Ghana, 2004-2005

Historical, anthropological and architectural research on the castles of Ghana:
their state of conservation and their enhancement

The Associazione Giovanni Secco Suardo has collaborated on this project, involving various European universities and research institutes.
The aim of the project was the enhancement of a precious and little-known cultural heritage: the castles and fortresses of Ghana, architectural assets of maximum historical importance declared by Unesco “World Heritage”.

The coasts of Ghana are in fact characterized by a significant presence of fortified structures built by Europeans between the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 18th century, as a support base for mercantile activities, first linked to the gold fields and then to the transatlantic slave trade
These castles, if on the one hand they demonstrate the great European architectural culture, on the other they still bear the signs of the atrocious use to which they were often put: real “slave warehouses”.

The project set out to carry out an innovative interdisciplinary research (historical-archival and technical-architectural) on three of these castles (Butre, Anomabu and Axim) to make known to the European and non-European public the existence of these structures, their artistic and architectural values, promoting at the same time a historical, cultural and anthropological insight into the events that characterized the contact between Europeans and Africans in past centuries.

This objective was achieved thanks to the contribution of experts at European level, who worked, according to their specific skills, both in the documentary investigations of the archives for the retrieval and study of historical sources, and through field research in Ghana, conducted by a multidisciplinary team made up of architects, historians, art historians.
The final phase of the project also sought to outline possible paths for conservation and enhancement and increase the skills of officials of the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, in the field of historical knowledge, conservation, management, enhancement of this heritage, as well as to increase the skills of local technicians involved.

The results of the historical-architectural research are illustrated within the volume The Castels of Ghana. Axim Butre Anomabu. Historical and architectural research on three Ghanaian forts.

Promoter:
Associazione Giovanni Secco Suardo
Ricerca e Cooperazione

Participating organizations and supporters:
European Commission DG X
Associazione Giovanni Secco Suardo
Groningen University (Olanda)
Weimar University (Germania)
Accra University (Ghana)
COOPARCH – Société Coopérative d’Architecture, de Recherche et d’Urbanisme (Belgio)
Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (Ghana)