The John Randle Centre for Yoruba Society and Background, which defines itself as “a suitable icon of the multiplicity of identifications in the metropolitan area”, remains in the Onikan location, the social heart of Lagos island. Unlike the National Gallery, constructed in the late 1950s on a western version by the English excavator Kenneth Murray, the centre is “unapologetically Yoruba”, according to Seun Oduwole, the website’s lead designer. “If you most likely to a western gallery, the African area frequents the cellar, it’s dark. However this gallery stands out with colour and noise to highlight the vibrancy and the dynamism of the Yoruba society,” Oduwole states. Yoruba words are larger than English equivalents on indications and display screens. The exterior wall surfaces of the Yoruba centre, which has 1,000 sq m of event area, are concrete and completed in earth-coloured pigments similar to the mud functions in old Yoruba negotiations. The gold latticework is a referral to the workmanship of Yoruba individuals.
RESOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
