Stanek and collaborators highlight the housing history of post-colonial Ghana in new exhibit
A new exhibition curated by a Taubman College faculty member and a recent visiting scholar explores how architecture shaped Ghana’s ambitions in the 1960s, shortly after it gained independence. Intersections: The Architecture of Victor Adegbite and Charles Polónyi in Ghana opened earlier this month at the Wende Museum in Culver City, California, just outside Los Angeles, and features the research of Łukasz Stanek, professor of architecture and Michael Dziwornu, a 2024-2025 U-M African Presidential Scholar and lecturer at the University of Ghana (working together as the newly formed research collective Office Southeast) in collaboration with Dana Salama, Ph.D. candidate.
Centered around the collaboration between Ghanaian architect Adegbite and Hungarian architect Polónyi, the exhibit features archival documents, analytical drawings, and contemporary photographs by Ghanaian photographer Eric Don-Arthur. It shows how the housing schemes they designed continue to structure life in Accra today. Intersections features archives preserved by the architects’ daughters in the U.S. and Hungary, highlighting the crucial role that acts of memory and care play in preserving the history of modern architecture.
After Ghana gained independence from Great Britain in 1957, its leader, Kwame Nkrumah, invited architects to the capital, Accra, to help shape its future. Polónyi arrived with Eastern European technical assistance programs supporting Ghana’s transition to socialism and worked for the Ghana National Construction Corporation, where Adegbite — a Howard University graduate — served as chief architect. Together, they mobilized architectural resources from socialist, capitalist, and non-aligned countries and designed buildings that responded to Ghana’s needs, means, and aspirations.
The exhibit features contributions from several Taubman College students, including film concepts and interviews by Sarah Cheema, Ph.D. candidate, model fabrication and research by Brianna Westbrook, M.Arch ’25, and research by Arushi Chopra, M.Arch ’26; Jonathan “Bam” Davis, M.Arch ’25; Sylvan Perlmutter, LSA Ph.D. candidate; and Brianna Westbrook, M.Arch ’25.
Intersections is on view through April 12, 2026. For more, including images from the show, visit the project page.
