’s departure enacted legislation to look at the welfare of war collaborators. Pursuant to this and consistent with the new policy of devolution and domestication of national heritage management, the new Zimbabwe government embarked on a programme of taking museums and monuments to the people. A good case in point is the Chibondo Massacre monument established to represent the memorialization of estimated 700–800 civilians including infants on their mothers’ backs indiscriminately killed by Rhodesian security forces in 1976. For years the victims had been buried in a secret disused mine shaft until their remains were excavated and exhumed in 2011. The monument remains one of the few iconic and stark reminders of sacrifices paid by the ordinary villagers for the independence of the country. There is also the historic Kamungoma shrine in Gutu district, in southern province of Masvingo, proclaimed a monument in 2022 in honour of 105 civilians comprising non-combatant villagers killed by the same forces on the night of 14 May 1978. The victims were at a “pungwe” gathering (a political education and mobilization meeting or night vigil organized by “guerrillas” (liberation war fighters)). However, the fact that it took over four decades for the authorities to “remember” such historical events reinforces Jacob’s (2014)

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argument that attaching significance to an architectural object was not the product of a “natural” process in which collective symbols were being deciphered but was structured upon meanings attributed to it by agents of power. There are many other untold stories of potential shrines and unmarked massive graves scattered across the countryside and yet to be immortalized. The omission may not necessarily have been deliberate but due to resource limitations on the part of the responsible government department and local communities. Similarly, commemorative collections of “iconic” figures such as Mukwati, Chaminuka and Kaguvi, who are all revered for their counter-organization and mobilization of masses or citizens against colonialism not only a symbol of historic preservation but a representation of narratives as archived and re-storied by the dominant voices (Kaoma, 2016; Mamvura, 2021). This creates the temptation to deconstruct dominant stories as representative of collective memory and producing texts that are also essentially “edited truth” (Power et al., 2011). For example, the voices regarded as those of the first people at the GZ largely belong to the dominant and elites of that time. Political elites make deliberate choices on which histories become heritage and deserve preservation and conservation. There is a tendency to silence and suppress the past through historical narratives of what is remembered and what is forgotten reveal inequalities of power (Trouillot, 2015). This supports Derrida’s idea that the sign is a structure of “difference”: half of it is always “not there” and the other half is always “not that” (Sarup, 1993, p. 33, cited in Crotty, 2003, p. 205). Museums and monuments only tell part of a people’s history. The symbolic meaning of landmark architecture and memorialization of particular individuals’ contribution to the country’s attainment of political independence have continued to be retold and re-storied as new meanings got fixed and to some extent falsified as popular memory is created through selectively remembering and conveniently forgetting (Narayan, 2006). For example, one of the country’s former vice-presidents, Joyce Mujuru (wife to former Defence Forces General Solomon Mujuru), was for years widely regarded as a living testimony of women’s courageous and resilient involvement in the war of liberation. However, after her expulsion from the ruling party and government, her story was retold and being dismissed as a false or misleading representation. Through rituals and public memorialization of past events, dominant groups within the ruling party and state have become the primary author and editor of the national script by enhancing unwritten norms of exclusion setting apart citizen from subject, freeborn from bondage-bound, patriots from sell-outs (Ranger, 2009). The aspect of political expediency and manipulation of memorialization and selective sacralization of historic figures is aptly demonstrated by the cases of Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole and James Chikerema’s immortalization in post-Mugabe era. For example, it took more than four decades for the once-decorated founder of ZANU and later opposition ZANU (Ndonga) leader, Ndabaningi Sithole, to be immortalized. This occurred in spite of the fact that for nearly a half-century the two had been regarded as revolution traitors or “sell-outs” by the ruling party leadership and followers. As observed by Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Willems (2010), this shows how the ruling elites used state institutions as apparatus to rehabilitate enemies as long as it was politically convenient to do so. As a consequence, such a type of

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memorialization may easily exemplify a memory dispositive (Basu, 2011). This resonates with Goddeeris’ (2022) characterization of a culture of erasure, amnesia and selective memorialization. This reinforces Akcan’s (2008, p. 144) observation that “the errors of great heroes are excused in monumental history for the sake of maintaining their mythic statuses”. The events leading to and during Robert Mugabe’s departure and the ensuing controversies, tensions and unprecedented contestations surrounding the handling of his copse his (re)-burial that spilt into courts of law are of interest to both scholarship and practice when juxtaposed against the socio-political context of the institution of the National Heroes’ Acre. Mugabe’s corpse became a site and instrument of political contestation between his family and government formed out of a coup that disposed him from power (Mpofu, 2022). Although many political groups, individuals and progressive institutions fought for the attainment of independence in Zimbabwe, the task of immortalizing the historic figures as national and provincial heroes has been the prerogative of the ruling party for over 40 years. This does not only render the institution elitist but too partisan to resemble a national iconography. However, the advent of a new ZANUPF leadership at the end of 2017 led by Emmerson Mnangagwa, following a military-­ backed “self-coup” introduced a relatively more inclusive, non-partisan and transparent process of immortalizing historic figures irrespective of political affiliation and commissioning monuments representing heritage preservation of minority and previously marginalized communities. Such practices corroborate Williams’ (2019) characterization that this could be just rhetoric or a form of “transparent power” intended to minimize or mitigate the sense that such political monuments might be an expression of power. Similarly, African scholars’ preoccupation with de-colonial re-figuration and reconstitution of identities may miss the perpetuation of marginalization and oppression of local communities by post-colonial regimes. While the totalitarian and imperialist colonial British authorities used African soil and architecture to immortalize their own kin and kith at the expense of locals, the post-­ colonial regimes have also sacralized some political leaders including dictators such as Robert Mugabe as national deities and kings (Mamvura, 2021) at the expense of other revolutionaries. This tendency of selectively edifying, godifying and sacralizing political leadership has far-reaching implications for nation building, peace and reconciliation.

Conclusion Designing architecture in the spirit of heritage preservation and conservation as represented namely by museums, monuments and statues dotted all over the country may actually confirm the impact of identity-making practices on the built environment. Although this form of architectural appropriation may represent collective memorialization and heritagization it may also be impelled by the needs of power and control. Power produces reality. This is because architecture largely regarded as iconic may also become elitist and supremacist such as state houses and mausoleums designed by state-sponsored architects.

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Over the years, museums and monuments in Zimbabwe have vacillated between patriotic iconographies and memory dispositifs (dispositives). Iconographies and “dispositifs” are coexistent but not permanent states. The chapter observed that although the heritage sites and monuments were initially created to commemorate liberation war heroes, over the years the scope expanded to recognize outstanding contribution of non-fighters including religious and civic leaders. It concludes that the representation of museums and monuments in Zimbabwe is paradoxical: serving as iconographies for historic preservation and at the same time instruments of power and historic reconstruction. Changing circumstances may reduce an icon to a memory dispositive and vice versa. Similarly, a monument or statue can be created for purposes that are not necessarily the same as those portrayed in the public domain. Therefore, the multiple representations and appropriations of historic figures constitute a hybrid model of iconicity and propaganda; a form of “iconic dispositifs”. Designating an architectural product the status of either an icon or dispositive is rarely a straightforward engagement; it is multi-authored and often obscure. Essentially, through monuments, museums and statues, the past was invoked to cope with current and future political power struggles. Although many monuments considered in this chapter are widely revered national iconographies, overall, they remain a significant expression of the ruling class and powerful elite’s desire both to engage in a politics of recognition and to position themselves relative to pasts and futures.

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Chapter 5

Deconstructing Iconic and Historicist State Buildings

Introduction All buildings are artefacts and therefore inherently fake. (David Watkins, 2017, cited in Brittain-Catlin, 2014, p. 60)

Representation of state architecture is directly controlled by the political power symbolizing different state personalities and the way power is communicated. State architecture in general, buildings in particular are both iconic and historicist. Globally, colonial architecture was historically characterized by the commemoration of heroes of the First and Second World Wars. In the greater part of Africa, state buildings and spaces were named after knighted European personalities coming out of those battles. Actually, the Europeans went as far as changing the names of ancient kingdoms and states. Perhaps the assumption was that Africa was stateless and thus needed new boundaries. In Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), buildings of public significance constructed by the colonial system such as those housing critical government departments; prime minister’s offices, military and security were all named after members of the Pioneer Column under the British South African Company led by the famous Cecil John Rhodes in late nineteenth century. However, following the fall of the British Empire and the disappearance of colonialism, independent African governments proceeded to remove the names replacing them with their own heroes of the struggle for independence symbolizing the defeat of white supremacy and confirmation of sovereignty. Retaining the colonial names was also considered traumatic to the citizens who had suffered much at the hands of colonial authorities. Therefore, the memorialization and sacralization of founding revolutionary leaders and founding state presidents through place making and naming essentially became a rite of passage to nation and statehood. From an African perspective, the most visible evidence of cityscape re-figuration is found at international airports renamed after the countries’ heroes of the struggle against colonialism such as Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya, Oliver R Tambo International Airport © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. Maunganidze, Representation and Materialization of Architecture and Space in Zimbabwe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47761-4_5

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(Johannesburg, South Africa), the Robert G.  Mugabe International Airport in Harare. Other iconic architectural products like ministry government department headquarters, military and national stadiums have been widely considered symbols of star buildings (Alaily-Mattar et  al., 2018; Gravari-Barbas & Renard-Delautre, 2015), sovereign architecture (Atto, 2009), and signatures of power (Jenkins, 2005; Lasswell, 2017). This chapter largely considers state-controlled historical and colonial heritage buildings, and buildings named after heroes of the first Chimurenga national and pan African icons and those named after heroes of the second Chimurenga.

State Personality and Architectural Representation The type of a state strongly influences the character of representation and materialization of architecture. Representation of state architecture is directly controlled by the political power. State architecture also symbolizes different state personalities (Gallagher et  al., 2021) and the ways states communicate power or supremacy. Thus, it can be easily regarded as political architecture. Government buildings can also be regarded as symbols of the political power of a state that struggles to establish a particular collective identity (Swarts, 1997, cited in Yacobi, 2004, p.  239). Since the colonial era the Zimbabwean architecture has gone through symbolic architectural and spatial “embellishment and reconstructions” (Vinken, 2021). State-centric and exclusionary commemorative place naming has historically characterized both the colonial and post-colonial eras. Architecture during the colonial period was essentially political and racist. According to Fu (2021), although they do not speak and behave like humans, buildings become racist when they are named after white supremacists and adorning public building walls with only the pictures of past white (typically male) leaders. A striking example is the immortalization of Cecil John Rhodes as the founder of then Rhodesia while being silent about the contribution of King Lobengula to the formation of nationhood and statehood. Names of such knighted Europeans became the “surnames” of colonies and their government buildings and spaces that included schools, hospitals, streets and parks followed suit. Consequently, most state buildings in former colonies became essentially racist and authoritarian. Without running the risk of reductionism, I have found the successive colonial regimes in Zimbabwe, largely fitting into the following categories; racist/apartheid, authoritarian, capitalist and exclusionary. Foreign ideologies alienated from the local people’s needs and aspirations influenced the colonial governance system. As already indicated elsewhere in this book, the sacralization and memorialization of iconic or historicist personalities was male-­ dominated. Therefore, representation and appropriation of architectural products tended to resemble those state characteristics. Unlike the colonial architecture, the post-colonial state buildings and public spaces were expected to be patriotic and all-inclusive in line with the decolonization agenda. This reinforces Grinceri’s (2016) and Jones’ (2020) observations that state architecture was a component of a

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cultural and political discourse. Architecture is a representational medium capable of representing people’s normative values, ideas and feelings, not because it is a language, but because it is brought about and utilized as a practice of a group (Grinceri, 2016, p. 8) such as the state bureaucrats, politicians and architects. On attainment of political independence, the Zimbabwe government attempted to depart from architectural characteristics associated with the colonial system especially racism and capitalism. Consequently, the new government pursued a socialist development thrust underwritten by a pseudo-one party state system, which was also quasi-authoritarian in nature. As a way of declaring sovereignty and nationhood, one of the immediate tasks was to erase the racist and oppressive past by renaming most of these structures in honour of its own black heroes who had led the resistance to colonialism. The government embarked on place (re)naming that memorialized and commemorated heroes of the liberation wars including pan-­ African leaders who had provided both political and material support to the success of the struggle. However, this was going to be done cautiously given the pursuit of policy of reconciliation and the challenge of building a united nation in a country marooned by the legacy of ethnic divisions that continued to threaten peace and development. In the first few years of independence, there was a political fallout between the two main liberation war protagonist movements; the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) led by Joshua Nkomo, operated predominantly in the Matabele regions, and some parts of Midlands province and Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front) (ZANUPF) which covered the largely Shona speaking northern, central, eastern and southern provinces. The resultant state-sponsored civil war code named Gukurahundi was a near-genocidal execution that actually amplified the ruling party and government’s exclusionary and authoritarian approach which was extended to the representation and materialization of architecture and associated institutions. This sought to suppress ZAPU resistance and coevolved with ZANUPF’s intention to introduce a one-party state system. The political disturbances were problematic as they exposed the cracks of tribalism among the political elites responsible for place naming and place making. This supports Light and Young (2018) observation that during the process of typonymic cleansing there is danger in portraying the implementation of name changes as reflecting aspirations of a homogenous political elite. There was also another agenda of attempting to peripheralize the contribution of Matabeleland region to the struggle for independence. This is in agreement with what Harley (2001, cited in Mamvura, 2021, p. 21) coined “toponymic silence” regarding an all-Shona inscription of commemorative street and building names in the city of Harare under Mugabe’s regime (1980–2017) at the expense of Ndebele religious and political leaders. This is because ruling elites usually control commemorative place naming, ensuring that they select convenient pasts to serve present political purposes. All state architectural products are commissioned and controlled by political power and can be pretentious (Schumacher, 2012). This shows that a variety of state institutions and political actors may have different (or competing) agendas regarding renaming buildings and spaces (Forest et al., 2004, cited in Light & Young, 2018, p. 189). A nation’s identity is constructed according to presentist political agenda

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(Osborne, 2001, cited in Mamvura, 2021, p. 23). There is no consensus on whether a particular architectural design or product was a symbol of national identity (Atto, 2009) or “signature of power” (Lasswell, 2017). Identity is dynamic, negotiated and contested. There are also dual and multiple identities namely the urban and rural, national and tribal or ethnic, local and western, elites and non-elites, male and females, old and young generation, political and religious. The architectural reconstruction and related mobilization strategies influence each of the groups differently. Iconic architecture by way of state buildings and related built environment such as statues and monuments can facilitate the building of collective identities because of its ability to shape our way perceptions, values and actions but can also be shaped to engender control over people (Bauman, 1976, cited in Dawson, 2016, p.  21). According to Simone (2020), architecture was never apolitical, as it not only reflects the societies it was created by, but goes so far as to push the agendas of those who create it, whether for good or evil. Some historicist buildings have been largely underrated. For example, Stoddard Hall – which was an unvalued “gem” used by nationalists in the 1960s to plot resistance and confrontation against the colonial government (Sunday Mail 11, June 2017). In spite of its historical importance, the place has not been qualitatively utilized apart from serving as the last stopover for all declared heroes before internment at the National Heroes Acre. As Harmony Agere (2017) wrote in the Sunday Mail, “with paint peeling off its walls and rather insipid surrounds, the hall boasts neither the majestic charm nor the warmth of other iconic monuments such as the National Heroes Acre”. Located in one of Zimbabwe’s oldest high-density suburbs, the iconic hall remains central in the history of Zimbabwe liberation struggle and post-independence period. It was built around 1958 and was named after Mr. William Swan Stoddard who was Deputy Superintendent of the then City of Salisbury and sympathetic to the interests of black residents. “The name Stoddard Hall is synonymous with the accordance of last respects to national heroes. It is the second last destination for all national heroes before they are interred at the iconic National Heroes Acre” (Agere, 2017). Two striking similarities between the colonial and post-colonial state architecture are discernible. Architecture in both systems has been demonstrated to be hegemonic and exclusionary. Firstly, apart from being racist the colonial architecture marginalized the female gender. No female was immortalized apart from Queen Victoria and Elizabeth, who were both leaders of the British monarchy. Perhaps this can be understandable given the time. Since colonial place naming and making were done in honour of mainly British explorers, members of British South African Company and heroes of First and Second World Wars, all which were largely masculinist fields. On its part, the post-colonial state did not recognize heroines of liberation struggle by naming any key state building in their honour despite their invaluable contribution to freedom. A few years into independence, a few female fighters began to receive token recognition namely Mbuya Nehanda (hero of the first Chimurenga), after whose name a maternity wing at Parirenyatwa Hospitals was named. Many years later, Harare Hospital became Sally Mugabe Hospital (wife to the country’s founding President Robert Mugabe) and Mutare General Hospital

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was renamed Victoria Chitepo Provincial Hospital (Victoria Chitepo, wife of second Chimurenga liberation luminary and icon Herbert Chitepo, one of the founding leaders of Zimbabwe African National Union). Perhaps it is no coincidence that all the three immortalized figures were associated with hospitals given the traditional intersections of the female gender, health, and care work. Secondly, the colonial state used architecture as a symbolic violence to entrench their supremacy and deliberately ignored to recognize iconic leaders such as King Lobengula, whose “signature” concessions the British manipulated and abused to annex the country and loot mineral resources from which Europeans have continued to benefit in spite of abundant ethnographic evidence showing the deceit of the British. Unfortunately, the situation did not immediately change under the post-colonial state, particularly under Mugabe’s authoritarian and ethnic cleansing era, as architecture was deployed to monopolize representation of Zimbabwean history by excluding the perspectives of other groups. Architecture should represent both cultural preservation and collective historic reconstruction. However because the process of representation and appropriation of iconic buildings was a preserve of elites within the ruling ZANUPF, it fell prey to becoming an instrument of factional battles as well. In the absence of checks and balances or bureaucratic insulation (Evans, 1995; Raftopoulos, 2010), the state elites had a greater degree of freedom to pursue their parochial interests (Sarkar, 2008). Consequently, the autonomous state became both the guardian and predator (Cartier-Bresson, 2004) in that its leaders pursued their own objectives without pressure from any opposition.

Decolonial Toponyms and Spatial Re-figuration On attainment of political independence, the new African states embarked on architectural toponymical cleansing; place making and place naming informed by a “decoloniality” narrative. After successfully changing some of the countries’ names the project was shifted to the cityscape. The decolonization or toponymic cleansing project, which resonated with the majority of post-independent African state ideologies, did not spare architectural products particularly in the city. For example, in the Zimbabwean context while some state buildings were renamed and repainted consistent with the aspiration of a new political dispensation, others retained their colonial “white” identity. The most common and immediate changes occurred in the capital city, Harare, where buildings particularly those housing government ministry and department headquarters were renamed after the first Chimurenga heroes namely Chaminuka, Mukwati, Kaguvi and Munhumutapa. They replaced colonial state buildings that had been previously named after various colonial heroes and knighted individuals at the behest of the royal British monarchy such as Cecil John Rhodes, Earl Grey, David Livingstone and Milton building (refer to Table 3.1 in Chap. 3). Although all these re-figurations were expected to provide a decolonial identity and serve as symbols of power and sovereignty, the one attracting the most attention was Milton Building now Munhumutapa Building (Fig.  5.1), which

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Fig. 5.1  Munhumutapa Building, located along Samora Machel Avenue

previously housed the former white minority leader and Prime Minister, Ian Smith. At the time of writing this book, the building was still home to the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC) together with key ministries of Foreign Affairs, and Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services. The figure shows the Northern and Eastern views of the building located in the Harare Central Business District (CBD) at the corner of Samora Machel Avenue and Second Street (later renamed Joshua Nkomo). Although ordinary citizens could easily pass by the building unrestricted, the mere presence of armed security personnel manning the immediate surrounding and the rigorous security checks that visitors could be regularly subjected to communicated sufficient intimidation discouraged any potential intruders. Just behind the complex adjacent to the East Wing is a heavily guarded VIP security parking, and adjacent to the towering Defense House, home to the Defense Forces Headquarters. The red paint of roof and whitish “brick and mortar” exterior walls are similar to other state architecture across the country particularly that which symbolizes authority and supremacy such as the State House (sitting President’s official residence) (Zimbabwe House) and judicial service offices, and Registry offices. Red and cream/white seem to be a universal colour combination for most government institutions such as schools, district administration and courts. The architectural re-figuration was not universal as there were exceptions. For example, Parliament building, which is ideally supposed to be one of the most powerful institutions for a country that has attained nation and statehood, retained its colonial structure. It was only renamed Parliament of Zimbabwe and not named after any immortalized individual. The Old Parliament building (Fig. 5.2) inherited from the colonial regime was previously the prestigious white-only Cecil Hotel. As what happened to the State House and State Residences, the post-colonial state did not show any attempt to change the status quo. Perhaps, this explains why since attainment of independence

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Fig. 5.2  Old Parliament (former Cecil Hotel) – main entrance

the government had been mimicking the British Westminster ritualistic style of opening and closing parliament calendars, and marked by traditional crowd pulling but heavily guarded “royal-like” chariot led by police horse riders. Other notable state buildings that were not (re)-named after national heroes included the Judicial Offices like the High Court and Supreme courts and Reserve Bank, radio and television broadcasting studios (Mbare studios and Pockets Hill respectively), the gigantic National Sports Stadium, various key military camps and barracks, Natural History Museum and Zimbabwe International Trade Fair Grounds in Bulawayo. The National Army headquarters (King George V1) (KG6) was only renamed Josiah Tongogara Barracks, after nearly four decades. Although the new Zimbabwe government honoured its revered Pan-African icons by way of renaming city streets and spaces, this did not apply to state buildings. However, at the provincial level, the state approached the issue in a slightly different way. In some provinces, instead of being preoccupied with name changes, new multi-ministry government complexes such as the Muhlahlandlela Building in Bulawayo and Benjamin Vurombo in Masvingo were constructed. In some towns, the complexes have not been named after any political figure. The decolonial “cleansing” also spared monuments such as the grave of famous Cecil John Rhodes, located at Matopo Hills near Bulawayo. The remains are still buried at the site and have remained the region’s world tourist attraction although not as spectacular as the mighty Victoria Falls. While a lot been said about Rhodes’ statue in other countries, no significant criticism has been levelled against the statue of British explorer, David Livingstone and many other elitist, racist and apartheid-like former white-only schools in cities such as Harare and

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Bulawayo. This corroborates Brittain-Catlin’s (2014) argument that some architecture is unfairly treated because it has been the victim of noisy and aggressive attacks from people who have succeeded in getting their voices heard, and because it has not found a language among architecture critics to describe it. The state’s reluctance to change the names of colonial institutions seems to be consistent with the wishes of local residents. Given that such institutions were a symbolic remembrance of British exploitation of the disenfranchised and marginalized black citizenry, one would have expected the changes to be widely celebrated. Even in cases where the official names were changed, the former and current students and parents and other local stakeholders still identified with the colonial identity. Although colonialism was a painful experience, some individuals and groups still relished its associated prestige and elitism to the sad extent of even considering the coming of political independence as the beginning of reduced quality and standards across all sectors. Without running the risk of digressing from the running theme of the book, I refer to the land reform programme with respect to the farm names. A cursory survey of names of farms in two districts nearest Harare shows that the former white-owned commercial farms that occupied under the fast-track land reform programme have retained their colonial names. Overall, the model of architectural re-figuration predicated on consolidating the decolonization imperative, punctuated the nature of architectural materialization and appropriation under the first Zimbabwean Republic 1980–2017 (Mugabe regime). Towards the end of that rule and immediately after the coming in of a new political dispensation in late 2018 (second republic) under the leadership of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, the process of renaming state architecture and space began in earnest especially military establishments and city roads particularly outside Harare since most streets in the city had already been renamed in previous proclamations. This complemented the nation-wide massive infrastructural development to drive the economy to attain a middle-income status by year 2030, marking a clear departure from the previous regime that tended to rely on dangling rhetoric as a political survival strategy. Although the government has managed to construct star buildings there are also some historical ones that have either crumbled or just disappeared from cityscape. Another striking finding is the government’s indifference to the poor state of city roads even within the CBDs and residential areas. The incessant tensions between the ruling party and opposition-controlled city authorities have compromised the maintenance of cityscape particularly in large cities. The details of the political contestations over the control of urban architecture and space are presented in Chapter Seven.

The Post-modern Turn Although the post-modernist movement in architecture has spread to greater parts of the developed world such as the United States, Asia and Europe, this is a relatively new phenomenon in the African context. Inspired by the works of architects

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such as Robert Venturi, post-modern architecture arose as break away from modernist designing due to its monotony, lack of ornament and negation of history and culture. According to Waldrep (2013), post-modern architecture has long been seen as a critical and popular anodyne to the worst aspects of modernist architecture revealing new forms and relationships. In essence, the form and purpose of post-­ modern architecture is not necessarily overt. The major characteristics of post-­ modern architecture include complexity and contradiction, arbitrary decorations, fragmentation, curvilinear and asymmetrical forms, colour and sculpture. One of the strongest motivations of post-modernism is to design architecture within the taste of the community still innovating (Dewidar, 2017). In the 1990s, the post-­ modernist movement began in Zimbabwe, in which architects drew inspiration from ancient designs and incorporated them into new buildings (Pikirayi, 2006). This can be illustrated by three iconic, landmark and star buildings; newly expanded Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport (see Fig.  5.3), six-storey New Parliament complex completed in November 2022 (see Fig. 5.4) both delivered as political gifts from the Chinese government and the towering state-funded 27-storey Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (Fig. 5.5), designed by a Zimbabwean architect, Mike Milton. The post-modernist view is an attempt to go beyond the materialist world that epitomized modernism. The post-modern turn brought with it the emergence of computer-aided drafting (CAD) and building information modelling (BIM) tools for architectural design, resulting in disruptive changes that propelled the way architects represented and approached design issues (Kotnik, 2010). Both the new parliament and airport extension are consistent with the post-modern digital representation and materialization paradigm (Norell, 2016). The fusing and blending of post-modern styles with symbols of cultural heritage such as the iconic GZ conical

Fig. 5.3  R.G. Mugabe International Airport (Harare) (www.hararecity.co.zw)

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Fig. 5.4  New Look Zimbabwe Parliament, Mt. Hampden. (Source: Herald, November 21, 2022; https://www.herald.co.zw/new-­parliament-­ready-­for-­business/)

Fig. 5.5  Left: Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (Harare) entrance along Samora Machel Avenue, Right: Part of South View. (Source: https://fingaz.co.zw/rbz-­building-­entrance-­255x106-­2/. February 16, 2019)

tower in the design of the buildings represented a response to the criticism of Euro-­ centric modernism by shifting focus to African heritage and celebrating Zimbabwean accomplishments (Jarrett, 2020). The post-modernist designs of each of the three selected post-modern structures, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, new international airport and parliament complexes, contains “the iconic conical tower” of the Great Zimbabwe monument. The designs are a shift from the Eurocentric modernist and

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racist colonial structures to more indigenously grounded ones, directly connected to the country’s cultural and political heritage. The paradoxical representation and materialization of state buildings in Zimbabwe is best illustrated by the deployment of Augustus Pugin’s concept of “real and fake” architecture (Brittain-Catlin, 2014). For example, the new parliament building that is one of the best post-modern structures from both an African and international perspective and commissioned at a time the country’s political landscape was characterized by figments of toxic authoritarianism, a direct contrast to the democratic principles such a structure would ideally epitomize. As Vale (2008, p. 8) observed, “the design of a government building’s interiors holds many clues about the nature the bureaucracy that works therein”. Thus, one would hope that the majestic structure of the new complex would in future resonate with the ideal inclusive and democratic flavour and engagement between the ruling party and opposition legislators. This would effectively make it a “sovereign icon” and sensitive to gender, ethnic and racial balances. However, the under-representation of women in successive Zimbabwe parliaments dating back to the colonial period demonstrates the entrenchment of gender inequality. This resonates with Kern’s (2020) submission that cities and their spaces highlight inequalities produced predominantly designed by a very narrow segment of society. Compared to the new complex the old parliament building is much smaller and conventional (see Figs. 5.2 and 5.4). The old parliament (formerly Cecil Hotel), located at the corner of Nelson Mandela Avenue and Third Street with its annexe along Kwame Nkrumah Avenue, is also adjacent to the Anglican Cathedral and the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe, providing it both the “divine” and judicial sacrosanctity, and legitimacy. However, the fact that the new parliament building was delivered to Zimbabwe as part of a package of “political gifts” from the Peoples’ Republic of China’s “soft-power steering” mechanism inevitably attracts disquiet and criticism from some quarters particularly from opposition political formations as such forms of international aid or “grants” potentially mortgages recipient’s geo-political freedom and sovereignty. Others can easily consider it more of an indirect donation to the ruling ZANUPF party than the country and serving as a China’s geo-political hegemonic instrument. While this “star” architectural product ostensibly sought to consolidate democratic pillars particularly for a country reeling under Western-­sponsored economic sanctions, it also invariably bolstered the ruling party’s supremacy and country’s image while at the same time masking the inherent contradictions and tensions circumscribing the institution. Thus, the building may not only fit as a dispositive but also relatively “fake”. A building becomes fake if its parts are applied to suggest something other than what they actually are (Brittain-­Catlin, 2014, p. 60). This is reinforced by David Wilkins’ assertion that “all buildings are artefacts and therefore inherently fake anyhow” (ibid., p. 60). The new parliament’s post-modern oval interior designs and seemingly non-exclusionary and non-divisive sitting arrangements are a direct departure from the former colonial Westminster type that characterized the old structure, which was in use for over 42 years after the country gained independence. However, this is not the reason why one may find it fake. It is fake

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architecture given that the seemingly democratic and the associated politically welcoming “mood” portrayed by its oval interior sitting arrangement is not supported by reality on the ground. Inter-party tensions generated by successive disputed elections and incessant detentions without trial of some opposition political activists and allegations of state-sponsored recalling of opposition MPs engender a very fragile democracy. Its majestic and iconic beauty supported by the culturally and historically artistic ambience have been overshadowed by contrasting circumstances obtaining before and during the time of its delivery coming right on the heels of disputed 2023 general elections, won by ZANUPF at the expense of a disorganized opposition. Thus, the new parliament may not only serve as an iconic dispositive confirming the ruling party’s power and control of the political space but also represent the new government commitment to transform the country through architectural re-figuration. Although the building may not have been intended to become deceptive, the political and economic realities that maroon it place it in an ambiguous position. Another structure, which for many years struggled for authenticity, was the RBZ headquarters in Harare. The building also possesses figments of fakeness or counterfeit given that since the start of its tenure in the late 1990s, it has struggled to fulfil its constitutional mandate as the custodian and guardian of the country’s monetary policy and controller of financial institutions, and as a global partner in the financial services industry. For decades, it has amazingly remained the tallest structure in the Harare CBD and paradoxically, acting as a central cash reserve in a country without an effective local currency or with an “imagined legal tender”. At the time of commissioning, the structure did not just boast of magnanimous beauty but was also a symbol of an economy that promised growth and prosperity, joining the list of immediate beneficiaries of globalized capitalism. This supports Taṣci and Ṣalgamcioḡlu’s (2022) observation of how structures of contemporary buildings such as banks serve as metaphorical references to power to emphasize potency in economics. With iconic and historicist pieces such as the Zimbabwe Bird and GZ walls, incorporated into its gigantic front entrance, the RBZ building symbolized national pride, sovereignty and economic power (Fig.  5.5). It is one of the few post-modern state buildings constructed in independent Zimbabwe. However, the economic downturn that the country experienced at the turn of the new millennium reduced it to a “blank signpost” and leaving many of us always wondering what really was going on in and around both the architecture and institutional space. Under the new RBZ building’s tenure, year-on-year inflation exceeded one thousand percent (1000%) in 2006, reaching an estimated two million percent (2000000%) in July 2008 (Central Statistics Office, 2008; Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, 2009), and peaking to a record high of 231 million percent by end of 2008 (Kramarenko et al., 2010), forcing authorities to stop publishing inflation figures. However, it bolstered Robert Mugabe’s predatory authoritarian rule (Bratton & Masunungure, 2011), persistently serving as a patronage-dispensing instrument and controversially getting involved in hyperinflation-inducing and state-sponsored partisan quasi-fiscal activities that included procuring, buying and distributing farming equipment to the beneficiaries of the infamous fast-track land reform programme.

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As a result of these quasi-fiscal activities the RBZ experienced losses estimated to be about 75% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2006 (Besada & Moyo, 2008; Muñoz, 2007). In essence, for years, the bank has been accused of failing to stop gold smuggling and money laundering perpetrated by politically connected individuals and groups. Thus, central bank building suffered from organizational identity dissonance in the sense that its portrayed image was persistently at variance with both the expectations and real experiences of the citizenry. In the main it has been effectively transformed into a pseudo “harvesting rod” for economic accumulation by the more powerful or dominant groups. Consistent with this metaphor, the bank signified a rod or stick used by a few to gain access to a “fruit” (e.g., cash, power, farming inputs and equipment). State resources are scarce, located at the top of “tree” and largely accessed by those with sufficiently long “rods” (Maunganidze, 2016, p. 47). When a tree becomes too high or difficult for one to harvest fruits, a rod or ngongowo, as it is widely known within the Shona vernacular. Under Robert Mugabe’s predatory and authoritarian regime, the RBZ was effectively reduced to a “Big Man’s tool” and idiom of both political and economic capital accumulation. However, the new ZANUPF government that came into office end of 2017 under the leadership of his former vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, attempted to restore the central bank’s reputation and iconicity by ensuring it effectively executed its constitutional responsibility especially price stabilization through foreign currency exchange management and strict financial discipline. For example, the introduction of weekly foreign exchange auctions boosted the foreign currency reserves and partly enhanced the institution’s reputation. However, establishing the sustainability of the move is beyond the scope of this book but potentially a viable future research area. Post-modernism addresses phenomena which have long been overlooked in modernist architecture; complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, “richness of meaning” rather than “clarity of meaning” (Dewidar, 2017; Kerr et al., 2016). The hybridity, pluriversality and plasticity of architecture and social actors because of re-figuration of spaces from state territory to globalization (Knoblauch & Löw, 2020) and information flow potentially create epistemological and methodological worries. The post-modern turn also entails fragmentation and incompleteness, which may present potential conceptualization and operationalization headaches. It becomes more difficult to distinguish between the indigenous and exotic, the dominant and marginalized voices, which are traditional targets of decolonization, and may become much more hidden and suppressed by new forms of oppression (Williams, 2019). The post-modern turn provides an opportunity for “methodological flexibility” as it allows incorporation of multivalent imaginaries that follow change and flexibility in architectural design and production (Moses, 2020). However as earlier observed, the vision of collective identity is essentially a grand or meta-narrative, which contradicts a post-modern philosophy. With the emergence of both cultural and political pluralism, the traditional function of collective memorialization and historic preservation, and national identity formation may no longer be relevant for addressing new socio-economic and political challenges and struggles confronting the country.

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Accessibility Enhancement Although some scholars have branded the post-colonial state architecture largely authoritarian and alienated from the citizenry, ethnographic survey and lived experiences do not lend support to the narrative. Historicist state buildings such as Mukwati Building, which houses the popular public service dispensing units like Salary Services Bureau, Government Pension Offices and Ministry of Lands, and Kaguvi building, which at the time of renaming housed, the ever-frequented Taxes Department, ZIMSTATS and Ministry of Health hardly exemplify any statist elitism. Unlike in the colonial era, where state institutions and their architecture were “closed” systems with restricted access by the publics, their role and interaction with society has transformed significantly particularly under Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government mantra of “leaving no one behind”. In spite of this, there is one notable exception; that is Chaminuka Building, located between Kaguvi and Mukwati buildings, and housing the headquarters of arguably one of the most secretive, feared and “panoptic” security departments in both colonial and post-colonial times, the Central Intelligence Organisation. Perhaps naming the building after such a liberation iconic figure sanitized the institution given the ordinary person’s perception of it. However, there is no evidence of such deliberate intentions. As a way of enhancing citizenry and tourist knowledge and appreciation of the contribution of immortalized liberation icons, NMMZ began to roll out a historic and iconic building and street plaque construction programme. As shown in Fig. 5.6 a sample plaque created for historic structures and spaces such as Kaguvi building contained a summary of the hero’s history and political contribution. The plaque programme, although not a new phenomenon to the world of political architecture, enhanced interface between public and iconic architecture. While such a development may Fig. 5.6  Kaguvi Building Plaque, Harare. (Source: Author – photo taken on 9 August 2023-Zimbabwe Museum of Human Sciences Archeology – NMMZ, Harare)

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unavoidably attract criticism from some sections of the population, I maintain that the plaque programme was a progressive development that bolstered historic preservation and collective heritagization that ensured the state buildings served more as national icons than just memory dispositifs. Although the designs of some of the buildings may not directly fit Bentham’s panoptic architectural mechanisms, they still serve as forms of “power and surveillance”. In particular, totalitarian pieces exemplified by “prison architecture” such as Gonakudzingwa, Hwahwa, Chikurubi and Harare Maximum prisons, which all previously symbolized “colonial violence” remain arguably one of the most alienated and feared due to their close association with the torture of political detainees including liberation icons such as Robert Mugabe, Simon Muzenda, Joshua Nkomo and Joseph Msika. Although these can easily best resemble the panopticon given their role in society and fortress-like architectural designs, their detailed illustrations are beyond the scope of this book. The prisons, police and military establishments are considered the most direct expression of imperial absolutism and white supremacy during the colonial period. Thus as a way of cleansing them and making them more legitimate symbols of political sovereignty, there have been attempts at transforming them to make them more accessible to the citizenry including minorities and people living with disabilities. Over the years, visitors and schoolchildren on educational tours have thronged such places and institutions. Furthermore, respective government departments have devolved functions to local levels and occasionally have individually and collectively participated provincial and district exhibitions to raise awareness and demystifying their functionality. However, in the case of the new parliament, its relocation more than 30 km from Harare to Mount Hamden potentially alienates the ordinary city residents especially people living with disabilities and children, who for decades were used to gathering in the nearby public park to witness traditional annual opening ceremonies. The new location could be costly for ordinary citizens and consequently dissuade them from attending parliamentary sessions. While the new location may disadvantage the ordinary average person, for the authorities this may be a benefit as it would be difficult for the opposition forces to organize any meaningful protest demonstration near the building. At the time of this book’s development and to the best of the author’s knowledge, the unveiling of the design of the new parliament and the decision to relocate it had not been subjected to any broad-based consultations given the significance of the change to both spatial re-figuration and political economy of the country. Such political decisions may be questioned in future. This agrees with Schumacher (2012) argument elsewhere that the new parliament was likely to become a political issue to which further political communications connect. It is also controversial given that the site was actually the original last destination of the infamous racist Cecil Rhodes’ Pioneer Column. Actually basing on various archaeological and historiographical records, the new parliament could easily have been located within the current Harare city environs, believed to be the place where the first Chimurenga liberation icons, Kaguvi and Nehanda were executed. Perhaps, and barring potential economic and political costs, the new parliament and even the capital city could potentially be (re)located at historical and heritage sites such as

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Masvingo and Old Bulawayo. However, at the time of developing this book, it had not been officially confirmed if relocation of parliament translated into change of capital city. The relocation of the parliament to the original BSACo capital could also be (mis)construed as a memorialization of the confirmation and celebration of the victory and success of Cecil Rhodes’ mission. Depending on the obtaining code of the political systems, either way the decision could be interpreted as either progressive or conservative. The elitist place making and naming have tended to alienate the state buildings from the citizenry. Finally, I maintain that some of the state buildings as earlier intimated, namely the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and new Parliament, differentially experience what I have decided to coin “architectural identity dissonance”: a condition that exists when the intended and portrayed image of a building does not match what stakeholders are experience. In spite of lack of evidence, indicating the original intentions of the buildings, the macro-economic and geo-political circumstances that maroon them especially the direct involvement of China render the interface of such architecture with some sections citizenry problematic. At the time of writing this book, the new Zimbabwe parliament although arguably one of the world’s best was marooned in political controversies following a series of disputed elections dating back to the turn of the century. In a polarized society, iconic and historicist state architecture, which should ordinarily attract collective reverence, struggles to command attention and legitimacy. A united nation anchored on a strong democracy is one of the key requirements for boosting the iconicity of architecture.

Conclusion One of the major observations of this chapter was that contemporary state personality greatly influenced the representation and materialization of architecture and spaces. Taken one by one, although all the architectural designs of the state buildings largely symbolized power and statehood, there were deliberate attempts to neutralize and/or naturalize political intentions through the incorporation of culture or indigeneity into the designs. Colonial state buildings were named in honour of European knighted personalities while post-colonial authorities engaged in place making and place naming after immortalized figures who led resistance to colonialism. Colonial buildings were also largely elitist and racist. Thus, one would have expected direct opposition between the colonial and post-colonial states. However, on attainment of independence the Zimbabwe government did not immediately pursue a radical spatial re-figuration and in some cases continued to operate from the same buildings previously used by successive former colonial regimes. This can be partly attributed to various reasons namely the costs associated with such spatial re-figuration, retention of symbols of supremacy and intimacy with previous status derived from occupying such untouchable “buildings of power”. With a few exceptions, perhaps the authorities selected to take the route of place renaming just as a

References

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ritual expected of any new independent African government. In post-colonial Zimbabwe, state buildings may no longer be racist as citizens can now freely access them, but institutionalized corruption obtaining within them in the midst of exponential levels of unemployment, poverty and other forms of inequality, reduces them to “fake” structures. Some buildings suffer from “identity dissonance” having ceased to represent the ideals of the same liberation iconic and historic figures they sought to represent and symbolize. Although it took the post-colonial  government decades to put up the three selected post-modern pieces particularly for a fragile economy reeling under both international economic isolation and domestic political illegitimacy, the development potentially demonstrates the commitment of the post-Mugabe government to rebrand and transform the country’s infrastructure. The experience of state buildings in Zimbabwe particularly in the first four decades of political independence strongly symbolized widely used metaphors for describing state architecture; that is, the “People’s icons” vs the “Big man apparatus”. Although some observers and political commentators may regard some of the state buildings as “big men’s apparati” many have remained historicist, “star” and “land-mark”. All state architecture can be political but reducing every architecture to the political domain may be an overestimation and simplification of the politicians’ influence. Post-modernist buildings could be designed without any political intentions. The buildings are no longer represented as overt cultural and political apparatuses but serving as soft technologies and artifices. Mimetic representation, one of the grand narratives of modernity, is no longer credible, regardless of whether it is a speculative narrative or a narrative of emancipation (Lyotard, 1984, p. 37, cited in Crotty, 2003, p. 211). Overall, state architecture in Zimbabwe  and the associative new forms of power relationships easily signify a hybridization of iconographies and dispositives.

References Agere, H. (2017, June 11). Stoddard hall – An unvalued ‘gem’. Sunday Mail. Zimpapers Group. Alaily-Mattar, N., Bartmanski, D., Koch, M., Löw M et  al. (2018).Situating architectural performance: “Star architecture” and its roles in repositioning the cities of Graz, Lucerne and Wolfsburg. European Planning Studies, 26(9), 1-27. doi: 10.1080/09654313.2018.1465896 Atto, F. N. S. (2009). Sovereign architecture: The enigma of power in the age of globalization. The Global Studies Journal, 9, 1–19. Besada, H., & Moyo, N. (2008). Picking up the pieces of Zimbabwe’s economy (Technical Paper No. 5/2008). Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). Bratton, M., & Masunungure, E. (2011). The anatomy of political predation: Leaders, elites and coalitions in Zimbabwe 1980–2010 (Research Paper 09). Developmental Leadership Program (ALP). Brittain-Catlin, T. (2014). Bleak houses: Disappointment and failure in architecture. MIT Press. Cartier-Bresson, J. (2004). The challenge of poor governance and corruption. Copenhagen consensus 2004 project. Cambridge University Press. Central Statistics Office. (2008). National accounts statistics. Government of Zimbabwe.

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Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI). (2009). CZI 009 survey results analysis summary. CZI. Crotty, M. (2003). The foundations of social research: Meaning and perspective in the research process. SAGE Publications. Dawson, M. (2016). Social theory for alternative societies. Palgrave. Dewidar, K. (2017, March). Postmodern architecture theory and practice (Working paper). British University in Egypt. https://doi.org/10.13140/rg.2.1.1125.656 Evans, P. (1995). Embedded autonomy: States and industrial transformations. Princeton University Press. Fu, A. S. (2021). Can buildings be racist? A critical sociology of architecture and the built environment. Sociological Inquiry, 92(2), 1–24. Gallagher, J., Mpere, D.  L., & N’djoré, Y.  A. B. (2021). State aesthetics and state meanings: Political architecture in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. African Affairs, 120(480), 333–364. https:// doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adab018 Gravari-Barbas, M., & Renard-Delautre, C. (2015). Starchitecture(s): Celebrity architects and urban space. L’Harmattan. Grinceri, D.(2016). Architecture as cultural and political discourse: Case studies of conceptual norms and aesthetic practices. London: Routledge Jarrett, R. (2020). Decolonization of Zimbabwean museums: The movement toward practices informed by indigenous cultures. Thesis. Rochester Institute of Technology. Jenkins, C. (2005). The iconic building: The power of the enigma. Frances Lincoln. Jones, P. (2020). Architectute, time, and cultural politics. Cultural Sociology, 14(1), 61-79. Kern, L. (2020). Feminist city: Claiming space in a man-made world. Verso. Kerr, R., Robinson, S.  K., & Elliott, C. (2016). Modernism, postmodernism and corporate power: Historicising the architectural typology of the corporate campus. Management and Organizational History, 11(2), 123–146. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2016.1141690 Knoblauch, H., & Löw, M. (2020). The re-figuration of spaces and refigured modernity: Concept and diagnosis. Historical Social Research, 45(2), 263–292. https://doi.org/10.12759/ hsr.45.2020.2.263-­292 Kotnik, T. (2010). Digital architectural design as exploration of computable functions. International Journal of Architectural Computing, 8(1), 1–16. Kramarenko, V., Engstrom, L., Verdier, G., Fernandez, G., Oppers, S. E., Hughes, R., McHugh, J., & Coats, W. (2010). Zimbabwe: Challenges and policy options after hyperinflation. International Monetary Fund. Lasswell, H. D. (2017). The signature of power: Buildings, communications, and policy. Routledge. Light, D., & Young, C. (2018). The politics of toponymic continuity: The limits of change and the ongoing lives of street names. In D. Rose-Redwood, D. Alderman, & M. Azaryahu (Eds.), The political life of urban streetscapes: Naming, politics and place (pp. 185–201). Routledge. Mamvura, Z. (2021). “Where art thou?” Ethnocracy, toponymic silence and toponymic subjugation in the Harare commemorative landscapes during the Mugabe era (1980–2017). Urban Forum, 32, 17–31. Maunganidze, L. (2016). Zimbabwe: Institutionalized corruption and state fragility. In D. Olowu & P. Charnie (Eds.), State fragility and state building in Africa: Cases from eastern and southern Africa (pp. 39–60). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­319-­20642-­4_3 Moses, K. L. (2020). Indigeneity, contingency and cognitive shifts. Ardeth, 6, 121–134. Muñoz, S. (2007). Central Bank quasi-fiscal losses and high inflation in Zimbabwe: A note (IMF working paper, 07/98, 1–22). IMF. Norell, D. (2016). Taming the erratic: Representation and materialization in post digital architectural design (Licentiate Thesis No. 3). KTH Royal Institute of Technology, School of Architecture. Pikirayi, I. (2006). The kingdom, the power and forevermore: Zimbabwe culture in contemporary art and architecture. Journal of Southern African Studies, 32(4), 755–770. https://doi. org/10.1080/03057070600995681

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Chapter 6

Inside Indigeneity and Iconicity: The African Traditional Hut

Introduction Although fascinating and intriguing, dedicating a chapter to an indigenous or vernacular architectural piece in a manuscript dominated by state-sponsored representations may seem an odd endeavour. This chapter considers the traditional African hut, an indigenous, vernacular or traditional architectural piece widely considered a symbol of indigeneity and legacy of traditional planning heritage, reflecting a strong link between space, nature and society. Although the representation of the African traditional hut in both scholarship and practice is not new it remains a fertile ground for systematic inquiries particularly within the realm of critical anthropology and sociology. Historical and archaeological researches in Zimbabwe and elsewhere have been preoccupied with stone-built structures with very little attention paid to the widely revered traditional mud and dagga structures dotted across African communities. This was amplified by perceptions of the archaeologists in sub-Saharan Africa, dominated by theories about stone-built structures creating a misconception that no other forms of structures existed before and during the construction of stone structures. This is despite the archival ethnographic evidence indicating that the hut was already part of the early Iron Age, between third and fifth centuries (cf: Fig. 6.1). In fact, as Colquhoun (1985, p. 12, cited in Moustafa, 1988, p. 8) stated, “the origin of architecture became the primitive hut, not the Temple of Solomon”. Such kind of scholarship has long attracted counter-research in other countries such as Lesotho (Dreyer, 1993) and South Africa (Frescura, 1980; Huffman & Vogel, 1991). The life of the hut can be traced to the “Inyanga Ruin”, built between 300 and 1000 AD. People lived in settlements of open villages containing huts built in a mountain. Enclosures consisted of an inner and an outer concentric stonewall between which the huts were built. In particular, the large stone-walled enclosure, probably occupied by the Chief, contained several huts. According to Shenjere-­ Nyabezi et al. (2020), the architectural style of the Zimbabwean culture of southern © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. Maunganidze, Representation and Materialization of Architecture and Space in Zimbabwe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47761-4_6

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Fig. 6.1  Early Iron Age huts. (Source: Author – photo taken on 24 July 2023-Zimbabwe Museum of Human Sciences Ethnographic gallery-Harare)

Africa has been largely defined by its monumental stone walls that come in a variety of styles and divided into three chronological phases; Mapungubwe (AD 1220–1290), Great Zimbabwe (1250–1450) and Khami (AD 1450–1650). The sites represent an archaeological heritage, which both the Shona in southern Zimbabwe and one of their sub-groups the Nambya in Hwange district in northwestern Zimbabwean easily identify with as part of their history and cultural pride (Shenjere-­ Nyabezi et al., 2020). There have been misconceptions and claims of absence of architectural evidence of greatness south of the Egyptian pyramids in spite of the fact that the African huts were not far from the pyramids, hence their peaked roofs (Schoenleber, 2008). As a way of broadening current knowledge on architecture, the study that informed this chapter took a different approach inspired by critical anthropological thinking. It combined archival ethnography with snippets of archaeological records to explore a seemingly untold story of the African vernacular or traditional mud/dagga hut commonly found in rural Zimbabwe but also recently appropriated in the urban space.

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Framing African Traditional Hut Despite the successive modifications in designs and functions due to climate change, industrialization and modernization, the traditional round hut particularly the rural kitchen remains one of the few iconic pre-modern architectural products in contemporary Africa outside the direct control and influence of either the state or Christianity. In particular, the architectural design of the rural hut has remained a historicist product particularly among the Shona and Ndebele cosmology in Zimbabwe. Although the design is also part of other Zimbabwean ethnic groups such as BaTswana, KoreKores, Kalangas, Nambya, Manyika, Ndau and Vendas, the chapter focuses on the two major groups, Shona and Ndebele. Vernacular African architecture is also a mix of indigenous styles and those styles introduced by Europeans and Asians during both colonialism and trade. There is also archaeological data (Jack, 1979), indicating that the pole and dagga African hut design was adapted by earlier settlers in the late 1800s who built rondavels in brick in a variety of interlinking arrangements mostly on farms. Religion has had a strong influence in African architecture particularly representing the materiality of the connection between people and the natural environment. This form of ancient architecture around the country symbolizes how society is connected to both nature and space. This reinforces Heynen’s (1999) observation that buildings were the most characteristic and long-standing witnesses to the culture in which they developed. For example, the Egyptians identified with pyramids the Greek with the Pantheon and the medieval Europe with the Gothic cathedral. These are products often designed by the respective indigenous people in their local environment in pre-modern times but becoming symbols of iconicity and national heritage in contemporary times. In spite of archaeological and ethnographic evidence linking the hut to early Iron Age, modern scholars agreed the most common design was a progression and adaptation of architectural skills stretching from Mapungubwe monument in South Africa through to Khami ruins in Zimbabwe, and showing a strong affinity with the wall structures inside the Great Enclosure at Great Zimbabwe (Bessant & Owomoyela, 2003; Huffman, 2007; Huffman & Vogel, 1991; Pikirayi, 2013; Shenjere-Nyabezi, Pwiti, Sagiya, Chirikure et al., 2020). The walls are a symbolic representation of authority, designed to preserve the privacy of royal families and setting them apart from and above commoners. Thus, architecture is both a medium and instrument for expressing people’s identity and power dynamics. This is in support of Pikirayi’s (2013) argument that the nature of social/elite power itself was partially shaped by the temporal act of producing architecture that itself was also a recursive act of human engagement with natural power. Extant literature and historiography do not confirm any consensus on the terms used to denote this form of built environment. However, in this chapter, the “traditional”, “indigenous” and “vernacular” architecture are used interchangeably to refer to the round hut constructed of the mud/dagga or brick or stone. This is consistent with existing body of knowledge on the subject (Dreyer, 1993; Frescura, 1980; Humbe, 2020; Rugwiji, 2019; Shenjere-Nyabezi & Pwiti, 2021) and the hut’s

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widely revered form and purposes across the continent. Although there seems to be consensus on its revered popularity across the countryside in the content, over the years it has also been popularly materialized as part of both the urban landscape and heritage industry. This has largely contributed to its various modifications in terms of design, materials used and the purposes it has continued to serve to individuals, groups and institutions. The African traditional kitchen hut is a product of the material and symbolic expressions of the African culture. The art of the traditional mud hut is the hallmark of African ingenuity and symbol of Africanness. The hut is a signifier (symbol), reference (signified) and referent (the actual object) for African culture (Moustafa, 1988). The systems and practices of materializing this architectural product by individuals and institutions for both economic and cultural interests evoke indigeneity as well as communicate African sensibilities and ambience in urban residences, restaurants and tourist sites across the country. The “African village” concept embedded in the iconic traditional hut reveals African cultural values designed to reveal a sense of unity and communalism (Said, 2018). According to Shenjere-Nyabezi and Pwiti (2021), archaeological evidence indicates that sometime at the end of the first century AD communities in the Southern African region lived in non-stratified villages made up simple houses of the cone-on-cylinder type with round and grass thatched roofs (Figs. 6.2, 6.3, and 6.4) and floor of daga and covered with cow dung to prevent dust. The cone and cylinder-shaped pole/dagga hut appears to be a development from the pre-modern hut particularly among the Ndebele rural homesteads (Fig. 6.5). The roundness is a pragmatic expression of the philosophy of communalism (Humbe, 2020). The design remains one of the most outstanding attributes of the Zimbabwe culture to emerge from the Iron Age. The resilience of both the Shona and Ndebele traditional huts reflects a legacy of intimate affinity between the built environment, human existence and spiritual world. Over the years the traditional round hut, which

Fig. 6.2  Iqhugwana hut (pre-moderm ndebele hut). (Old Bulawayo-Sunday News, 17 July 2022 photo) (https://www.sundaynews.co.zw)

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Fig. 6.3  Decorated rural kitchen hut

Fig. 6.4  Traditional pole and dagga kitchen hut. (Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/zimb/hd_zimb.htm. October 2001)

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Fig. 6.5  Traditional pole and dagga kitchen hut. (Source: Pwiti, 1996, cited in Shenjere-Nyabezi & Pwiti, 2021, p. 111)

had been used mainly for food preparation and preservation, family gathering and resting especially in the night before going to bed, has been modified with additional dimensions. The traditional practice of constructing high sleeping platforms, cooking benches, and seats continues today. Most grain storage huts (Fig. 6.6) are made from branches and sticks, which make them less sturdy than cooking or residential huts. A traditional homestead will usually consist of at least three huts – one for cooking, the other for sleeping and third for grain storage. It is also important to note that the walls surrounded and later adjoined huts made of dagga/mud and thatch linked with them to form a series of courtyards (http:// www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/zimb/hd_zimb.htm (October 2001)). In modern and contemporary times, there have been some modifications because of European influence and adaptation to weather patterns and change in economic activities. In early 1980, Frescura’s study in South Africa found out that although vernacular architecture as a whole was a threatened element of the environment, its continued existence could be ultimately guaranteed by the cultural, technological and economic necessities. Early Iron Age village huts and settlements were usually constructed from clay and sticks with conical thatched roofs. In contemporary Zimbabwe, the hut has remained one of the most basic human settlement structures one can find across the countryside particularly in new rural and farm settlements due to its simplicity and affordability. Amongst the more affluent homesteads and communities, instead of the traditional thatched roofs with mud walls, the walls of modern huts are usually built of coursed, sun-dried bricks and with rectangular doorways (Fig. 6.7). There are now rectangular buildings with concrete walls and corrugated iron roofs with walls occasionally decorated with geometric designs often carrying religious and symbolic meaning. With the emergence of globalized

Framing African Traditional Hut

Fig. 6.6  Traditional grain storage hut

Fig. 6.7  The modern brick/stone kitchen hut

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pursuit of cultural tourism, the hut has become a key attraction to international visitors with hotels, conference centres and rest lodges being designed after this iconic architectural piece.

The Many Faces of the Hut The representation of the hut as a multi-fold architecture is illustrated by its economic, religious, cultural, political and ideological faces which reflect “the interconnectedness of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of individuals with all living things and with the earth, the star world, and the universe” (Lavallėe, 2009, p. 23, cited in Snow et al., 2016, p. 368). Due to the lack of consensus on the identity of the people who actually designed and built the Great Zimbabwe, it becomes problematic to associate the architectural design of the traditional hut solely to the monument. Some scholars particularly those attracted to the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Perspective submit it must have been constructed between thirteenth and fifteenth century (AD 1250–1450) by the Shona people of the Rozvi dynasty (Pikirayi, 2006; Shenjere-Nyabezi & Pwiti, 2021), while others give credit to the Ancient Mediterranean World gold traders and religious groups including Chinese and Israelites (Rugwiji, 2019). In addition, the convergence of diverse religions at GZ makes it difficult to attribute its construction solely to a single group. In spite of this, the similarities between GZ and the African traditional hut with respect to aspects of both heritage and shrine characteristics reflect a strong connection. However, the various archaeological, historical and anthropological disputes over the “authorship” of the GZ may equally influence contestations over the traditional hut’s status as a monument. What would happen if in the possibly remotest acceptance of a hypothesis that the monuments were a product of foreign design and built by exploitative slave labour? Would the current and future generations conserve, preserve or just forget and let the monuments “die in peace”? The representation and materialization of the hut is also not linear. Although predominantly regarded as the place of the woman and child, it is not a fixed site as it performs multiple functions: economic, cultural, spiritual and political. Among many rural communities, the most visible functions include food preparation, and distribution, and to some extent for grain storage. This part of the book addresses one of the most taken-for-granted functions, which is the hut’s socio-cultural and religious significance particularly in the management of selected “rites of passage” among the Shona people. I selected this group as I have lived among the group more than any other has. The hut is central in the performance of mainly birth, death and marriage rites, all which are key elements in African Traditional Religion (ATR). Apart from partly relying on my own lived experiential past, much was borrowed from Humbe’s (2020) study among the Shona people in a selected district in Zimbabwe. This book purposively selected this study as it was deemed a strong referent point for a modest appreciation of the representation and materialization of the kitchen hut in most

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rural areas even among non-Shona groups in Zimbabwe. It also resonates well with the majority of the collections found in national and community museums. The study found out that in the kitchen hut there were sacred spaces that illuminated the meaning of ATR in the modern society. The sacredness of the kitchen hut was actualized in various substantive and functional religious denotations: doorway, fireplace (or cooking place) (choto) located at the centre directly under the roof (chiruvi) or the apex of the traditional Shona hut (Humbe, 2020, p. 142) and chikuva, a raised earthen bench located in front. The fireplace and doorway are fundamental sacred places. The spirit of the dead is believed to live in chikuva, come and live through the roof. In some tribes or communities even outside Zimbabwe, the deceased family head used to be buried a few steps before the doorway. One important rite performed in the kitchen hut is one following childbirth. A few days after birth, when the umbilical cord of the newly born baby dries and falls off, an elderly woman, ideally the child’s grandmother or mother buries it underneath the fireplace. However, in some homes, depending on the tradition, the ideal place used for burying or securing the umbilical cord is the doorway. Even if the child were delivered away from family home, the mother was expected to bring the umbilical cord to the village home for the performance of required ritual. Overall, this is a special way of rendering a spiritual connection between the young one and family spiritual world, which is believed to provide the child protection against poor health. However, due to urbanization and modernization, there has been modification to suit those living in cities and without kitchen huts. Some just use the umbilical cord to clean the floor or bury it in the yard. Among the Shona, the kitchen also serves as a nhanga (woman socialization site). Nhanga is a traditional institution in which girls receive both social and reproductive health teachings from mothers, grandmothers and elder siblings about women responsibility in the home and family, sexuality, taking care of their bodies and preparation for adult life as wives. Boys received similar education on similar topics from male-elders but not in the kitchen hut, confirming the feminine face of the kitchen hut. Furthermore, the kitchen is the place where a new daughter-in-law or bride (muroora) is expected to go through “apprenticeship” under the guidance of mother-in-law (vamwene), with a curriculum that includes family belief systems, totemism, food security issues and family culture in general. In some families, there is only a single kitchen used by all the daughter-in-laws and owned by the mother-in-law. Apart from birth and marriage rites, there are death and post-death rituals performed in and around the kitchen hut such as the bringing back home the spirit of the deceased (kurova guva or magadziro), normally conducted a year following the death of an adult regardless of gender. Similarly, most rituals for communicating with the spiritual world were performed inside the kitchen hut and were strongly gendered. Male-controlled supplications and libations occur at the doorway and end inside the kitchen punctuated with song and dance. According to Humbe (2020), men have the “password” to access family ancestral spirits. The woman only becomes powerful to the extent to which becomes a medium of the male spirit. However, women have some power particularly in their own paternal homes where

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they play roles of not only sister-in-laws but as spirit mediums. During the ceremony to bring back the spirit of the dead, the widow was expected to take an oath of fidelity before elders by jumping over a wooden stick (tsvimbo) which was previously owned by the deceased. Another striking cultural practice performed by the kitchen hut is the death rite, serving as the final stopover before one’s burial. The body of the deceased should lie in state in the kitchen hut overnight guarded by female elders before being taken for burial the following morning. Although there are now some variations, with the coffin placed on a reed mat (bonde/rukukwe/ rupasa/mhasa) and the same reed mat spread in the grave before the coffin is lowered. Therefore the kitchen hut is not just traditional but sacred. One of explanation for the continuity of this ritual was that at birth the young one enjoyed the comfort and protection of the hut and reed mat before facing the world’s challenges and should therefore finally experience the same even at death. However, there have been notable exception to the rule: people who commit suicide should not pass through the hut and those who would have died of pandemics like cholera and Covid-19 and buried under strict health protocol.

Materiality and Identity Formation Despite the many years of combined systemic mutilation by a combination of the British colonial political and economic production systems and Christianity, the hut’s design and functionality has remained resilient. The hut has continued to serve as a moral compass for the indigenous peoples. The hut has become part of ancestral knowledge systems and spirituality guide (Neeganagwedgin, 2013; Zimmerman, 2005). Its strong association with indigenous knowledge systems particularly ATR has seen its popular appropriation at shrines owned by traditional healers and some independent Christian groups for prayer and healing purposes. In Zimbabwe, it is still a viable expression of the people’s cultural and spiritual identity. The history of traditional architecture in particular the traditional hut’s persistent resilience confirms Archer’s (2005) observation on the contingency of human consciousness and identity on the configuration of the built space and its capacity to articulate and sustain belief in concert with the terms in which it is produced and its role in the furtherance of community. The hut is a symbol of unity. It is crucial for national identity formation and conscience as it serves as a neural fibre to African traditional religion (Humbe, 2020). The cone-shaped roof and perhaps one of the most important aspects of the Shona traditional hut is incorporated into contemporary architecture such as the new Robert G. Mugabe International Airport. It has become a power house and authoritative when it comes to imaginaries, representations and symbolisms The hut fits well into Atto’s (2009) characterization of both iconic and “sovereign” architecture: one with design assumptions and aesthetics reflecting uniqueness and historical achievements that form cultural identity and represent pride of nations. Iconic architecture transcends time and space in that whether in pre-modern or modern times, local or international levels, with its style remaining unique and

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powerful. It represents a state of exception and liberation that emerges from a system of principles, which are set by certain institutions and represent the accumulation of related knowledge and hence are powerful themselves (Atto, 2009). This observation partly accounts for the resilience of the hut in the light of cultural transformation and technological advancement following modernization and globalization. The traditional rural hut’s uniqueness and power lie in its ability to stay outside the norms of “ordinary architecture”. It can ably match the iconicity of such architecture elsewhere in Africa like the Lesotho Marokotlo (a hat woven from the native mosea grass that is ubiquitous in Sotho culture) and Swazi beehive huts (Gallagher et al., 2021). This is consistent with Emile Durkheim’s concept of instrumentality of built space in human belief systems and their role in articulating social relations, consciousness and cosmology (Archer, 2005). However, as this chapter argues, architectural products are not necessarily regarded as prescriptive investments of consciousness and universalism but rather as capable of deploying power. Thus following Pierre Bourdieu’s “signature” concepts of fields, capital and habitus, the built space both “shapes the dispositions constituting social identity and naturalize those dispositions within society”. The built space becomes a referent system within which knowledge is produced and applied, the physical forms according to which people establish and discipline their lives (Archer, 2005, p. 431). Although represented as an epicentre of African indigeneity the hut’s materialization by different actors can be both authoritative and hegemonic. The architectural design of the traditional kitchen hut and its designated ritualistic purposes and the differentially gendered demarcations and restrictions within the structure show how the ideological power of nature was also appropriated (Pikirayi, 2013). The design of the hut and its associated functions also reflect the extent to which gendered discourse mediates its representation and materialization. This supports Humbe’s (2020) observation that the social dimension of the architecture and the symbolism of the traditional kitchen hut reflect an embodied space. This reinforces Jabeen’s (2019) study in an informal settlement in Bangladesh which found out that male dominance in decision making on construction and spatial organization in the community is significantly influenced by socio-cultural concerns around the privacy and security for women. Although in a number of cases women in Zimbabwe have increasingly begun to take control of their space in the home, majority remain marginalized as men’s main concern remains security of their power and control of both the production and reproduction space. In addition, the significant increase in the number of female-headed households due to HIV/AIDS and migration has necessitated women involvement in planning, designing and construction of houses. Reflecting the power of agency, women authored decorative paintings on the exterior wall of the hut as depicted in Fig. 6.2. Although the hut is largely a product of man’s expertise in terms of its construction, it is also largely owned by women and sacred in that most feminine family rituals were performed within the kitchen hut and its environs. Outside the family home, the hut was not just represented and materialized as a vernacular piece but also as part of political capital. The kitchen hut has not only become part of a list of national and local museum collections but its iconicity was

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exemplified by different “culture” huts or African villages built across the country especially at museums, schools, colleges, private and public recreational facilities. The hut has been preserved as a historicist artefact across the continent. Most recently, pan-African structures such as the Museum of African Liberation in Harare, particularly its guardroom and main entrance were designed after the hut. The historical, cultural and political status of the site has significantly enhanced the profile of the hut. In fact, a visit to the site would transform one’s attachment to the hut, given that for the greater part of many Zimbabweans’ lives and that of many other African scholars and practitioners had largely associated the product with its functions in the home mainly as a kitchen hut and a site for performing cultural and religious rituals. Although the hut is widely revered and materialized as a symbol of African identity, its partisan appropriation by groups and individuals particularly those connected to war of liberation and consequently the ruling party, it might fall into the same trap as other iconic pieces. Basing on the experiences of other architecture and space, the hut might become another state-sponsored elitist project. At the time of fieldwork and subsequent writing of this book, the museum was still under construction. However, judging by the project leaders’ pronouncements on completion the site would also serve as a commercial site with state-of-the-art upper market shopping mall with fuel retail outlets and hotel(s).

Conclusion The main purpose of this chapter was to explore the representation and materialization of African traditional kitchen hut from early Iron Age to contemporary Zimbabwe. Consistent with poststructuralist thinking, it observed that traditional hut was more than just “a kitchen hut”. It was a multi-fold architecture, materialized and appropriated for different and contesting purposes. It has many faces of power: the cultural, social, spiritual and gender power. One of the main arguments of the chapter was that architectural products were not necessarily prescriptive investments of collective consciousness and universalism but also capable of deploying power. The hut’s design and space around it could benefit other groups at the expense of others but overall, it is a largely revered “community capital”. With all its “diorama”, the traditional kitchen hut has become an epitome of the African traditional religious belief systems. Architecture, in the form of the traditional hut, “gives order and significance to man’s understanding of his existence and nature” (Moustafa, 1988, p.14). Cultural and religious rituals performed in the kitchen hut begin, control and end all the affairs of the people. However, like any other built environment the hut may also be materialized as a frontier of power. Its power lies in its sacrality, which unfortunately is a man’s creation and susceptible to masculinist manipulation. Although the hut has gone through various structural modifications, its persistent resilience as a referent point for the communication between society and space among the rural and urban, the poor and rich, secular and religious, renders it not

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only an iconic piece but potentially “sovereign”. The sacredness of the hut actualized in various substantive and functional cultural and religious denotations such as the roof, doorway and fireplace remains a genre and residue of African architectural indigeneity that can potentially serve as a moral compass for heritage preservation and sustainable development.

References Archer, J. (2005). Social theory of space: Architecture and the production of self, culture and society. Journal of Society of Architectural Historian, 64(4), 430–433. Atto, F. N. S. (2009). Sovereign architecture: The enigma of power in theage of globalization. The Global Studies Journal, 9, 1–19. Bessant, L., & Owomoyela, O. (2003). Culture and customs of Zimbabwe. The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 36(1), 159. https://doi.org/10.2307/3559336 Dreyer, J. (1993). The Basotho hut: From late iron age to the present. South African Ethnography, I6(3), 79–86. Frescura, F. (1980). The development of rural vernacular architecture in southern Africa. Masters of architecture degree, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. RSA http://hdl.handle. net/10539/16763 Gallagher, J., Mpere, D. L., & N’djoré, Y. A. B. (2021, July). State aesthetics and state meanings: Political architecture in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. African Affairs, 120(480), 333–364. https:// doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adab018 Heynen, H. (1999). Petrifying memories: Architecture and the construction of identity. The Journal of Architecture, 4(4), 369–390. https://www.sundaynews.co.zw/journey-­to-­kobulawayo-­introduction-­of-­new-­architectural-­forms- ­ at-­old-­bulawayo Huffman, T. H. (2007). Handbook to the Iron Age: The archeology of pre-colonial farming societies in Southern Africa. Pietermaritzburg: University of Kwazulu-Natal Press. Huffman, T. N., & Vogel, J. C. (1991). The chronology of Great Zimbabwe. The South African Archaeological Bulletin, 46(154), 61. https://doi.org/10.2307/3889086 Humbe, B. P. (2020). The meaning of African traditional religion for modern society: Zimbabwe as a case study. PhD Thesis, University of Free State, RSA. Jabeen, H. (2019). Gendered space and climate resilience in informal settlements in Khulna City, Bangladesh. Environment & Urbanization, 31(1), 115–138. Jack, A. D. (1979). Bulawayo’s changing skyline: 1893–1980. Books of Zimbabwe Rhodesia. Moustafa, A. A. (1988). Architectural representation and meaning: Towards a theory of interpretation. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Neeganagwedgin, E. (2013). Ancestral knowledge, spirituality and indigenous narratives as self-­ determination. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 9(4), 322–334. https://doi.org/10.1177/117718011300900404 Pikirayi, I. (2006). The kingdom, the power and forevermore: Zimbabwe culture in contemporary art and architecture. Journal of Southern African Studies, 32(4), 755–770. https://doi. org/10.1080/03057070600995681 Pikirayi, I. (2013). Stone architecture and the development of power in the Zimbabwe tradition AD 1270–1830. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 48(2), 282–300. https://doi.org/10.108 0/0067270x.2013.789225 Rugwiji, T.  T. (2019). Identity reconstruction of the Great Zimbabwe National Monument: An Indigenous knowledge systems perspective. Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, 45(2), 1–18. Said, U. (2018). Repackaging “traditional” architecture of the African village in Zimbabwe. https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81450

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Schoenleber, L. (2008). Why the Africans live in huts. https://EzineArticles.com/expert/ Lamaro_Schoenleber,_Ph.d/181354 Shenjere-Nyabezi, P., & Pwiti, G. (2021). Ancient urban assemblages and complex spatial and socio-political organisation in iron age archaeological sites from southern Africa. In C. Fortes-­ Lima, E. Mtetwa, & C. Schlebusch (Eds.), Africa, the cradle of human diversity (pp. 111–147). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004500228_006 Shenjere-Nyabezi, P., Pwiti, G., Sagiya, M., Chirikure, S., Ndoro, W., Kapumha, R., & Makuvaza, S. (2020). Style, chronology and culture: A critical review of Whitty’s stylish classification of the Zimbabwe culture using evidence from the Hwange District, Northwestern Zimbabwe. South African Archaeological Bulletin, 75(212), 4–16. Snow, K. C., Hays, D. G., Caliwagan, G., et al. (2016). Guiding principles for indigenous research practices. Action Research, 14(4), 357–375. Zimmerman, L. J. (2005). First, be humble: Working with indigenous peoples and their descendant communities. In C. Smith & M. Wobst (Eds.), Indigenous archaeologies: Decolonizing theory and practice (pp. 302–314). Routledge.

Chapter 7

Urban Informality: Sponsored or Agentive Materialization?

Introduction Globally urban spaces have historically been centres of struggles and transformation. Although the unequal and racial appropriation and mobilization of urban spaces have been central to the political economy of both colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe, systematic inquiries on the historical dialectics between the social and spatial have been relatively scarce. The study that informed this chapter sought to fill in this gap through an examination of the dynamics of the genesis and practices of urban informal settlements, focusing mainly on the experiences of Zimbabwe’s capital city, Harare and its environs. Informal settlements include neighbourhoods and settlements that develop and operate without the formal control of the state, coexisting but not synonymous with “squatter” settlements and slums (Dovey & King, 2011, cited in Mbiba, 2022). According to Chatiza and Gotora (2021), Zimbabwe has two broad categories of urban settlement informality: one referring to settlements established by the urban poor (cf: Fig. 7.1) while the other to those by quasi-private-public entities like cooperatives and middle-income earners (cf: Figs.  7.2 and 7.3). The latter represents a relatively modern informal settlement structure owned by the middle-income earners or the rich. Although no consensus exists on the precise defining characteristics of informality this chapter is attracted to the one by Fegue (2007, p. 448); where land use and the settlement patterns are unauthorized or not approved; often this involves a high residential density, the construction is unauthorized and not to prescribed standards and the occupation originates from a land invasion. The rise in urban informal settlements is partly traced to Zimbabwe’s attainment of political independence in 1980, which brought promise and hopes to the majority of citizens, particularly the ruralites who had over the years dreamt of a new regime that would grant rights of access and free use of urban architecture and spaces. Under colonialism, particularly in the era of racist or “apartheid” pass system in the urban areas, there was no automatic entry into cities © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. Maunganidze, Representation and Materialization of Architecture and Space in Zimbabwe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47761-4_7

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Fig. 7.1  An informal settlement in Harare. (Source: Matamanda, 2020b, p. 483, Urban Forum, 31, 473–487. Available: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-­020-­09394-­5)

Fig. 7.2  A bulldozer destroys an illegal/irregular house built on state land. (Source: Sajeni, 2021, The Daily News, 30 June. Available: https://dailynews.co.zw)

and towns (Austin, 1975; Mamvura et al., 2017; Musekiwa, 1993). Given the strong changing relationships between rural and urban, lack of investments in rural areas would significantly influence the demand for urban land for both residential and agriculture purposes. Land remains central to the Zimbabwean development discourse given the contestations over its redistribution in the countryside and the implications for dynamics of the urban politics. A few scholars have attempted to debate on the nexus between the fast-track land reform and emergent re-figuration of urban landscape in the form of informal and irregular settlements (Chipungu & Magidimisha, 2020; Marongwe, 2003; Scoones & Murimbarimba, 2022) showing the countrywide land reform’s contagious or magnetic effect. The same political project and social forces that underlined the fast-track land reform programme in the countryside triggered

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Fig. 7.3  Partly demolished illegal structure. (Source: www.sundaymail.co.zw)

an equally radical approach to the urban housing shortages. This development attracted similar reactions from both the urban citizens and the state. Although there could be no consensus on the contribution of the land reform to the development of small towns and peri-urban settlements across the country, it is fair to go along with other scholars’ conclusions that the programme significantly reconfigured the rural-­ urban relations (Muchadenyika, 2020). Although still debatable, the land reform programme managed to avail land to the landless majority for both agricultural and residential purposes. This post-land reform rural-urban reconfiguration resulted in the sudden growth of small towns offering a window into a new set of economic, social and political relations (Scoones & Murimbarimba, 2022). This is also supported by Chipungu and Magidimisha’s (2020) study in Harare which found that the fast-track land reform facilitated the delivery of housing for low-income urban households. The urban homeless, supported by an unpronounced national urban vision and prowess of the political leadership, exploited the opportunity of land invasions in the countryside to invade urban land for housing development. Given the foregoing, a brief on the fast-track land reform programme is necessary. The first two decades of Zimbabwe’s post-colonial history witnessed two dominant narratives that were set against each other; the black liberation and neoliberal narrative (Alden & Anseeuw, 2011). Both had far-reaching implications for urban body politics. Starting from 1980 and consistent with the socialist thrust motivated by the first narrative, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANUPF) state under Robert Mugabe, with the assistance of international donors, rolled out infrastructural and social services delivery programmes in both rural and urban areas with a view to transforming the livelihoods of the previously alienated

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and disadvantaged citizens. Provision of services such as education, health and housing was not only in fulfilment of the promises of the liberation war but part of a broad strategy in transition to a socialist state in which the means of production were socialized (Matondi, 2012; Rogerson, 1989; Teedon & Drakakis-Smith, 1986). During the first and early part of the second decade of independence, numerous state-funded and donor-driven low-cost self-help housing cooperative projects initiated across major cities to redress the imbalances of the colonial past. This socialist urban development policy resonated with Lefebvre’s grassroots or self-management thesis, as it facilitated participatory methods of service delivery. Later on, a neoliberal narrative emerged in the second decade. Under the influence of international finance and neo-liberal economic models, this initiated the economic structural adjustment programme (ESAP), which removed state-led interventionist policies and replaced them with concerted cost recovery market-based ones. However, neoliberalism had failed to deliver both countryside land and urban shelter to the satisfaction of both state and citizens. The unpopular and failed ESAP had triggered high levels of unemployment and poverty across the country (Ncube, 2000; Nherera, 2005). ESAP led to the closure of many firms, leaving thousands of workers jobless and homeless. In the late 1990s, the government of Zimbabwe abandoned its neoliberal reforms in favour of more radical approaches. The situation opened up the space for mushrooming of illegal survivalist backyard buildings for residential and informal business purposes. Some informal business premises also emerged on vacant or unused spaces previously reserved for either recreation or future expansion. There was also a rise in illegal or informal markets for imported goods and irregular urban agricultural activities in open spaces and along streams and riverbanks. The ESAP-induced challenges and the failure of the state to provide basic services and protect the workers triggered tensions between the state and the working class collectively led by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trades Union (ZCTU), a federation of trade unions. The co-evolution of a civil society and labour-driven opposition political party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 1999 and the massive land invasions of white commercial farms across the country in 2000 created polarization between citizens in cities and farms, white farm owners and workers, and war veterans. The drivers of the invasions, who were mainly ZANU-PF supporters and veterans of the liberation struggle, christened these invasions the “Third Chimurenga” (Third Revolution) (Struggle for land) or “hondo yeminda” (war for the land) or “jambanja” (Harrison, 2006), for their seemingly autogestive chaos and violence. Although the state was initially reluctant to bless the land reform in its radical character, it later appropriately backed it as a response to political will of the people by providing a supportive legal framework by way of the Land Acquisition Act of 2000. The intersection of land reform and informal urban settlements is a mirror image of how socio-economic demands by peasants confined to communal areas and a poor underclass in urban areas have shaped the struggles for space. The initial impact of Zimbabwe’s violent land reform was the internal displacement of thousands of former commercial farm workers, the majority of whom became homeless and sought shelter and livelihoods in urban and peri-urban areas (Mbiba, 2017).

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According to Moyo (2000, cited in Moyo, 2007, p. 23), the land invasions or occupations were in fact, a “bottom-up” “community-led self-provisioning” strategy. However, the populist narrative is difficult to gloss over because the direct involvement and endorsement of invasions by predominantly ruling party structures and the diametrical opposition from the MDC led both the fast-track land reform and informal urban settlements to be broadly viewed as a ruling party appendage. In most cities, especially Harare, beginning from the year 2000 general elections, ZANUPF had been consistently losing grip on the urban constituencies following the emergence of the MDC, which was more or less a political formation for the urban workers and youth, and ZANUPF effectively becoming a rural party. This development posed challenges to Harare city council, which for many years had been struggling to arrest the sprouting of illegal cottage or roadside industries, flea markets and construction of irregular housing structures on undesignated urban spaces. All these activities partly account for the extent to which urban spaces in Zimbabwe have been capitalized and materialized by individuals and groups as a “resource” for coping with urban poly-crises. The following portraits (see Figs. 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3) are examples of the informal or illegal structures which were later demolished by city authorities and demonstrating that the nature of housing structures were more than just slums: Figure 7.1 illustrates an illegal settlement on the outskirts of Harare and predominantly occupied by the poor home seekers while Figs. 7.2 and 7.3 evince unauthorized and illegal modern structures constructed out of conventional materials and often-matching architectural designs of the formal city housing patterns. They are mostly located in undesignated urban spaces parcelled out by land barons to desperate middle-income home seekers. The persistent mushrooming of such informal settlements despite repeated demolitions since the infamous 2005 Operation Murambatisvina shows the involvement of many actors; land barons, party leaders and the rank and file and bogus cooperatives with multifarious effects on urban households (Benyera & Nyere, 2015; Bratton & Masunungure, 2007; Potts, 2006). Hence, it could be an inaccurate and unfair assessment to attribute the scourge or menace of urban informality to a single actor. This further reinforces the argument that dynamics of architectural products and spaces are not neutral but subject to the actions that are influenced by ideological and political power (Lasswell, 2017; Minkenberg, 2014; Zieleniec, 2018). As Banks et al. (2020) observed, urban informality can be a source of accumulation for some groups yet a source of survival for others. Thus, the process is complex and constituting contestations. Both the elite, land barons and politicians, and desperate home seekers derive benefits from the crisis. Hence, informality cannot be restricted to poor neighbourhoods as some outbuildings and backyard shacks are also common in a number of high-income low-­ density suburbs. Studies on the subject point to multiple factors contributing to the genesis and resurfacing of informality in Zimbabwe’s urban areas especially Harare. While scholars such as Magidimisha and Chipungu (2011), and Msindo et al. (2013) agree that there were multiple factors ranging from structural to institutional. Others like Chavunduka and Chaonwa-Gaza (2021), Matamanda (2020a), and McGregor and

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Chatiza (2020) have privileged the political economy perspective arguing that the informal settlements were a product of political manoeuvres in the battle for the control of the city. In spite of engaging diverse literature on the subject, we have found Muchadenyika et  al.’s (2018) ideas on democratic deficit most appealing. Democratic deficit is a state of an insufficient level of democracy denoting a situation where institutions and their decision-making procedures may suffer from a lack of democracy and accountability (https://eur-­lex.europa.eu/EN/legal). Based on the case of Harare, Muchadenyika et al. (2018) demonstrated how democratic deficit stimulated the use (abuse) of urban spaces by both the ruling and opposition parties as a strategy to possibly buy citizen loyalty. The authors concluded that informality was largely determined by interests of the both ruling party and other non-political actors such as housing cooperatives and social movements. However, Matamanda’s (2020b) contribution appears to have summed it all arguing through the theory of desperation that informality reflected issues of spatial (in)justice, exclusion, power, and oppression. As a way of responding to these debates, this chapter seeks to contribute by exploring the extent to which the genesis and persistence of urban informal settlements can be regarded actor-driven (agential).

Framing “Autogestive Informality” The central concern of this chapter is to examine whether informal urban settlements in Harare were an outgrowth of mechanistic or sponsored responses to the structural contingencies, as per determinism, or were a form of agency; that is being autonomous, agential and citizen-driven, as per voluntarism or agency. Urban architecture and space have historically been constant sites of struggles and the confluence of multiplicity. The relative plasticity of the agents, their experiences and the consequent social construction of the urban spaces and the circumstances that socially produced the “informality”, calls for a paradigmatic triangulation. Similarly, methodologies that bridge the standard formal-informal dichotomy facilitate a better understanding of place making in informal settlements (Friedman, 2007, cited in Lombard, 2014, p. 15). The chapter’s analysis follows ideas drawn from a combination of the anti-structural and post-structural paradigms. The running thread weaving through the conceptualization of “urban informality” and subsequent debate on whether the continuous sprouting of informal settlements were either structurally determined or agential responses to urban housing crises is borrowed from Henri Lefebvre’s thesis of autogestive space. The varied dimensions of autogestion include “self-management”, “bottom-up”, “grassroots democracy”, “participatory development” and “withering away of the state”. Autogestion occurs in the weak points of society when the state or market is unable to provide (Lefebvre, 1976; cited in Dawson, 2016, p. 107). Using the concept of autogestion, Lefebvre offers a new understanding of urban space as a key element of the political struggle and collective transformation (Lefebvre, 1991). According to Lefebvre (2009, p.  135), “…each time a social group ...refuses to

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accept passively its conditions of existence, of life, or of survival, each time such a group forces itself not only to understand but to master its own conditions of existence, autogestion is occurring”. It is clear that Lefebvre’s understanding of autogestion is based on a basic principle that humans as social beings “produce their own life, their own consciousness, their own world” (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 68). In this context, Lefebvre’s use of autogestion underlines how community members organize and mobilize themselves to take control of and manage the urban space and urban neighbourhood through a collective self-governing approach. Based on this understanding, autogestion can be viewed as “a radical attack on the foundations of capitalist social relations in which the bourgeoisie controls, through private ownership, the means of production” (Purcell, 2013, p.  147). Therefore, autogestion involves self-realization of collective power, mobilization of community resources, and management of collective decisions and decentralization of control to autonomous collective self-governance (Lefebvre, 2003; Purcell, 2013). Alternatively, as argued by Lefebvre, “the transformation of society presupposes a collective ownership and management of space founded on the permanent participation of the ‘interested parties’, with their multiple, varied and even contradictory interests” (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 422). In short, autogestion is a community’s collective management of their own space, built environment and the conditions of its production (Wolf & Mahaffey, 2016). Thus, architectural autogestion in the form of informal settlements can therefore be regarded as a radical attack on the modernist urban design and planning practices, traditionally influenced by the belief in physically, and spatially homogenizing and deterministic power over people and their space. For example, who decides and determines what is formal and informal? Historically urban planning in general and housing designs in particular have always followed standardized western-­centric modernist, capitalist and universalist models that are largely at variance with local or indigenous tastes and abilities. In the process, majority of urban residents fail to meet the basic minimum requirements even of owning the smallest plot or residential stand. Our observation is in agreement with Lefebvre (2001) argument that planners, architects and urban designers were crucial actors in the production of spatial forces and arrangements that reflected the ideological necessities and requirements of capital. Networks of politically connected housing cooperatives, land barons and city officials were all deriving spoils from housing crisis that generated the informal settlements. Despite extant literature showing the interconnections between the formal and informal there is continued emphasis on their separation resulting in limited knowledge on the subject of informal urban settlements and consequently their discursive peripheralization or marginalization (Lombard, 2014; Plűschke-Altof, 2016). Accordingly, autogestion or self-management becomes the only way for people to have appropriate control over their lives (Brenner & Elden, 2009). In the Zimbabwean case, discourses such as squatter, slum, illegal or informal settlements have powerful effects as they reflect negative interpretations of places and their inhabitants. Thus, the ideological constructions of informal settlements may miss the micro-­ level appreciation of their make-up. According to Wolf and Mahaffey (2016), lived space is the site of informal local knowledge and because this knowledge is elusive,

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those who conceive space seek to master and control it. The construction of space is therefore both discursive and political. Spatial construction is discursive because it shapes people’s sense of reality and constitutes social realities through which people express their relationship with various social structures. Spatial construction is also political as it symbolizes a political decision of people to take control of their governing structures.

Methodological Orientation The study on which this article is based has followed an interpretive qualitative research approach and used a cross-sectional multi-case study design. The research design was selected for its strength in allowing investigations to retain the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real-life events. Our choice of the design also emanated from the desire to understand complex social phenomena as they unfold as a whole (Yin, 2003, p. 2). The multi-dimensional and multi-scalar socio-spatial transformative processes of the urban informality and the plasticity of the actors call for a combination of research methodologies that incorporate an exploration of agency and new possibilities. Triangulation of data sources and methods, and checking for structural coherence over a relatively long period were employed to enhance the rigour of the research. Methods of data collection included documentary survey, pictography and direct observations of selected settlements. Purposive documentary survey of selected legal instruments, and local daily and weekly newspapers covering different informal settlements in Harare was conducted. Pictographs of emerging settlements and the subsequent demolitions and clean-up campaigns against illegal or irregular housing structures in a selected settlement were also collected (see Figs. 7.1 and 7.2). These were complemented by my direct observations during occasional and informal visits to the affected areas. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) was deployed as the leading methodological and analytical thread. The CDA resonates with the anti-structural and critical post-­ structural foundations of the investigation. It helps in exploring the connections between narratives, positions and identity, through an understanding of social practices that goes beyond units of text (Fairclough, 2003; Hewitt, 2009; Yacobi, 2004). Informal settlements are more than just representation. According to Bartesaghi and Pantelides (2017), language does not represent but rather constitutes the social world. As Delitz (2018) has argued, architecture is not a mere reflection or “mirror”, but rather a constitutive and transformative medium of the imaginary institution of society. Architecture is a material and symbolic “mode” through which societies and individuals are constituted and transformed. All forms of representation involve the dual relationship between power and knowledge and their political implications. Data were analysed using a combination of thematic and content analysis techniques.

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Drivers of Urban Informality The emergence of informality in Harare followed both endogenous and exogenous factors. The growth of informal settlements was partly a result of residents’ responses to urban poly-crises, mainly poverty, homelessness and space scarcity. That was a response to an urban crisis characterized by a sharp contrast between slums or squatters in the city peripheries such as Harare Southlea and Hopley, and excellent mansions at the other end of the city in high-income and low-density areas such as Borrowdale and Chishawasha Hills. Such forms of unequal or uneven development in its most extreme manifestation drive the poor to seek alternatives. Urban planners and bureaucrats’ obsession with modernist planning practices predicated on the formal/informal binary were proving ineffective in addressing housing challenges in cities. As argued by Kamete (2013b, 2020), informality reflected a failure of the pursuit of order (urban modernity) through binary antagonisms and fixation with binarism fuels resentment against informality. The sprouting of informal or irregular housing practices across the city partly demonstrates the failures of government policies and their perception of housing as objects of capitalist production and consumption (Bower, 2016). The formal economy’s failure to cope with socio-­ economic and political expectations of citizens in the post-colonial era partly explains the growth in informality. In the first decade of independence, there was an increased demand for urban shelter particularly in the low-income suburbs following massive rural-urban migration and the return of political refugees. People’s participation in the war of liberation and promises of free access to services generated “the right to city” (Gray, 2018) syndrome which drove rural-urban migration. Consequently, the effects of the chronic lack of housing services began to be felt from the late 1980s into the early 1990s, forcing the government, with the support of international donors and building societies, to launch self-help housing programmes targeting the low and middle income, which saw the emergence of residential areas such as Budiriro and Kuwadzana. In spite of such efforts, over time the housing stock in Zimbabwe in general and Harare in particular, has remained a big challenge to both central government and local authorities. For example, by year 2005 the national formal housing stock was estimated at 700,000 units for a population of nearly 12 million translating into a housing shortage of over a million units as the annual production was only about 18,000 units (Baumann, 2005, cited in Fegue, 2007, p. 454). Harare alone had more than 140,000 low-income families on the public housing waiting list (ibid). As of 2020, the figures had exponentially risen to a national housing shortfall of 1.3 million housing units, with Harare in needing of over half a million units to satisfy demand. The introduction of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)driven economic structural adjustment programmes (ESAP) in the early 1990s, punctuated by massive industrial contractions and job losses, reduced citizens’ capacities to buy, build or rent houses in the city. Urban workers and families whose livelihoods were the hardest hit by the adverse effects of ESAP. Consequently, the government provided the impetus for the ascendance of the informal economy

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through a series of policies that included reducing regulatory bottlenecks to allow new players into the production and distribution of goods and services. It supported indigenous business development and black empowerment and relaxed physical planning requirements through the Statutory Instrument (S.I) 216 of 1994 of the Regional Town and Country Planning Act. This effectively allowed for the development of informal economic activities in residential areas sending a clear signal to local authorities of the government’s desire to promote the informal economy in residential areas (International Labour Organisation, 2017). Thus, the growth of informality can be linked to the government policy on indigenization and economic empowerment. This intensified the mushrooming of slums, backyard irregular structures and unauthorized constructions on open spaces historically designated as wetlands or reserved for recreation and future city expansion in peri-urban environs. The directive of the Statutory Instrument 41 of 1996, which altered the jurisdiction of Harare City Council to incorporate some surrounding farms (Muchadenyika, 2020), also influenced the growth of urban and peri-urban informal settlements. The conversion of commercial farms into non-agricultural land uses attracted illegal occupation of peri-urban areas and, eventually leading to informality (Mbiba, 2022). This co-evolved with the rise in the illegal riverbank and open space agriculture, which for many years had been haunting city authorities. Notable peri-urban slum or squatter settlements included Hunyani, Porta Farm, Churu Farm, Caledonia, Hopley and Ushewokunze, named after the late ZANUPF and national hero, Herbert Ushewokunze. Perhaps naming the settlement after such political figures represented a discursive construction that facilitates the remaking of informal settlements as places in their own right (Lombard, 2014). This suggested the ordinary people’s capacity to address their own challenges, with little or no assistance from the state. Relations between ZCTU and the state further deteriorated in the late 1990s, with the former championing and organizing illegal urban mass stay-aways from work and consequently forming a labour and civil society-based opposition, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), allegedly in protest against economic decline, corruption and bad governance. Successive ZANUPF election losses in urban areas since year 2000 meant it had effectively lost the control of the city council to MDC. MDC ascendancy in urban administration created challenges to urban land allocations (Muchadenyika, 2015). For ZANUPF, the urban population particularly workers became the enemy given their support for the MDC over the years. As a way of busting or neutralizing the power of the opposition in urban areas, the ruling party created parallel “governing” structures, which were invariably “captured” by the political elite and politically connected land “entrepreneurs” and “barons”. The state, as central government allegedly starved the MDC-controlled city council of funding perhaps as a way creating enmity between the city and residents, and consequently MDC and urban voters. The parallel structures facilitated the sale of land for residential and informal business premises mainly to individuals and party-­sponsored housing cooperatives. Although there is no evidence directly linking the state to such activities, its indifferent response to the problem strongly suggests complicity. This not only served to cushion citizens against harsh economic conditions but effectively muted the influence of MDC in the management of the city. The growth of informal

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structures was partly attributed to the hyperinflation and the eventual near-collapse of the national economy in 2008 (Kramarenko et al., 2010, cited in Maunganidze, 2016, p. 51) that eroded household personal earnings and savings leaving many residents unable to pay for basic services such as food and accommodation. The economic crisis drove many urban residents into informality.

Discourses of Political Survival The seemingly “anarchistic” urban housing practices, however, did not last long. In 2006 a series of urban-based protests largely sponsored by the ZCTU and MDC led to the looting of shops in high-density areas across the city. Consequently, the state embarked on an unprecedented and globally condemned programme of “urban renewal”, so-called “clean filth” campaign, code named “Operation Restore Order” or Operation “Murambatsvina” (Bratton & Masunungure, 2007; Kamete, 2007; Makamani, 2014; Mbiba, 2018). Police and selected army commandants were unleashed across the city’s high-density residential areas and business premises forcibly demolishing or pulling down all irregular and illegal structures. The programme attracted criticism from local and international human rights groups. These and other related events intensified the growth of informal settlements as operation drove many out of the city to the peri-urban areas. This coincided with the state-­ sponsored housing (re)construction scheme called Operation “Garikai”, ostensibly aimed at empowering citizens particularly civil servants and the previously displaced residents through the provision of affordable two-roomed housing units. Both the “clean up” and “reconstruction” operations show how discourses can be constructive, active and rhetorical. Discourses shape and reflect the dynamic social and political practices. As suggested by Lombard (2014), discourses play a key role in understanding informal urban settlements, and the discursive construction of informal urban settlements can be seen as part of the production of knowledge about both the places and the people. Similarly, discursive construction in the execution of informality such as “jambanja” (Harrison, 2006) and the accompanying Operation “Murambatsvina”, and Operation “Garikai” were deployed as survival stratagems. This observation is supported by Banks et al. (2020) and Chatiza and Gotora (2021) who argue that informality served as a strategy both for elite and subaltern groups. This is also in agreement with Chavunduka and Chaonwa-Gaza (2021) study finding in one of the Harare informal settlements where cooperative leaders had powerful patrons based at the national level with the informal settlement managed through a shadow state that was maintaining informality for electoral purposes. For example, ahead of the March 2022 by-elections, the ruling party began sanitizing irregular and illegal urban settlements by promising title deeds to settlers (Sunday Mail, 13 February 2022; Herald, 10 February 2022a). The party spokesperson stated during at a press conference in Harare that “handing out title deeds would be a game-­ changer and similar to the attainment of independence in 1980” (­ www.newzimbabwe. com; Herald 7 February 2022b). This was in spite of the fact that the same informal settlements were already facing possible eviction by the city authorities.

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While it could be true that the strategies and patterns of informality could be structurally determined or sponsored, the poor have not been passive agents but have been exercising political agency and clientism to access urban housing (McGregor & Chatiza, 2019). In Harare, the sprouting of informal settlements and the state’s response demonstrates an institutionalized example of both autogestion and pseudo-participatory mechanisms of state-control (Souza, 2010, cited in Gray, 2018, p. 321). Based on the results of 2013, 2018 and 2023 parliamentary and local authority elections, it is evident that the support and popularity of ZANU-PF constituencies is borne out of irregular urban settlements and informal business activities. However, the transaction is not a one-way traffic but a negotiated order since the home seekers can also keep or take their vote back. Hence the need for both the party and state to carefully manage the interactions with the home seekers. This exemplified state complicity through its indifferent response to the mushrooming of illegal housing practices but later acting as both instigator of demolitions and saviour for the victims. This also explains why some people tend to feign political loyalty or allegiance to the ruling party as protection against potential eviction from illegal urban spaces. In essence, land for housing had become a political resource (Muchadenyika, 2015). The development also put the state into an ambiguous position given its policy on indigenization and economic empowerment particularly of the youth and women. Such machinations seem to be recurrent in Zimbabwean urban politics. As reported in the Sunday Mail edition of 29 August 2021, the government had started building blocks of flats and houses to accommodate some of the over 30,000 families who had been evicted or whose structures had been demolished for various reasons including building on wetlands. However, such a response and largely for political expedience is not a new phenomenon in Zimbabwe. In the early 1990s, squatter and irregular settlements including regularized prefabricated housing units in Mbare high-density suburb were demolished ahead of Queen Elizabeth’s October 1991 official visit to Zimbabwe although most of the occupants were later rehoused in much better detached storey apartments constructed by the government in the same area. The government also demolished squatter settlements at Churu farm, which was then owned by ZANU (Ndonga) leader the late Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole, and occupants were forcibly moved out of the area. However, the political survival narrative will be narrow if every (ab)use of land in the city of Harare is attributed to the ruling party political strategy. The motives were also economic as there were many opportunistic land barons working in cohort with corrupt city council officials and politicians belonging to the opposition MDC for their own individual benefits.

State Fragility and Institutionalized Corruption The genesis of informal settlements is also be traced to state fragility and institutionalized corruption. The state is in fragile condition when it fails to provide basic services such as housing, water and security. Earlier studies (Maunganidze, 2016;

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Muchadenyika, 2015) on land allocations in Zimbabwe have already intimated on how weak state systems have been capitalized to promote predation and served as a political resource. According to Lefebvre, autogestion occurs when the state fails to provide services, and informality becomes a viable alternative. The failure or unwillingness to stop the illegal construction of housing structures on either state or council land deepens both fragility and institutionalized corruption. A documentary survey of print media reports discerns notable discursive fragments and nodes showing state officials colluding with private land barons in illegal urban land allocations across cities (cf: media reports; Herald between June and September 2021, Sunday Mail of 19 June 2021; Sunday Mail, 13 June 2021 and 29 August 2021). Illegal house owners and vendors allegedly paid council officials as “insurance” or protection fees against any possible eviction. Due to the authorities’ failure or incapacity to provide viable alternatives to the urban housing crisis, there seems to be changes in discursive constructions of informality from “squatter”, “informal” and “irregular” settlements. The shift to “irregular” partly offers an acknowledgement and an endorsement of John Turner’s widely referred thesis that informal settlements are alternative solutions and instead of demolishing them, they needed to be regularized (Harris, 2002). According to Bower (2016), Turner observed that illegal and anarchistic housing practices that produced simple yet sustainable informal settlements were a source of previously unrecognized social and economic value. However, the embracing of the concept of “irregular” housing structures has also created new opportunities for predation by potentially dispelling fears of eviction or demolition. Essentially the state contributed to the growth of informal settlements. Media and public pronouncements by state officials on the decision to regularize and upgrade slums have also effectively “sponsored” the resurfacing of slums. In spite of these pronouncements, it would be over-simplistic to reduce all developments around informal settlements solely to political partisanship as there have already been experiences of squatter upgrading that were not state or party sponsored but jointly implemented by Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and city of Harare with the involvement of informal settlers (Chitekwe-Biti, 2014). Such developments were not just unique to Zimbabwe, as other countries like South Africa have for years been facing a similar challenge of growth in informal settlements and were already implementing various upgrading strategies (Del Mistro & Hensher, 2009; Marais & Ntema, 2013; Satterthwaite, 2012). Although upgrading programmes have their own challenges, this article acknowledges that a huge chunk of informal houses were actually regularized by the government and local authorities, given that for many years options for dealing with the challenge have been limited. For example, in 2016 the City of Harare formalized about 14,744 houses built without following procedures (Muchadenyika, 2020). This was also in line with international expectation for governments to fulfil their respective commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In particular SDG Target 11(1) states: By 2030, ensure access for all, to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums (http://sdg.iisd.org › news › un-habitat-addresses-climate). There was a need for the implementation of sustainable ways of dealing with informal settlements (Chatiza & Gotora, 2021;

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Matamanda et al., 2020). This reinforces Kamete’s (2013a) reservations with the “normalization of urban pathologies” arguing that the authorities’ obsession with “normalizing” urban spaces they have designated as “pathologies” was misplaced because it glaringly defied the reality on the ground. It argues that any failure by the government to aggressively deal with the housing crisis in urban areas could deepen its fragility and intensify institutionalized corruption. For decades, the Zimbabwean state particularly under Robert Mugabe’s authoritarian predatory rule (Bratton & Masunungure, 2011; Maunganidze, 2016) attempted to facilitate “place making” through the provision of social services such as boreholes, clinics and electricity to informal settlements in the name of inclusive development. Place making is a process of appropriating spaces in order that they become “humanized” and legitimized. A legacy of rent-seeking clientism bequeathed to the succeeding regime saw the launching of a Presidential Agricultural Input Schemes in urban informal settlements (The Herald, 25 November 2021). This made defacto and quasi ruling or governing ZANUPF structures control the informal settlements and effectively marginalizing the opposition-run city council (Chavunduka & Chaonwa-Gaza, 2021). The co-production of space can facilitate the integration of formal and informal, reverse the urban informality normative inference, and support the agency of settlers. However, this requires being agential because, as Lombard (2014) observed, the state’s involvement in the process can potentially become a “hegemonic” device to secure compliance with, and control by, existing power structures. In this context, it shows that discourses can also be appropriated and colonized (Bartesaghi & Pantelides, 2017).

Sponsored or Agentive Informality Elites do not necessarily influence informality but it is an outcome of an agentive appropriation. Consistent with the critical discourse analysis framework the chapter also borrows from Lewis (1967, cited in Banks et al., 2020, p. 229) the conceptualization of informality as a site of critical analysis. This conceptualization views informality as an agential response to adverse social, political and economic environments, in contrast to conceptualizing the poor as politically passive members of a “culture of poverty” (Banks et al., 2020). Therefore, autogestion also signifies an attack on the modernist framing of informality. For example, what makes some settlements and structures formal and informal was dependent on the dominant’s representation of space (Wolf & Mahaffey, 2016). Autogestants can collectively exist without co-option by the powerful. These anarchistic and irregular urban land occupations and housing practices as espoused by John Turner reflect a possible realization of Henri Lefebvre’s autogestion (Bower, 2016). However, there is a need to ensure that such groups are democratic rather than run by aggressive elites (Dawson, 2016). It is a spontaneous and negotiated cooperation between individuals. In the Zimbabwean context, this may occur at both individual and collective levels. Informal settlements grow out of the participation of “interested parties” with their multiple, varied and even contradictory interests (Lefebvre, 1991). Therefore,

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while it is possible for the elite to capture or hijack the people’s housing struggles for their own parochial interests, autogestion can create a new form of citizenship and democracy in the city. Residents continue to operate in organized clusters within irregular party or shadow state structures. Although the recruitment into informal settlements could have occurred through various forms of political and social networks, relations formed at the time of invasions gradually dissolve in spatially differentiated economic interests. This is in line with Lefebvre’s argument that autogestion can serve to resist homogenization, and thus produce differential space at a variety of scales (Brenner & Elden, 2009). However, Lefebvre’s conceptualization of autogestion as a form of a class action has inherent contradictions of implying homogeneity given the plasticity of actors involved. Informal settlements are a product of diverse actors’ agency (Banks et  al., 2020). For example, while some youth and women were collectively instrumental in the seemingly agentive invasions of vacant spaces, they were victims of co-option and capture by powerful elites such as politicians and land barons. It is not usually easy to separate a “squatter” from a land “entrepreneur or broker”. Some participants can also feign political loyalty or affiliation as insurance against possible eviction. Although interested parties such as land barons and council officials may not directly exhibit political interests, they still use the crises of homelessness and space scarcity as sources of economic capital rather than social capital accumulation. Every informal settlement usually breeds increased cottage industry activities and demand for building materials and other downstream activities that require artisans such as builders, carpenters, welders and borehole drillers. Thus, informal settlements are shaped by the interaction of economic interests and political considerations in a post-colonial state (Chavunduka & Chaonwa-Gaza, 2021). While the initial informal settlements comprised predominantly structures ranging from temporary shacks to cheap two- or three-roomed units a visit to the sites such as Manyame riverside in Chitungwiza, Hopley Farm in Harare South and Masasa Park Extension (new stands) in Harare East, reflects re-figuration of space with many units constructed of relatively high-quality materials (cf: Figs. 7.2 and 7.3). Although illegal and irregular, some of the housing designs and structures could be more resilient and inclusive than the traditional modernist ones, which for years have over-relied on legalistic and exclusive systems. Since urban informal housing is largely supported by the informal enterprises and informal workforce it can be regarded as an agential response; a form of “self-management” by citizens to address problems directly affecting their livelihoods.

Wicked and Fungible Materialization Informal settlements have significantly transformed the city architecture and space. The struggle for urban space is a reflection of contradiction between user-value and exchange-value (Gray, 2018; Purcell, 2013). Urban inequality and poverty are effects of consumerism. Thus, appropriation and materialization of urban space by

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the urban home seekers restores the primacy of user value. Neither the state nor private property owners are in control of urban spaces. Those who use them control these. Anarchist housing practices imply the dismantling of unequal power relations that produce social dominance by proposing the reorganization and reproduction of social relations (Bower, 2016). Taking over urban space reorients the city away from its conventional role as an engine of capital accumulation. Autogestion threatens rental capitalism. Once the possibility of self-management is established, then the edifice of alienated consumer capitalism will begin to crumble (Dawson, 2016, p. 107). When the homeless working class champion urban informal housing practices they also become fungible. While they suppress rental capitalism, they also increase the net income or wage of the urban workers, thereby subsidizing the wider capitalist system. This supports Lefebvre’s characterization of space as a social product that masks the contradictions of its own production (Low, 2009, p. 22). The persistence of irregularity in the cities also exposed the fragility or inadequacy of modernist urban planning that have historically characterized the nature of social delivery systems in post-colonial cities. The phenomenon reflected a form of grassroots political practice that was born spontaneously out of the void in urban development practice created by both the state and local authorities. Although the structures remain illegal and irregular their persistence across cases the actors are motivated to stay and continue constructing more similar structures by the support in the way of infrastructural development such as road networks and provision of electricity by state-funded institutions. The existence of shadow state structures with the support of politically connected land barons reinforces Lefebvre’s scepticism about the possibility and viability of authentic territorial autogestion as the state apparatus has become more deeply imbricated in producing, maintaining and reproducing the preconditions for expanded illicit capital accumulation. The political and economic manipulation of the housing crisis in Zimbabwean urban areas is consistent with Lefebvre’s argument that such projects had all too frequently amounted to no more than “simulacrum” of democratization, in which administrative problems and fiscal burdens were merely reshuffled without qualitatively modifying the balance of power (Lefebvre, 2000, p. 773). The production and maintenance of informality was a wicked problem with which the different actors tended to be comfortable as they derived spoils from the situation. For the desperate home seekers the obtaining circumstances provided them an opportunity to have homes of their own while for land barons, acting as entrepreneurs and brokers, it was an opportunity for capital accumulation and a case of political survival for the politicians. Other scholars (McGregor & Chatiza, 2019) place the blame on the state’s absence or complicity observing that the “lawless” urban frontiers and “illegal” territorial authorities in the city were expressions of a permissive form of central statecraft. As was experienced during the infamous country-­side fast-track land reform, irregular settlements in the city had become a form of covert weapon of central state steering (Lefebvre, 2001), and “harvesting rod” (Maunganidze, 2016). This demonstrates that informality was largely “sponsored”: located at the intersection of structurally conditioned urban poly-crises and parochial interests of actors deriving spoils from its persistence.

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Conclusion The chapter sought to examine whether the sprouting of informal urban settlements in Zimbabwean cities, particularly the capital, Harare, has been either sponsored or agential. Although the chapter argued that informal settlements were triggered by a combination of structural and institutional contingencies, and diverse actors’ agency, it concludes that the appropriation and materialization of urban spaces largely exemplified a “sponsored” response to the urban housing crisis. While in some cases the production of informality could have been agential, its materialization followed a combination of manipulative and opportunistic land barons and clientist statecraft. Thus, it is accurate to state that the nature and extent of urban informality in Harare did not fully satisfy the characteristics of Henri Lefebvre’s “autogestive space”. The “anarchistic” politics engulfing the emergence of informal settlements are reduced to a mediating agent for both political and capital accumulation. Due to the plasticity and multiplicity of actors, urban informality becomes a source of capital accumulation for some groups and a source of political survival for others. Therefore, informality can be regarded as a survival strategy for both the elite and the marginalized. Urban informality was also double-edged as it served the interested parties differently. The discursive constructions of the processes of informality and the diverse actors’ responses, including the state, have far-reaching implications for the production of space and knowledge.

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Chapter 8

Gender, Architecture and Space

Introduction Gendered architectural production and materialization manifest through the various forms of under-representation of women in the process of historic construction and preservation. The constancy of architectural appropriation under successive regimes is critical in the context of pushing the boundaries of analysis beyond the decolonizing narrative as the post-colonial state particularly in Zimbabwe  has also been widely accused of deepening democratic deficit and perpetuating marginalization of minority groups and individuals such as women. As Nduta Waweru (cited in the Herald, 11 August 2018) wrote, “While many of the male African fighters are well known, their female counterparts have been largely forgotten. These women, usually left to the margins of the society, were quite instrumental in the fight for the liberation of their respective countries”. For example, for nearly 40  years into Zimbabwe’s independence there have not been many historicist buildings and spaces immortalized after heroines in spite of their indelible contribution and sacrifice to the country’s liberation as partners to spouses and in their own right. Although the post-colonial state in Zimbabwe enacted laws to provide for the rights and benefits of veterans of the liberation struggle and their dependants (War Veterans Act, 11:15 of 2001, Ex-Political Prisoners, Detainees and Restrictees, 17:10, repealed in 2020 by Veterans of the Liberation Struggle, 17:12), women continued to be marginalized both in space and architecture. This is one of the areas requiring epistemological and ontological attention in order to deconstruct how systems and discourses have continued to orchestrate gendered power relations. This chapter draws from Michel Foucault’s post-structuralism and Jacques Derrida’s techniques of deconstruction to examine the gendering of representation and materialization of architectural products and spaces.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. Maunganidze, Representation and Materialization of Architecture and Space in Zimbabwe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47761-4_8

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Gendering Architecture and Space: The Connections Within the normative structuralism, architecture is the design and production of self-contained buildings, spaces and related products by professional architects for appropriation by individuals, groups and institutions. It is functional to the extent to which the appropriation and materialization was for the collective benefit of the community and nation. In essence, architectural designs, form and purpose are directly connected to the society. Thus, economic, cultural, religious and political interests could inform production and reproduction of architectural products. Therefore, within this strand (as demonstrated in Chap. 6) the absence of woman in critical decision-making processes concerning the design of the kitchen hut and rituals associated with it was normalized and the pain of marginalization not only neutralized but naturalized. However, over time, the hut’s intersection with socio-­ political, ideological, cultural and economic systems should make us see it beyond its design and production. Feminist social theorists, namely Elizabeth Wilson (1995) and Doreen Massey (1994), saw architecture and space as differentially gendered. Instead of understanding architectural products and spaces as discrete objects and boundaries, there is a need to recognize the different gender influence of the ways people apprehend a given site or locale and their distinct histories and purposes (Archer, 2005; Rendell, 2012). In particular, Elizabeth Wilson (1995, cited in Bondi & Rose, 2003, p.  230) argued that although cities constrain, disadvantage and oppress women, they also liberate women, for example, by enabling them to escape the constraints of normative expectations, and by widening their horizons. According to Massey, space should be considered as space-time affected by “power-­ geometries”: a practised, inhabited and “ever-shifting social geometry of power and signification” (Massey, 1994, p. 3). Massey contends that space is not neutral, “fixed and unproblematic in its identity”, but is instead an evolving source of meaning and social relations produced and reproduced within power configurations. For a more critical analysis of the gendered architectural production and materialization, the connections between gender, architecture and space are considered within the poststructuralist paradigm. According to Rendell (2000), architecture was always in part a form of gendered representation. Gender-insensitive architectural designs are partly traced to the historical absence of women in both the profession and practice in the built environment (Fowler & Wilson, 2004). For example, elsewhere in this book, I considered the place naming, statues, the walls and hill top complexes at the Great Zimbabwe and Khami Ruins, and the conspicuous absence of the female gender. This confirms many scholars’ observation that architecture in all its representational forms was gendered and typically a “masculine-dominated” profession (Flather, 2013; Fowler & Wilson, 2004; Kern, 2020). Physical structures are profoundly affected by the purposes, assumptions, and identities of those people who design or change them. The most pervasive representation of gendered space is the paradigm of “separate spheres”, which divides city from home, public from private, production from reproduction, and females from males, creating an oppositional and hierarchical system (Rendell, 2000). As Heynen (2012) also observed an

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avant-garde stressing innovation, creativity and cutting edge at the forefront are the most explicitly masculine in orientation, negating supposedly “feminine” values such as home, tradition or convention.

Gendered Representation and Materialization Consistent with the critical sociological and anthropological perspectives, this chapter contributes to the debate regarding the characterization of architecture as either national iconographies or dispositifs. Gender issues are both an object and product of power dynamics weaving through the connection between architecture and spaces, and society. According to Archer (2005), much work in architectural history has addressed buildings as only the passive handmaidens of other interests and forces in society suggesting an inert presence, yet buildings are very least the medium and the instruments that give the presence and purchase to the broad range of human interests. This buttresses Heynen’s (1999) characterization of architecture’s role in identity construction as both a power-radiator and image generator. The conspicuous absence of urban architecture and spaces that have been immortalized after women war liberators and collaborators for over 40 years epitomizes a “spatial constitution of gendered identities” (Bondi & Rose, 2003). Although by November 2022, the number of those honoured as heroes and heroines had risen to 161 only a handful of women. As a way of departing from the old regime under authoritarian Robert Mugabe, the new political leadership which emerged in late 2017 ushered in an arguably more gender-sensitive and inclusive political dispensation that begun to recognize female contribution to the war of liberation. As indicated elsewhere in this book, cityscapes were renamed after iconic women. In particular, the installation of a statue of Mbuya Nehanda at the intersection of the usually busy Julius Nyerere and Samora Machel Avenues in the capital Harare in 2021 and the inscription of its image on the country’s local currency was one case of history and myths being evoked to represent and produce “heritage” as part of identity-making practice. This supports Zukas’s (2019) argument that statues effectively served as a mediator between the presence and absence of women in political struggles. This can be a form of “induced” remembering (Stone & Hirst, 2014) and “violence” which potentially generates resistance. For example, ordinary citizens particularly the underprivileged urban dwellers who walk daily or drive past the “monument” may not necessarily share the collective identity the statue was initially meant to project. This supports Stone and Hirst (2014, p. 315) argument that “if collective memories are to serve as a foundation on which to build a collective identity, then what is not remembered is as critical to forming this identity as what is remembered”. Induced collective memorialization drives citizens to a state of collective forgetting which may over time reduce the monument to an ordinary architecture because its mythic status will begin to be subdued by the iconicity of the “forgotten” real heroes of their time. This resonates with what Maciuika (2014) coined “historic preservation fallacy”: architectural monuments are reconstructed as

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part of historic preservation while seeking to advance group values or notions of identity. This is also supported by Mwale (2017) argument that identities are politicized in some cases to frame a certain interpretation of heritage such as interpretation of ancient or historical buildings as a representation of particular identity despite the fact that these buildings may not have been necessarily built as such. Iconicity cannot be accounted from a solely symbolic perspective but rather by the way the capitalist class and institutions have increasingly come to define the times, places and audiences that make buildings and spaces iconic (Sklair, 2006). From a critical sociological perspective, the material and representational dimensions of urban public space are constituted by impositions, negotiations and contestations over which groups comprise those that have access to these spaces, for what purposes these spaces are used, and what visions of society urban public space embraces, enforces, produces and promotes (Bondi & Rose, 2003, p. 235). There is evidence of how politics interweave with gender to shape everyday experiences of women’s inclusion and exclusion from urban architecture and space. For example, while women were collectively instrumental in the seemingly autogestive invasions of vacant urban spaces as individuals they were also co-opted or captured by the powerful elites. All forms of architectural appropriation and materialization generate new dimensions of social relations, which imply complex identities. According to Ceuterick (2020), narratives and affective images “involving” relations to space, such as the street, the house and the car in particular, affect how people experience and inhabit these spaces. Spaces exist in time and in representation: they are lived through historical and affective imaginaries. For Henri Lefebvre, spaces are threefold: an interweaving of the “lived space” (espace vécu) just mentioned, the space “conceived” (l’espace conçu) by planners and urbanists, and the space “perceived” (l’espace perçu) through daily practices (Lefebvre, 1974, pp.  49–52; cited in Ceuterick, 2020, p. 5). While previous chapters considered the toponymical exclusion of iconic women figures from the commemorative cityscape, this chapter extends the debate by addressing the gendering of memorialization. The lack of women representation in political and economic spheres of the country that dates back to colonial period is the mirror image of women marginalization in architectural representation and materialization. Apart from Mbuya Nehanda (a street in Harare) and Maternity Wing at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, and Sally Mugabe Hospital (formerly Harare Hospital), it took nearly four decades for the government of Zimbabwe to immortalize women of the struggle through place-naming in Harare. Similarly, going through the list of new names of roads and streets in Bulawayo City, published through Statutory Instrument (SI. 167/2020), one notices some women names notably the change of Fife Street and Queens Road to Queen Lozikeyi Street, and fifth Avenue to Maria Msika. Queen Lozikeyi, the matriarch and one of King Lobengula’s wives and spiritual medium, provided guidance to Ndebele warriors before they went to battle (https://www.chronicle.co.zw/queen-­lozikeyi – 5 August 2021). Although she had long died in 1919, Zimbabwe People’s Liberation Army (ZIPRA) guerrillas (fighters) during the war of liberation in the 1970s in Matabeleland region continued to visit her grave to seek spiritual guidance and

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Table 8.1  List of national heroines (1980–2022) Heroine name Sally Mugabe Julia Tukayi Zvobgo Joana Nkomo Ruth Chinamano Sunny Takawira Shuvai Mahofa Vivian Mwashita Victoria Fikile Chitepo Thokozile Mathuthu Sabina Mugabe Maria Msika Maud Muzenda

Immortalized spouse Robert Mugabe Eddison Zvobgo Joshua Nkomo (former Vice President) Josiah Chinamano Leopold Takawira Ni (not immortalized) Ni Herbert Chitepo Ni Ni (Robert Mugabe’s sister) Joseph Msika (former Vice President) Simon Muzenda (former Vice President)

Immortalization year 1992 2004 2003 2005 2010 2017 2016 2016 2018 2010 2017 2017

Source: Author’s own moderation based on various sources

inspiration. As indicated in Table 8.1, Maria Msika was the wife to one of the iconic liberation war heroes and one of the former Vice Presidents, Joseph Msika. At the time of developing this book, a state-owned premier hotel in the capital was being mooted for renaming after Queen Lozikeyi. In fact, a quick survey of immortalized women at the end of 2022 provides a striking tendency of defining women not in themselves but as relative beings (de Beauvoir, 2000). As the former Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe once said while addressing mourners at the NHA during the burial of Maria Msika, on 28th September 2017, “nhoroondo yavo inhoroondo yavarume vavo” (their history is their husbands’ history) (https://www.manicapost. co.zw/president-­pays-­tribute-­to-­heroine-­mbuya-­msika). In fact, most of the immortalized women were actually wives of liberation heroes. Such statements potentially peripheralize women contribution. This supports Fowler and Wilson’s (2004) argument that such practice effectively naturalizes male domination and at the same time neutralizes female peripheralization. As Goredema and Chigora (2009) and Mawere (2021) stated, the conferment of national hero’s status to females was based on the ideology of femocracy. “Femocracy is an ideology which believes that in order for women to rise in the political arena they have to be linked to men in political positions…” (Goredema & Chigora, 2009, p.  76). However, brushing all of them as non-autonomous could be unfair because some were just as heroic as their spouses were since they were together either in war trenches or in political detentions. For example, Maud Muzenda was detained by the Rhodesian security details together with her husband, former Vice-President Simon Muzenda, while Ruth Chinamano and Julia Zvobgo were constantly harassed and tortured by Rhodesian forces accused of sending subversive information to their husbands in prison or exile. Although some of the immortalized women had directly contributed to the struggle, for others burial at the national heroes could have been just a cultural requirement and convenience, because among the Shona and Ndebele cosmology, spouses ideally are buried at the same site. However, it was heartening to note that at the time

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of writing this book, there were plans to rename cityscapes in Masvingo and other smaller towns after local heroines of the liberation struggle. The marginalization of women in the immortalization process was partly attributed to demobilization of the liberation war combatants initiated on the attainment of independence in 1980. After leaving the military structures some opted for a non-­ political civilian life relegating themselves to civil service and rural areas, while others went back to continue with their education which they had previously aborted due to the war. Consequently, majority became politically inactive and effectively excluded from processes normally associated with nomination and identification heroes. According to Sadomba and Dzinesa (2004, p. 58), it appeared that female ex-combatants discharged themselves from the military in the 1980s in an effort to expedite their severance of ties with a traumatizing military past  – a choice that would carry the weight of self-reintegration under difficult socioeconomic conditions characterized by patriarchal gender relations. The authors further argued that the absence of a gender-sensitive demobilization and reintegration policy resulted in the marginalization and exclusion of women ex-combatants in the military, social, political and professional spheres. Furthermore, the women ex-combatants and war collaborators who went back to primary school at independence normally at grade (standard) seven level had their ages officially reduced by at least 3–5  years to ensure they met the required public examinations age limit of 13 years. Unfortunately, the legislation (Veterans of the Liberation Struggle, Cap. 17:12) seeking to recognize veterans of the struggle effectively left out this group. The main losers have become war collaborators as the law stipulated that to qualify one should have been at least 16  years of age by 31 December 1979. Perhaps this partly explains the under-representation of female iconic figures among those immortalized. Although the statue dedicated to such undocumented freedom fighters at the National Heroes Acre clearly depicts women fighters, one can easily regard women as major losers. I agree with Sadomba and Dzinesa (2004) argument that depicting a woman in a skirt represented post-independence conservative stereotyping of gender-­appropriate labour which resulted in the downgrading of feminizing of women combatants’ liberation war contribution to that of “wives and mothers” (Farr, 2000, p.  7, in Sadomba & Dzinesa, 2004, p. 58). The design of a woman in skirt does not fully represent the women’s heroic exploits during the war as long jean trousers was the standard attire for those in the “front”: that is those operating in the jungle in Zimbabwe. Women’s roles in the liberation war as girls, mothers, wives and elderly performed unlimited non-combatant and war collaborator tasks. In particular “chimbwidos” (girl collaborators) alongside their male counterparts “mujibhas” (boy collaborators) provided food and, shelter and care especially to wounded and sick-fighters in the bush but this is largely under-represented in both architecture and spaces. As most rural clinics closed and/or became inaccessible due to the ravaging battles, many female elders became indigenous community health workers and traditional healers helping both the fighters and ordinary villagers. In addition, the trauma and negative outcomes of the war such as dropping out of school at tender ages, early marriages and sexual abuse at the hands of both Rhodesian security forces and some delinquent or errant liberation combatants have been hardly

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documented and recognized. Although these historical circumstances are irreversible, bringing them to the forefront of heritage management discourse could significantly influence production of knowledge on the subject and progressive policy formulation.

Women, Architecture and Space From a feminist sociological thinking, the interface between society and space is differentially gendered. There cannot be genuine collective memorialization and heritagization while the other gender excluded, whether by design or accidentally. In Chap. 6, this book considered the position of the African traditional kitchen hut and all its paraphernalia in the Shona cosmology and in particular, the centrality of women roles largely predicated on structural functionalism. From preindustrial to contemporary period, the power of hut as an epicentre of African Traditional Religion is easily discernible particularly with respect to rituals associated with sacredness and femininity. Although in theory the family kitchen hut belongs to the woman, the expertise of constructing it, its function and purpose are male-­dominated. For example, during the ceremony marking the bringing back home of the spirit of the deceased (kurova guva) and “marrying the grave” (kuroora guva), there is evidence of commodification of both the women living and dead bodies. “Marrying the grave” arises when a married woman dies before the husband has completed payment of bride price. The husband or his family is required to make part or full payment to allow burial of the deceased wife. Overall, architecture in Zimbabwe is both patriarchal and androcentric. Since the practice in both architectural field as a science and profession has tended to be influenced by male-dominated social structures, male-centred norms operating throughout all the social institutions have almost become standards to be adhered and reinforcing the marginalization of women. This resonates with Leslie Kern’s (2020), writing in her book “Feminist City”, regarding how the toxic masculinity was built into the fabric of architecture. While the colonial architecture in Zimbabwe was regarded racist, it was also gender-insensitive. This did not change following the attainment of independence, as for many years, the toponymical exclusion of women liberation fighters in the renaming of Zimbabwean cityscapes was taken for granted. It is also striking to note that the few buildings named after female icons were central and provincial hospitals. What is discernible here is a mother and (child) care scenario! Whether this form of representation “transfigures” opportunities for a feminist materialization of architecture becomes anyone’s guess. Such forms of representation evoke “architecture feminine”, a practice that recuperates the “marginalized feminine condition” by addressing the “reduction and distortion of women’s work by phallocentric codes of rationality, objectivity and hierarchy” (Burns, 202, p. 262). Perhaps (re)naming traditionally male-centric structures like military camps after female liberation icons could enhance their recognition and contribution to the liberation struggle and national development in post-colonial Zimbabwe. However,

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semantic embellishment not matched by substantive transformation in the way of women’s active and equal participation in the mainstream development practice is not helpful. The marginalization and exclusion of women in the representation and materialization of architecture is not a universal but context-specific phenomenon. This supports Flather’s (2013) argument that the perception and experience of the spaces that people have, do not have, or are denied access to, can also empower them to take action or can render them powerless. Although Zimbabwean women have historically been subjected to patriarchal and sexist prejudices and stereotyping they have also been actively involved in the (re)shaping of their space as a survival strategy. They have not just become docile bodies (Foucault, 1977). For example, the co-evolution of ESAP and HIV-AIDS induced poverty and unemployment, deliberate gender-sensitive institutional and legislative reforms provided women the space to reconstruct their identity. In the case of Zimbabwe, this triggered the exponential rise in informality especially in urban areas opening new spaces for women‘s participation in business activities and urban agriculture. Women with the support of the youth have remained at the forefront in the irregular and illegal occupation of spaces in the CBD for the sale of imported wares and horticulture produce from nearby farms. For example, women are constantly involved in running battles with municipal police. They are also leaders in the construction of slums and working as land barons in cohort with city authorities and party officials. Economic empowerment opportunities such practices created have enhanced the women’s participation in urban politics. There are also arguments that the under-representation of women in the professional space and scholarship in architecture partly explains the genderedness of representation and materialization architectural products. Although for many years there has been a significant increase in the number of female graduates and practitioners particularly in developed economies, the representation and materialization of architecture in the same regions have tended to be male-dominated and masculinist (Heynen, 2012). In spite of this a few female architects who have made history at the global stage include the British Dame Jane Drew (1911–1996), who was involved in the building of the Royal Institute of British Architecture, designing the new capital of Punjab, India and credited for designing hospitals, universities, and governmental offices in Nigeria, Ghana, and the Ivory Coast. There is also Lina Bo Bardi (1914–1992), who was an Italian architect who designed the iconic Sao Paulo Museum of Art in 1947 and Dame Zaha Hadid (1950–2016), the Iraq-born British architect was widely considered one of the finest female architects in history for being the first woman to lift the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 2004. Known as the “starchitect”, her most striking structures were the Riverside Museum in Glasgow, the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics and Guangzhou Opera House (www.womeninconstructionsummit.com). However, as Heynen (2012) argued it might not be a coincidence that Hadid received the prize because of qualities such as boldness and heroism, which are more on the masculine side. In spite of the rising figures of female architects, both profession and industry continue to under-­ represent women. According to a design magazine, Dezeen, by 2019, despite the

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huge female interest in architecture women headed only three of the world’s largest architecture firms. The contemporary world is still grappling with a “masculine economy” (Burns, 2020) in architecture in male-dominated global financial and property markets bequeathed to it by earlier generations. While female architects in the Global North have broken records receiving global accolades, for those in the Global South, recognition remains a pipe dream. For example, by 2016 Zimbabwe had only 10 female registered architects and attached to largely male-dominated firms (www.sundaymail.com/ 27 March 2016).

Conclusion Consistent with poststructuralist thinking, the chapter examined how the built environment served as both a cultural and ideological artefact. Thus, architecture is effectively an iconic dispositive. The chapter extended and reinforced Leslie Kanes Weisman’s (2000, p. 1) argument that built environment “is an artefact shaped by human intention and intervention, a living archaeology through which we can extract the priorities and beliefs of the decision-makers in our society. Both the process through which we build and the forms themselves embody cultural values and imply standards of behaviour which affect all of us”. While patriarchy became the bedrock of modern capitalism under colonial regimes, it has also determined the appropriation and use of space under the post-colonial order. For example, for nearly 40 years into Zimbabwe’s independence there have not been many buildings or spaces immortalized after heroines in spite of the indelible contribution and sacrifice of women to the country’s liberation. This is one of the areas requiring epistemological and ontological attention in order to deconstruct how systems and discourses have continued to orchestrate gendered power relations. The analysis in this chapter conforms to the theoretical argument that space was socially produced and conversely, a condition for social production (Lefebvre, 1991; Massey, 1994).

References Archer, J. (2005). Social theory of space: Architecture and the production of self, culture and society. Journal of Society of Architectural Historians, 64(4), 430–433. Bondi, L., & Rose, D. (2003). Constructing gender, constructing the urban: A review of Anglo-­ American feminist urban geography. Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 10(3), 229–245. Burns, K. (2020). Anthologizing post-structuralism: Architecture écriture, gender, and subjectivity. In S. Loosen, R. Heynickx, & H. Heynen (Eds.), The figure of knowledge: Conditioning architectural architecture, 1960s–1990s (pp. 255–267). Leuven University Press. Ceuterick, M. (2020). Affirmative aesthetics and wilful women gender, space and mobility in contemporary cinema. Palgrave Macmillan.

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De Beauvoir, S. (2023).The second sex. In W. Longhofer and D. Winchester (eds.,), Social theory re-wired: New connections to classical and contemporary perspectives (pp. 346–354). London: Routledge. Flather, A. J. (2013). Space, place, and gender: The sexual and spatial division of labor in the early modern household. History and Theory, 52, 344–360. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Vintage Books. Fowler, B., & Wilson, F. (2004). Women architects and their discontents. Sociology, 38(1), 101–119. Goredema, D., & Chigora, P. (2009). Fake heroines and the falsification of history in Zimbabwe 1980–2009. African Journal of History and Culture (AJHC), 1(5), 076–083. Heynen, H. (1999). Petrifying memories: Architecture and the construction of identity. The Journal of Architecture, 4(4), 369–390. Heynen, H. (2012). Genius, gender and architecture: The star system as exemplified in the Pritzker Prize. Architectural Theory Review, 17(2,3), 331–345. https://www.manicapost.co.zw/president-­pays-­tribute-­to-­heroine-­mbuya-­msika Kern, L. (2020). Feminist city. Claiming space in the man-made world. Verso. Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. Blackwell. Massey, D. B. (1994). Space, place, and gender. University of Minnesota Press. Mawere, T. T. (2021). The Zimbabwean national heroine: (Re)-reading nationalism, gender and sexuality. Centre for Sexualities, Aids and Gender (CSA&G). Mwale, K. P. (2017). Culture, heritage and the politics of identity in national and Tribal spaces: The city and the traditional village in Botswana. PhD Thesis, University of Sheffield. Rendell, J. (2000). Introduction: Gender, space. In J.  Rendell, B.  Penner, & I.  Borden (Eds.), Gender space architecture (pp. 101–112). Routledge. Rendell, J. (2012). Tendencies and trajectories: Feminist approaches in architecture. In C. G. Crysler, S. Cairns, & H. Heynen (Eds.), Tendencies and trajectories: Feminist approaches in architecture (pp. 85–106). SAGE Pub. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446201756 Sadomba, F., & Dzinesa, G. W. (2004). Identity and exclusion in the post-war era: Zimbabwe’s women former freedom fighters. Journal of Peacebuilding & Development, 2(1), 51–63. Sklair, L. (2006). Iconic architecture and capitalist globalization. City, 10(1), 21–47. https://doi. org/10.1080/13604810600594613 Stone, C.  B., & Hirst, W. (2014). (Induced) Forgetting to form a collective memory. Memory Studies, 7(3), 314–327. Weisman, L. K. (2000). Women’s environmental rights: A manifesto. In J. Rendell, B. Penner, & I. Borden (Eds.), Gender space architecture (pp. 1–5). Routledge. Wilson, E. (1995). The rhetoric of urban space. New Left Review, 1(209), 146–146. Zukas, L.  L. (2019). Statues, murals and the national museum: Mediating the presence and absence of women in Zimbabwean political struggles. In F. Jacob & K. Pearl (Eds.), War and memorials: The Second World War and beyond (pp. 183–214). Verlag Ferdinand. https://doi. org/10.30965/9783657788231_009

Chapter 9

Reflection and Conclusion

Overview The study that informed the development of this book sought to examine the representation and materialization of iconic architecture in Zimbabwe tapping into the historicity of (heritage) sites and architectural products. For centuries, architecture and space in Africa in general and Zimbabwean, in particular, were subjected to variants of appropriation and materialization with multifarious effects on individual and collective identities. In particular, its forced engagement with colonial powers followed by relatively repressive post-colonial regimes left legacies of multi-­layered elitist and totalitarian inscriptions. Guided by a combination of normative structuralism and critical post-structuralism, the collection of chapters provides a narrative and critical review of the ways in which Zimbabwean iconic architecture including historicist buildings, monuments and cityscapes have come about and been mobilized as cultural, economic, religious and political artefacts and artifices producing identities and other complex meanings. There seems to be a consistent pattern between how both successive colonial and post-colonial regimes in Zimbabwe have mobilized and capitalized the affinity between politics, culture and architecture. The book’s central argument is that celebrated symbols of memorialization and heritagization through spatial re-figuration are a form of collective historic preservation for national identity formation, and to some extent pieces of hegemonic statecraft. The mediating effect of power in the modes of architectural representation and patterns of materialization particularly in the construction of these “grand” structures renders many of them to resemble more memory dispositifs than national iconographies. The book’s journey took-off with a historical, theoretical and methodological synopsis of the study. The first three chapters highlighted the paucity of the research problem, and the debates within the field of society and space. The rest of the chapters constituted an evidence-based examination of representation and materialization of architectural products and spaces at purposively selected places in Zimbabwe. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. Maunganidze, Representation and Materialization of Architecture and Space in Zimbabwe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47761-4_9

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In many cases, the investigation considered both pre-modern and contemporary architecture and space. The scope of inquiry was limited to • • • • •

Museums, monuments and statues State architecture and space Indigeneity and iconicity of the African kitchen hut Urban informality Gender and architecture

Chapter Snippets Chapter 1 established the importance of interrogating the patterns and processes of appropriation and materialization of architecture and spaces to the discipline of sociology of architecture and space. One of the major findings of the chapter was that there was lack of any declared consensus among scholars on the definition and conceptualization of icons and dispositives (dispositifs). It also positioned the two as ubiquitous terms that required multi-disciplinary methodologies, which is consistent with considering architecture within both structural functionalism and critical post-structuralism. Chapter 2 followed the tone set up in Chap. 1, with the task of “farming of iconic architecture” in the context of historical circumstances dating back to pre-modern times and juxtaposing it within the global and African perspectives. The main aspects covered included the interface between power and architecture, iconicity and elitism especially the interaction between elites and non-elites. The chapter acknowledged the significance of interrogating Zimbabwean architecture in the context of its historical subjection to variants of appropriative practices because of its forced engagement with colonial powers and the legacies of multi-layered elitist and totalitarian inscriptions bequeathed to it by successive repressive post-colonial states. Following an extensive literature review, the chapter supported other scholars who have regarded coping with African iconic architecture as something of a bind: a combination of significance, contestability and asymmetry. Overall, the chapter framed and located architecture in Zimbabwe particularly state buildings, monuments and museums as a combination of “sovereign icons” and memory dispositifs (Basu, 2011). Chapter 3 extended the theoretical and contextual framing of architecture presented in Chap. 2 with a critical analysis of the role of state and non-state political forces in the place making and naming practices during both colonial and post-­ colonial eras, with specific reference to historic architecture and city space in Harare and Bulawayo. It observed that while the drivers and dimensions to the colonial and post-colonial toponymical embellishment of buildings and streets appeared diametrically opposed, in the main they tended to serve the same purposes: partisan historic preservation and reconstruction. The main finding of the book chapters corroborated other studies elsewhere that concluded that (re)naming built environment

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in honour of historic personalities and events acted to reify a particular set of political values held by the ruling socio-political order and its particular “theory of the world” in the cityspace (Light & Young, 2018). In essence, this created a sense of collective memorialization and heritagization that is critical for identity formation and communicating specific political ideologies. Chapter 4 examined the representation and materialization of museums and monuments. It demonstrated how these served as artefacts of collective memorialization and identity making. This chapter observed that over the years architectural products and spaces in Zimbabwe have vacillated between iconographies and dispositifs, representing a hybrid model of iconicity and propaganda: a case of “iconic dispositifs”. Examples drawn from selected monuments and statues confirm the co-­ existence of icons and “dispositifs”. One of the challenges facing the management of monuments was the issue of decapitalization: over-prioritization of political interests ahead of all other capitals such as cultural, social, religious and economic. Chapter 5 focused on state owned and/or controlled buildings. It observed that state architecture symbolizes different state personalities and the ways states communicate power or supremacy. In the case of the British colonial system in Zimbabwe, architecture served mainly as a symbol of conquest and supremacy following early black resistance to colonization in the late nineteenth century. For the new Zimbabwe government, the decolonization imperative informed the overall governance structure and consequently, the need to build a sovereign state and national identity anchored on heritage preservation and patriotism. In spite of this, the government did not take a radical approach but rather a modest toponymical cleansing concentrated on just name changes. However, the chapter argued that taken one by one, all the state buildings in both political systems were relatively isomorphic. In many instances, there were temptations of becoming both elitist and male-dominated. Chapter 6 explored the representation and materialization of African traditional kitchen hut at local, community and national level. Consistent with poststructuralist thinking, it is observed that traditional hut was more than just “a kitchen hut”. It was a multi-fold architecture, which was materialized and appropriated for both different and contesting purposes. Although the chapter’s observations and evidence were predicated on the experiences of the hut’s representation and appropriation among the Shona people in Zimbabwe, archaeological records and related scholarship on other African ethnic groups within and outside support its generalization beyond the study area. The chapter demonstrated how hut’s design and the space around it created opportunities for some groups at the expense of others. Overall, the kitchen hut stands out as one of the few pre-modern products that has remained largely revered as a “community capital”. One of the main arguments of the chapter was that the kitchen hut exemplified that architectural products were not necessarily prescriptive investments of collective consciousness and universalism but were rather capable of deploying power. However, persistent resilience in the face of modernization and globalized technological advancement and concomitant transformation in religious and cultural practices have enabled the African traditional hut to retain iconicity in both rural and urban spaces.

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Chapter 7 discussed the interaction between society and urban space through (re)-production of informality mainly in the post-colonial capital city, Harare. The analysis draws inspiration from Henry Lefebvre’s (1991) “autogestion” thesis and examines the extent to which urban spaces have been appropriated and materialized to cope with the emerging urban poly-crises particularly shortage of land for residential purposes. It established that although urban informal settlements were triggered by a combination of structural and institutional contingencies, and diverse actors’ agency, the urban spaces largely exemplified a “sponsored” rather than an agentive response to the urban housing crisis. While in some cases, the production of informality could have been agential, manipulative and opportunistic land barons and clientist statecraft marooned its materialization. Chapter 8, which is the last in a series of evidence-based chapters, considered the gendered architectural production and materialization. Drawing from the experiences of various architectural products explored in the previous chapters, it examines the connections between gender, architecture and space, in the context of under-representation of women in the process of historic preservation and construction. In addition, the chapter explored the relations of power in terms of gender, underlying processes of attaching identities and rights to materialization of architecture and spaces. It concluded by reinforcing the argument that architecture and spaces were differentially gendered.

Representation, Materialization and Power: The Intersections Representation directs how architecture becomes known, produced, structured, disseminated and consumed (Christenson, 2019). Overall, the book observed the persistence of monumental and elite architecture in Zimbabwe as mirroring such tendencies elsewhere in Africa. Although iconic architecture in Africa has for many years represented a sense of national pride and sovereignty, in some cases there has been the temptation of totalitarianism and elitism (Peterson, 2020). This is because architecture that has been regarded as iconic has also largely become “grand” symbols of supremacy such as state houses and mausoleums designed by state-­sponsored architects. These grand buildings are constructed at the behest of the more powerful or elites (Pikirayi, 2013). Many of these are a significant expression of the ruling class and powerful elites’ desire both to engage in a politics of recognition and to position themselves relative to pasts and futures. Consequently, the ideas of collective memorialization and heritagization associated with various architectural products and spaces have become illusions. Representation is not normative but a grand narrative. It is not a passive act. Materiality grows out representational methods employed by individuals and groups. For example, archaeology is an exemplary representational endeavour, translating the traces and remains of the past into stories about said pasts in the present (Joyce et al., 2002; Shanks, 2007). For instance, iconic and historicist buildings, monumental symbols and signs represent historical figures, places and events. Their experiences with successive regimes, groups and individuals determine

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the extent of their sacralization and commemoration. For example, the soapstone birds discovered at Great Zimbabwe have become a significant (meaningful) “structure” that have played a central role in conditioning social and material realities. Although certainly not identical, signification (or representation) in a materialized form has contributed to the creation of the significant (Swenson & Cipolla, 2020). However, this has not happened naturally and collectively. As Kim Dovey (2009, cited in Jones, 2011, p. 45) surmises, “architecture is a multiple ‘framing’ wherein representations are framed by spatial structures that are in turn infused with narrative interpretations”. Thus architectural products were not necessarily viewed as prescriptive investments of collective consciousness and universalism but rather capable of deploying power and invoking resistance. “Signs function not simply to represent social reality, but also to create it and effect changes in that reality” (Preucel, 2006, p. 64, cited in Swenson & Cipolla, 2020, p. 318). Instead of liberation heritage sites and associated immortalized architectural products and spaces serving as iconic commemorative signs of national unity and freedom from the brutal colonial past, they have largely served as instruments of exclusionary and partisan memorialization. Within the normative structuralism, architectural products are a sign system whose meaning stems from the shared interpretations of the society within which it is produced (Moustafa, 1988). For instance, the “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier” at the National Heroes Acre is an iconic signification of traumatic memories of the thousands of men and women massacred by colonial forces and buried in (un)identified mass graves within the country and in neighbouring countries. It also symbolically represents sacrifice, freedom and sovereignty. Ideally, the tomb or statue of the “Unknown Soldier” should also include the unheralded surviving ordinary citizens who sacrificed their precious lives for the country’s freedom regardless of political orientation. However, over the years the attention given to the national shrine has tended to be inconsistent with the state of neglect obtaining at many provincial and district levels. In spite of this, some architectural products such as the Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Bird and traditional kitchen hut have succeeded as collective signifiers of national pride and indigeneity. In particular, the Zimbabwe bird has become material index of Zimbabwean identity acting as a country’s “birth certificate” with its unanimity and collective vitality. In spite of passing through different historical trajectories and appropriations by both states and non-state actors, the Zimbabwean bird and the hut’s persistent resilience as symbols of identity have rendered them not only iconic but also “sovereign” pieces. For example, the kitchen hut and all its “diorama” and paraphernalia have remained central to the African cosmology and anthology as a site for the performance of birth, marriage, death and postdeath rites. However, further deconstruction may reveal that their representation and materialization reflected figments of the intersection between power and gender. In the main, there is consensus among the book chapters, in support of previous researches elsewhere that observed a strong tendency among different pieces of architecture and spaces to veer towards male-dominance and masculinity (Goredema & Chigora, 2009; Heynen, 2012; Massey, 2000; Mawere, 2021; Rendell, 2012; Sadomba & Dzinesa, 2004; Zukas, 2019). With respect to the under-representation of women in the corpus of commemorative and memorializing architecture, such as

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the conferment of heroine status and place naming there is a need to consider the issues within the realm of the execution of the war as a long duṝee phenomenon. The events during and immediately after the war has had long-standing implications on the current and future position of women in the political discourse of the country. The gendered representation and materialization of architecture through the kitchen hut symbolizes a hybrid model characterized by a combination of iconography and dispositif. This is similar to what has been observed with respect to the experiences of the national heroes’ status, state buildings and iconic place-naming dynamics. This book is not intended to reify architecture and space. The discourse of collective cultural and political identity associated with nationalized architectural designs and spaces has tended to disguise the power relations. Architectural products harbour no political or cultural intentions. They only become racist, brutal and political at the behest of the creators. They do not know their beneficiaries and victims, and consequently becoming essentially “irritating” pseudo-communicative stray-bullets (Schumacher, 2012). Architecture and spaces especially in cities have continued to serve both as artifacts and as technologies of identity formation and power, under both the colonial and post-colonial regimes. The appropriation of ancient architecture and incorporating them into coat of arms, national identity cards, symbols, emblems and flags, and the representation of historic events and figures of the liberation war, serve to create “intentional monuments” as signifiers of national identity and sovereignty. The book explored iconic and exemplary Zimbabwean architectural products and their respective representational modes informing various patterns of appropriation and materialization at different historical epochs. The iconic and symbolic representations of architecture generate varied responses from individuals, groups and states even though its form and purpose appear symmetrical. Thus, representation can be collective for some groups and a motor for action for others. For example, elites and non-elite publics interact with the same historical buildings, monuments, statues and public spaces differently. Material worlds assembled through representational processes can often be harmful, unjust, and contradictory, challenged and potentially reconfigured (Swenson & Cipolla, 2020). Iconicity is not a universal and permanent state. Architecture and spaces that are widely regarded as iconic, star or landmark can both potentially connect and separate. Architecture preserved today for posterity might in future desacralized by both the powerful and subalterns but for different motives as determined by obtaining circumstances and contexts.

Revisiting the Iconograghy-Dispositif Debate Prior to the investigation, I had regarded the form and purpose of architecture and space in Zimbabwe including my own experiential past, almost for granted. However, after engaging a critical reflective lens, I began to approach the various architectural products and spaces differently. Overall, the book confirms that over the years the materialization of architecture in Zimbabwe has steadily vacillated

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between iconicity and elitism. Starting with the national museums and monuments to the re-figuration of city and streetscapes, through the seemingly mundane and ordinary African traditional hut and state buildings and statues, the interaction between society and space was not a one-way traffic or straightjacket. It was a history of struggles and contestations, accommodation and exclusion, and alienation and reification. Although the design of some architectural products and spaces seemed original and genuine, appropriation and materialization by more powerful actors over the years have transformed their representation and position in the Zimbabwean polity alienated and reified. In spite of this, experiences of urban informality in Harare show that the local level publics and ordinary citizens such as women and youth were also agential in exploiting the situation to their advantage. Therefore, it could be erroneous to construe that all state architecture in Zimbabwe veer towards the extreme ends of the iconography-dispositif continuum. Rather its representation and materialization largely contain elements of both, essentially fitting into what could be largely characterized as iconic dispositif. The book demonstrated how architecture, which begin as a local icon but due to years of physical and semiotic “embellishment and reconstructions” can reach a higher level of “sovereign” architecture while others, might degenerate into “fake” structures. Conditions of being an icon and dispositive were not permanent states. For example, with respect to the national heroes status, in the early post-independence years, thousands of citizens willingly thronged the national shrine to attend burial ceremonies of declared heroes and to commemorate the days marking subsequent anniversaries but as time passed, affinity with the institution has tended to fizzle. Years of neglect of both the dead and living veterans of the struggle may make individuals critically look at the past and begin to redefine their position. Monuments come with narrative power, where both the narrative and the power the monument embodies and resonates with change over time and remain open to multiple interpretations regardless of the monument’s original intentions (Prescott & Lahti, 2022). The evidence illustrated in the various chapters signifies a symbiotic connection between society and space. Architecture should survive as a system carrying a material representation and constituting a self-reference system for the community and its reality. Therefore, in the case of statues and monuments, one may ask the extent to which post-colonial architecture connected to social reality. For example, do the National Heroes Acre, statues of immortalized political leaders and architectural artefacts in and around state structures such as the New Parliament maintain a strong nationalist value or have tended to function as apparati (dispositifs) reifying particular set of ideas through architectural re-figuration? In a country confronted by challenges of political polarization, perceived authoritarianism, institutionalized predation and state illegitimacy for many years, architecture struggles to construct nationhood (national identity). The series of chapters in this book unravelled the power relations, mediating processes, manipulations and bureaucratic performances during the place making and name making. This is in agreement with Marschall’s (2020, p. 676) observation that semiotic and discursive constructions assume individuals mentally engage with commemorative markers, cognitively and make sense of their signifying features, think about them and form an opinion about their

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meaning and significance. Without running the risk of oversimplifying the connection between society and space, there is evidence that there are no ordinary buildings, city streets and spaces but a re-figuration of cultural and political artefacts. The book has also demonstrated the resilience of “sovereign iconicity” exemplified by the “Zimbabwe Bird” during both the colonial and post-colonial period, in spite of attempts at “colonizing” it for parochial political expedience. While this piece of “art” has become a form of “nation’s birth certificate” for both the powerful and ordinary citizens, and engraved in important documents such as national identity cards, passports and national currencies, the logics behind the original design and even its authorship remain a mystery of our time. There have been debates, controversies and even some conspiracy theories relating to the “authorship” of both the Great Zimbabwe and the soapstone-carved Zimbabwe Bird. Since such examples of “sovereign architecture” may represent collective heritagization and identity, they need to be presented in a way that genuinely reflects its connection to the real experience of a people. As observed by Bronner (2017) architecture and art should express the estrangement of freedom from existing reality, otherwise it would turn into another commodity and loses critical character. (Un)fortunately commemorative monuments, museums and statues are created at the behest of elites and the powerful, thus their preservation or conservation may not necessarily represent the interests of the marginalized or victims of exploitation and oppression. Zimbabwe’s political history, particularly the contribution of certain personalities to the struggle for independence, has been retold and reconstructed continuously rendering fake or counterfeit the art and architecture that should truly speak to it. A legacy of unresolved national questions such as healing the wounds of 1980s Matabeleland disturbances (Gukurahundi), land reform induced Western sponsored sanctions, partisan national resource utilization, unemployment, poor service delivery and muted democracy, bequeathed to the Second Republic (ZANUPF government after Robert Mugabe) make the quest for “collective memorialization and heritagization” a pipe dream. Consequently, monuments, museums, statues and all related “place-­making” and naming processes and artefacts tend to be more of partisan memory dispositifs than collective national icons. Over time, the mediating influence of political power in the construction of the “grand” structures such as the national heroes acre and state buildings has led them to vacillate between iconicity and elitism. This has effectively rendered many of the architectural products to become largely memory dispositifs (Basu, 2011), instead of national iconographies. When livelihoods, dignity and political freedom of citizens are under threat, there is a general apathy and indifference between the ordinary man and woman in the street to identify with and making sense of the signification of various commemorative architecture and spaces. This is similar to what Marschall (2020) observed with ordinary South Africans’ engagement with colonial monumental architecture and spaces in the post-apartheid era, where there was rejection and even acts of vandalism against the statue of Cecil John Rhodes. For example, as indicated in earlier chapters, the delayed installation of Mbuya Nehanda and Joshua Nkomo statues potentially suffer from both reification and alienation. While the two historicist figures were widely revered liberation icons, ordinary citizens particularly those who had not experienced the war of

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liberation have struggled to connect and identify with anything associated with the monuments. The failure of the post-colonial state to fulfil promises of the cause of the struggle effectively reduced the monuments and statues to mythicized objects. Architecture becomes a dispositive particularly when it communicates “fake” and “immoral messages”; such was the case with the towering RBZ under the Robert Mugabe’s predatory regime. For decades, the building presided over an almost “dead” currency. It was pretentious and immoral when the central bank regularly published monetary policy statements and fiscal performance statistics suggesting a strong and stable economy when ordinary citizens continued to live in penury. Monuments should not only serve to illuminate the lives of iconic liberation fighters who passed on but that of the surviving ones particularly by improving the welfare and quality of life of ordinary veterans and collaborators of the liberation struggle in the countryside. While architecture and space in Zimbabwe partly served as symbols of identity construction and collective memorialization, they were and still remain equally (ab) used as apparati or instruments of manipulation and axes of alienation and reification. The discourse of collective cultural and political identity associated with nationalized architectural designs and spaces has tended to disguise the underlying power relations (Grinceri, 2016; Jones, 2020). Although appropriation of architecture is often presented as symbols of collective historic preservation and memorialization, it tended to dovetail the aims of political leaders or state personalities because architecture is essentially a “signature of power” (Jones, 2006). Architecture is a significant accompanist for power  – it is a powerful dispositive (Taṣci & Ṣalgamcioḡlu, 2022). Overall, architecture and cityscapes in Zimbabwe have continued to serve as both artefacts and technologies of identity formation and power/control. Consequently, architecture and spaces that are widely regarded iconic or star potentially connect and separate. While they can become symbols of unity and nationhood, they can also alienate others such as members of minority and opposition political groupings and the vulnerable women and youth. Taken one by one, the representation and materialization of each of the architectural products from pre-­ modern, modern and post-modern can be variedly located within the iconography-­ dispositives (dispositifs) continuum. A particular architecture can display both features at different times and places, as its value and (ab) use are not immediately obvious to everyone. While some architectural products can invite wide reverence, they equally provoke criticism from other sectors.

Conceptual Reflection and Research Implications It is a paradox that the same goals namely “identity formation”, “indigenous or decolonized identity” and “community empowerment” which post-colonial architectural reconstruction seeks to achieve are actually consistent with the universalizing and homogenizing essentialisms of the dominant modernist characterization. One of the challenges that iconicity and identity construction presents is from both

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a management and methodological perspective. This concerns the ambiguities and contestations in conceptualizing indigenous, identity, icon, sovereign and heritage. Attending to what really constitutes an indigenous identity and how it has changed over time, creates both epistemological and ontological worries. Concepts such as “indigeneity”, “community” and “collective heritagization” have been ever evolving, complex and largely contested (Nicholls, 2009; Violaris, 2021; Zimmerman, 2005). Nicholls (2009) adds that the vision to empower marginalized communities such as building community museums and monuments may also assume consensus and collective consciousness. Indigenous identities are (re)constructed at multiple levels  – global, state, community, individual  – it is important to recognize these multiple sites of resistance to state encroachment (Alfred & Corntassel, 2005, p. 600). The state-centrism manifested in the representation and materialization of architecture and space ostensibly for historic preservation has tended to overlook silent and excluded voices in heritage management scholarship and practice. There is need to deploy methodological approaches that disrupt the “homogenization and hegemonization” tendencies in both architectural research and practice. Given the multi-temporal and multi-dimensional forms of architectural representation and appropriation, the book provides an opportunity to widen the scope of future analyses beyond the traditional decolonizing research imperative. Furthermore, the post-­ modern turn with its hybridity, complexity and pluriversality presents an opportunity for attending to the concerns and voices of those marginalized and alienated given its philosophy of privileging difference and resistance. Thus, it may be essential for both scholarship and practice to develop another text informed by indigenous research, which recognizes important historical and cultural knowledge of the local. This book creates a starting point for extending research focusing on the interaction between architecture, space and indigenous communities.

References Alfred, T., & Corntassel, J. (2005). Being indigenous: Resurgences against contemporary colonialism. Government and Opposition, 40(4), 597–614. Basu, L. (2011). Memory dispositifs and national identities: The case of Ned Kelly. Memory Studies, 4(1), 33–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698010382159 Bronner, S. E. (2017). Critical theory: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press. Christenson, M. (2019). Theories and practices of architectural representation. Routledge. Goredema, D., & Chigora, P. (2009). Fake heroines and the falsification of history in Zimbabwe 1980–2009. African Journal of History and Culture (AJHC), 1(5), 076–083. Grinceri, D. (2016). Architecture as cultural and political discourse: Case studies of conceptual norms and aesthetic practices. Routledge. Heynen, H. (2012). Genius, gender and architecture: The star system as exemplified in the Pritzker prize. Architectural Theory Review, 17(2,3), 331–345. Jones, P. (2006). The sociology of architecture and the politics of building: The discursive construction of Ground Zero. Sociology, 40(3), 549–565. Jones, P. (2011). The sociology of architecture: Constructing identities. Liverpool University Press. Jones, P. (2020). Architecture, time, and cultural politics. Cultural Sociology, 14(1), 61–79.

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Joyce, R.  A. M., Preucel, R., Lopipano, J., Guyer, C., & Joyce, M. (2002). The languages of archaeology: Dialogue, narrative and writing. Blackwell. Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. Oxford: Blackwell Light, D., & Young, C. (2018). The politics of toponymic continuity: The limits of change and the ongoing lives of street names. In: D. Rose-Redwood, D. Alderman and M. Azaryahu (Eds.), The political life of urban streetscapes: Naming, politics and place (pp.185–201). New York: Routledge. Marschall, S. (2020). Monuments and affordance: Multisensory bodily engagements with the landscape of memory in south. Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines, LVII(3), 227, 671–689. Massey, D. (2000). Entanglements of power: Reflections. In J. P. Sharp, P. Routledge, C. Philo, & R.  Paddison (Eds.), Entanglements of power: Geographies of domination/resistance (pp. 279–286). Routledge. Mawere, T. T. (2021). The Zimbabwean national heroine: (re)-reading nationalism, gender and sexuality. Centre for Sexualities, Aids and Gender (CSA&G). Moustafa, A. A. (1988). Architectural representation and meaning: Towards a theory of interpretation. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Nicholls, R. (2009). Research and indigenous participation: Critical reflexive methods. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 12(2), 117–126. Peterson, D. (2020). Africa’s totalitarian temptation: The evolution of autocratic regimes. Lynne Rienner Publishers. Pikirayi, I. (2013). Stone architects and the development of power in Zimbabwe tradition, AD 1270–1830. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 48(2), 282–300. Prescott, C. C., & Lahti, J. (2022). Looking globally at monuments, violence, and colonial legacies. Journal of Genocide Research, 24(4), 463–470. Rendell, J. (2012). Tendencies and trajectories: Feminist approaches in architecture. In C. G. Crysler, S. Cairns, & H. Heynen (Eds.), Tendencies and trajectories: Feminist approaches in architecture (pp. 85–106). SAGE Pub. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446201756 Sadomba, F., & Dzinesa, G. W. (2004). Identity and exclusion in the post-war era: Zimbabwe’s women former freedom fighters. Journal of Peacebuilding & Development, 2(1), 51–63. Schumacher, P. (2012). The autopoiesis of architecture, volume 2: A new agenda for architecture. London: John Wiley & Sons. Shanks, C. (2007). Symmetrical archaeology. World Archaeology, 19(4), 589–596. https://doi. org/10.1080/00438240701679676 Swenson, E., & Cipolla, C.  N. (2020). Representation and materiality in archaeology: A semiotic reconciliation. World Archaeology, 52(3), 313–329. https://doi.org/10.1080/0043824 3.2021.1925582 Taṣci, M.  H., & Ṣalgamcioḡlu, M.  E. (2022). Politically in-correct buildings: Transmission of different power attitudes through architecture. Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering, 22(2), 977–994. Violaris, E. (2021). Examining concepts of reflexivity and positionality in native and indigenous research methods. Ethnographic Encounters, 2(1), 64–70. Zimmerman, L. J. (2005). First, be humble: Working with indigenous peoples and their descendant communities. In C. Smith & M. Wobst (Eds.), Indigenous archaeologies: Decolonizing theory and practice (pp. 302–314). Routledge. Zukas, L. L. (2019). Statues, murals and the national museum: Mediating the presence and absence of women in Zimbabwean political struggles. In F. Jacob & K. Pearl (Eds.), War and memorials: The Second World War and beyond (pp. 183–214). Verlag Ferdinand.

Index

A Accessibility, 86–88 African, 2, 4, 8, 9, 13, 19, 21, 25, 27, 29, 33–35, 38, 40, 42, 45, 46, 48, 49, 51, 55, 60, 68, 73, 74, 76, 77, 80, 82, 83, 89, 93–105, 127, 133, 138, 139, 141, 143 Agential, 5, 14, 112, 120, 121, 123, 140, 143 Agentive, 107–123, 140 Anarchistic, 13, 117, 119, 120, 123 Apparatus, 3, 6, 8, 39, 41, 67, 89, 122 Apparel, 8, 41 Appropriation, 2, 4–7, 12–14, 19–21, 27, 28, 30, 33, 39, 49, 56, 62, 68, 69, 74, 77, 80, 102, 104, 107, 120, 121, 123, 127, 128, 130, 135, 137–139, 141–143, 145, 146 Archaeological, 1, 11, 13, 20, 22, 39, 48–51, 87, 93–96, 100, 139 Architects, 3, 5, 6, 9, 21, 25, 27–29, 33, 40, 53, 68, 75, 80, 81, 113, 128, 134, 135, 140 Architecture, 1, 19, 33, 46, 73, 93, 107, 127, 137 Artefacts, 2, 3, 8–10, 13, 20, 49, 50, 65, 73, 83, 104, 135, 137, 139, 143–145 Authoritarian, 4, 26, 74, 75, 77, 84–86, 120, 129 Authoritarianism, 83, 143 Autogestion, 5, 112, 113, 118–122, 140 B Barons, 111, 113, 116, 118, 119, 121–123, 134, 140

British Empire, 21, 73 Buildings, 1, 19, 33, 45, 73, 95, 110, 127, 137 Built-environment, 1, 2, 6–8, 12, 23, 25–27, 37, 39, 59, 68, 76, 95, 96, 104, 113, 128, 135, 138 C Chimurenga, 12, 22, 34–36, 39, 61, 74, 76, 77, 87, 110 Cities, 3, 5, 10–13, 20, 26, 27, 33, 34, 37–42, 48, 51, 58, 60, 61, 64, 75–77, 79, 80, 83, 87, 88, 101, 107, 110–113, 115–123, 128, 130, 134, 138, 140, 142–144 Citizens, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 19, 28, 29, 34, 39, 42, 49, 56, 58, 59, 63, 66, 67, 73, 78, 87, 89, 107, 109, 110, 112, 115–117, 121, 129, 141, 143–145 Cityscapes, 4, 10, 11, 20, 38, 42, 58, 60, 73, 77, 80, 129, 130, 132, 133, 137, 145 Coat of arms, 10, 40, 51–53, 142 Collective memorialisation, 46 Colonial violence, 45, 87 Colonialism, 4, 21, 34, 38, 45, 46, 60, 63, 65, 67, 73, 75, 80, 88, 95, 107 Communalism, 96 Communities, 1, 4, 9, 39, 40, 46, 47, 63–65, 67, 68, 81, 93, 96, 99–103, 113, 128, 132, 139, 143, 145, 146 Community capital, 104, 139 Community museums, 13, 63–65, 101, 146 Conical tower, 49, 81–82 Cosmology, 8, 50, 95, 103, 131, 133, 141

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. Maunganidze, Representation and Materialization of Architecture and Space in Zimbabwe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47761-4

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150 Cultural, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 19, 20, 25, 27–29, 39, 40, 47–49, 51, 59, 64, 65, 75, 77, 81, 83, 85, 89, 94, 96, 98, 100, 102–105, 128, 131, 135, 137, 139, 142, 144–146 Culture, 2, 4–6, 9, 19, 40, 48, 63, 64, 68, 81, 88, 93, 95, 96, 101, 103, 104, 120, 137 Currencies, 4, 24, 52, 62, 63, 65, 84, 85, 129, 144, 145 D Decapitalization, 139 Decolonial, 77–80 Decoloniality, 39, 77 Decolonization, 10, 29, 30, 34, 36, 64, 74, 77, 80, 139 Decolonizing, 4, 13, 30, 64, 127, 146 Deconstruction, 8, 9, 127, 141 Deities, 68 Democratic deficit, 29, 112, 127 Designs, 1, 3–6, 9, 11, 13, 20, 21, 25–28, 33, 34, 40, 41, 49, 51, 53, 76, 81–83, 85, 87, 88, 95, 96, 99, 100, 102–104, 111, 113, 114, 121, 128, 132–134, 139, 142–145 Diorama, 104, 141 Discourses, 3, 6–9, 20, 39, 75, 103, 108, 113, 117–118, 120, 127, 133, 135, 142, 145 Dispositifs, 8, 14, 21, 26, 41, 65, 69, 129, 138, 139, 142, 143, 145 Dispositives, 3, 8, 14, 20, 26, 39–42, 62, 68, 69, 83, 84, 89, 135, 138, 143, 145 Dzimbabwes, 48

Index Flag, 6, 24, 51, 52, 55, 58, 142 G Gender, 3, 7, 9, 14, 25, 76, 77, 83, 101, 104, 127–135, 138, 140, 141 Gendered, 5, 14, 25, 101, 103, 127–129, 133, 135, 140 Gendered representation, 128–133, 142 Gender-sensitive, 129, 132, 134 Gothic, 95 Governments, 9, 13, 25, 34, 35, 38–40, 49, 51, 57, 58, 60, 61, 66–68, 73–81, 83–89, 110, 115, 116, 118–120, 130, 139, 144 Grassroots, 66, 110, 112, 122 Guerrilla, 7, 36, 46, 66, 130 Guerrilla war, 36

E Elites, 5, 6, 9, 14, 21, 27–29, 34, 39, 40, 42, 46, 47, 49, 55–57, 59, 61, 65–67, 69, 75–77, 95, 111, 116, 117, 120, 121, 123, 130, 138, 140, 142, 144 Elitism, 20, 27–28, 30, 33, 64, 80, 86, 138, 140, 143, 144 Enclosure, 49, 93, 95 Entrepreneurs, 116, 121, 122 Ethnographic, 1, 49, 50, 64, 77, 86, 93–95 Ethnography, 11, 13, 20, 94

H Harvesting rod, 85, 122 Hegemonic, 2, 10, 13, 47, 64, 76, 83, 103, 120, 137 Heritage, 2, 4, 13, 22–24, 27, 30, 40, 47–49, 53, 55, 58, 63–69, 74, 81–83, 87, 93–96, 100, 105, 129, 130, 133, 137, 139, 141, 146 Heritagization, 9, 12, 20, 65, 68, 87, 133, 137, 139, 140, 144 Heroes, 1, 11, 22, 26, 29, 34–40, 53, 56–61, 66, 68, 69, 73–77, 79, 86, 116, 129, 131, 132, 142, 143 Heroes Acre, 21, 39, 53–55, 68, 141, 144 Heroine, 29, 35, 56, 76, 127, 129, 131, 132, 135, 142 Historical, 1, 4, 6, 7, 20, 22, 26, 29, 33, 38, 40, 47, 49, 50, 58, 65–67, 74, 76, 80, 87, 93, 100, 102, 104, 107, 128, 130, 133, 137, 138, 140–142, 146 Historicist, 3, 6, 7, 11, 13, 20, 21, 27, 46, 60, 73–89, 95, 104, 127, 137, 140, 144 Historicity, 137 Histories, 1–4, 11, 23, 26, 37, 39, 40, 45–49, 55, 60, 63–68, 76, 77, 81, 86, 94, 102, 109, 128, 129, 131, 134, 143, 144 Historiography, 11, 47, 62, 63, 95 Hut, 25, 93–105, 128, 133, 139, 141, 143

F Fake architecture, 83–84 Families, 68, 95, 98, 101, 103, 115, 118, 133 Feminist, 128, 133 Femocracy, 131

I Iconic, 1–7, 10, 11, 13, 19–30, 34, 36–38, 40, 46, 47, 49, 50, 59–69, 73–89, 95, 96, 100, 102, 104, 105, 129–132, 134, 135, 137–143, 145

Index Iconicity, 3, 19–21, 24, 27–28, 30, 38, 54, 55, 59, 61–63, 66, 69, 85, 88, 93–105, 129, 130, 138, 139, 142–145 Iconographies, 14, 21, 42, 47, 55, 68, 69, 89, 129, 137, 139, 142, 144 Identities, 1–8, 10, 14, 19–30, 33–42, 45, 47, 49, 51–53, 56, 59–63, 65, 66, 68, 74–77, 80, 85, 95, 100, 102–104, 114, 128–130, 134, 137, 139–146 Identity dissonance, 85, 88, 89 Imperialism, 23, 45, 46, 63 Independence, 1, 4, 23, 25, 34, 38, 39, 42, 53, 57–62, 64, 66–68, 73, 75–78, 80, 83, 88, 89, 107, 110, 115, 117, 127, 132, 133, 135, 144 Indigeneity, 13, 28, 37, 51, 59, 88, 93–105, 138, 141, 146 Indigenous, 1, 5, 23, 24, 26, 28, 38, 51, 62–65, 85, 93, 95, 100, 102, 113, 116, 132, 145, 146 Informal, 5, 11, 13, 56, 58, 103, 107, 108, 110–123, 140 Informality, 5, 10, 11, 13, 14, 107, 111, 112, 114–120, 122, 123, 134, 138, 140, 143 Institutionalized corruption, 89, 118–120 Institutions, 2–4, 7, 8, 12, 20, 21, 25–29, 39, 46, 47, 55–59, 65, 67, 68, 75, 78, 80, 83–87, 96, 101, 103, 112, 114, 122, 128, 130, 133, 143 Iron Age, 1, 93–96, 98, 104 Irregular, 5, 13, 108, 110, 111, 114–122, 134 Irregularity, 122 K Kingdoms, 27, 49, 73 Kings, 25, 40, 48, 50, 61, 68, 74, 77, 107, 130 Kitchen hut, 9, 13, 21, 96, 97, 99–104, 128, 133, 138, 139, 141, 142 Knighted, 1, 33, 41, 73, 74, 77, 88 L Land, 56, 57, 80, 84, 107–111, 113, 116, 118–123, 134, 140, 144 Land mark, 9, 11, 20, 36, 53, 81, 89, 142 Landmark architecture, 67 Liberation, 2, 7, 11, 12, 20–22, 36, 37, 39, 46, 47, 53, 56–59, 61–63, 66, 67, 69, 75–77, 86, 87, 89, 103, 104, 109, 110, 115, 127, 129–133, 135, 141, 142, 144, 145

151 M Masculine, 129, 134, 135 Masculinity, 133, 141 Materiality, 3, 10, 14, 33–42, 95, 102–104, 140 Materialization, 2–8, 10, 12–14, 19–21, 27, 28, 30, 33, 39, 42, 47, 51, 55, 56, 59, 62, 65, 74, 75, 80, 81, 83, 88, 100, 103, 104, 107–123, 127, 128, 130, 133, 134, 137–143, 145, 146 Mausoleums, 4, 21, 55, 68, 140 Memorialization, 7–9, 12, 13, 20, 46, 55, 56, 59, 60, 64–68, 73, 74, 85, 88, 129, 130, 133, 137, 139–141, 144, 145 Memory dispositifs, 30, 47, 65, 69, 87, 137, 138, 144 Modern, 5, 6, 20, 21, 33, 48, 60, 95, 98, 99, 101, 102, 107, 111, 135, 145 Modernism, 23, 81, 82 Monuments, 1, 3–7, 9–11, 13, 20, 21, 23, 27, 29, 30, 34, 36, 45–69, 76, 79, 82, 95, 100, 129, 137–139, 142–146 Museums, 7, 9, 11, 13, 20, 23, 29, 45–69, 94, 103, 104, 138, 139, 143, 144 Mythic statuses, 66, 68, 129 Mythicisation, 58 Mythologies, 29, 65 N National, 2, 20, 33, 46, 74, 95, 109, 129, 137 Nationhood, 10, 13, 28, 29, 34, 59, 74, 75, 143, 145 Nazi, 3, 21 Neoliberal, 109, 110 P Panoptic, 4, 86, 87 Panopticon, 87 Parliament, 13, 21, 22, 28, 29, 34, 40, 49, 60, 78, 79, 81–84, 87, 88 Parties, 5, 24, 29, 39, 56–58, 61, 62, 67, 68, 75, 80, 83, 84, 104, 110–113, 116–121, 123, 134 Patriarchal, 132–134 Patriarchy, 135 Patriotic iconographies, 39, 58, 60, 69 Patriotism, 46, 53, 59, 139 Peri-urban, 2, 5, 13, 109, 110, 116, 117 Pioneer Column, 73, 87 Place making, 4, 73, 75, 77, 88, 112, 120, 138, 143, 144

152 Pluriversality, 28, 85, 146 Politics, 6, 7, 9, 28, 45–47, 62, 66, 69, 108, 109, 118, 123, 130, 134, 137, 140 Post colonial, 4–6, 10, 13, 21, 26, 29, 30, 34, 35, 39–42, 46, 48, 52, 53, 55, 57, 60, 61, 68, 74, 76–78, 86, 88, 89, 107, 109, 115, 121, 122, 127, 133, 135, 137, 138, 140, 142–145 Post-modern, 3, 5, 10, 14, 28, 51, 80–85, 89, 145, 146 Postmodernism, 81 Post-structuralism, 7, 8, 127, 137, 138 Power, 2, 19, 33, 46, 73, 95, 111, 127, 137 Power-geometries, 128 Power-radiator, 129 Presidents, 4, 21, 35, 38, 56, 57, 60, 61, 73, 76, 78, 80, 85, 131 Propaganda, 3, 4, 8, 20, 21, 26, 47, 56, 59–61, 69, 139 Pungwe, 66 R Re figuration, 2, 5, 10, 33–42, 68, 73, 77–80, 84, 85, 108, 121, 143, 144 Religions, 95, 100, 102 Religious, 27, 34, 49–51, 56, 60, 65, 69, 75, 76, 99–101, 104, 105, 128, 137, 139 Representations, 1–3, 5–8, 10, 12–14, 19, 21, 26, 27, 30, 33, 39, 42, 46, 47, 51, 52, 55, 59, 60, 63, 65–67, 69, 73–75, 77, 81, 83, 88, 89, 93, 95, 100, 102–104, 114, 120, 127–134, 137, 139–143, 145, 146 Reserve Bank, 34, 79, 81 Rhodesia, 23, 34, 41, 45, 51, 52, 60, 73, 74 Rite, 73, 100–102, 141 Rituals, 10, 67, 89, 101–104, 128, 133 Riverbanks, 110, 116 Ruins, 10, 22, 26, 27, 29, 48–50, 52, 55, 95 Rural, 2, 13, 21, 26, 56, 58, 64, 76, 94–96, 98, 100, 101, 103, 104, 108, 109, 111, 132, 139 S Sacralisation, 4, 13, 39, 55, 67, 73, 74, 141 Sculpture, 3, 10, 20, 28, 47, 60, 63, 81 Sell-outs, 67 Settlements, 5, 11–13, 40, 64, 93, 98, 103, 107–123, 140 Sexist stereotyping, 134

Index Signatures, 3, 4, 8, 20, 25, 26, 74, 76, 77, 103, 145 Simulacrum, 50, 122 Soft technologies, 2, 20, 40, 89 Soft-power, 83 Sovereign, 1, 20, 21, 48, 50–53, 62, 74, 102, 105, 139, 141, 143, 144, 146 Sovereign icon, 83, 138 Sovereignty, 10, 21, 27, 46, 54, 64, 73, 75, 77, 83, 84, 87, 140–142 Space, 1, 19, 33, 58, 73, 93, 107, 127, 137 Spatial, 1, 2, 5, 7, 10–13, 25, 34–38, 74, 103, 107, 112–114, 129, 141 Spatial re-figuration, 1, 13, 39, 87, 88, 137 Spirit, 8, 46, 50, 65, 68, 101, 102, 133 Squatters, 107, 113, 115, 116, 118, 119, 121 State, 1, 19, 36, 46, 73, 95, 107, 127, 138 State centric, 74 State fragility, 118–120 State-centric, 26, 34 Statehood, 13, 29, 34, 40, 73, 74, 78, 88 Statuary, 4, 5, 9, 13, 47, 59, 61, 62 Statues, 1, 3, 4, 7, 10, 11, 20–23, 27, 30, 39, 45–69, 76, 79, 128, 129, 132, 138, 139, 141–145 Stone, 9, 10, 21, 25, 27, 48, 51, 59, 66, 93–95, 99 Stratagems, 117 Structuralism, 5, 7, 8, 128, 137, 141 Symbolic, 6, 9, 13, 25, 26, 28, 34, 37, 50, 53, 59, 63, 66, 67, 74, 80, 95, 96, 99, 114, 130, 142 Symbolic violence, 63, 77 Symbolism, 6, 25, 103 Symbols, 2–4, 6–9, 13, 14, 20–29, 33, 39, 40, 42, 46, 48, 49, 51, 52, 55, 58, 59, 63–65, 67, 74, 76, 77, 81, 84, 87, 88, 93, 95, 96, 102, 104, 137, 139–142, 145 T Techné, 8 Toponymical cleansing, 42, 77, 139 Toponyms, 33, 77–80 Totalitarian propaganda, 27, 46 Traditional, 5, 9, 13, 20, 21, 25, 26, 30, 40, 65, 77, 79, 85, 87, 93–105, 121, 132, 133, 139, 141, 143, 146 U United Nations, 12, 64, 75, 88 Urban, 2, 19, 33, 56, 76, 94, 107, 129, 138

Index V Vernacular, 1, 6, 13, 20, 23, 41, 42, 85, 93–95, 98, 103 Veterans, 39, 57, 58, 110, 127, 132, 143, 145 Villages, 66, 93, 96, 98, 101, 104 Violence, 45, 47, 66, 110, 129 W Westminister, 83

153 Women, 5, 37, 39, 46, 66, 67, 83, 100, 101, 103, 118, 121, 127–135, 140–145 Z Zimbabwe, 1, 19, 33, 46, 73, 93, 107, 127, 137 Zimbabwe Bird, 13, 21, 24, 29, 47, 50–53, 65, 84, 141, 144