'It's fantastic' The movement to reclaim west Africa's architectural gems

Beneath mango trees in the lush garden of the Palais de Lomé, an oceanside estate in the Togolese capital, dozens of students from the African School of Architecture and Urban Planning (EAMAU) were taking sessions on archiving.

- Eromo Egbejule in Lomé

Established in 1905, the palace, which overlooks the ocean, housed German, French and British colonial governors in succession and then the Togolese presidency before falling into disuse in the 1990s. After a five-year restoration project, its doors were opened to the public in 2019.

These days, it houses an exhibition paying homage to vinyl records from across west and central Africa, as well as the Nana Benzes, the wax print merchants who ran the fabrics scene from the 1960s to the 1980s. There is also a discotheque and a 26-acre botanical park with sculptures.

The palace "was supposed to be a centre of power...and so the city was designed around here", said Sandra Lawson, the founding director of the Palais de Lomé renovation and cultural project.

"So that's why we want to be a place of conversations around architecture."

In November, she and Studio Neida, an interdisciplinary architecture, design and curatorial firm based between Togo and Germany, hosted the first Lomé Architectural Encounters forum.