March 2025
“Bata, architecture and memory” rediscovers the city of Bata as an urban space where architectural transformations and the stories of its inhabitants converge. Throughout its pages, the author invites us to wander with her through the connections between architecture, identity, and collective memory, in order to acknowledge the honest dialogue that the past establishes with contemporary ways of dwelling and building.
Although the perspective of the Ndowé people is reflected with particular intensity—through a deliberate gesture to make this culture visible and reappraise its value—the text also embraces the cultural diversity of a community shaped by coexistence, where the name of each place simultaneously hides and preserves multiple values and meanings.
This book is a critical contribution to the knowledge of an architectural and urban heritage infused with the collective memory of an entire country. As a singular sketch of a broader history of Equatorial Guinea’s architecture, it seeks to be a first step towards a praxis that bridges tradition and cutting-edge technology, local identity and globalization.
