Cave_bureau uses the cave — as both physical space and conceptual provocation — to reframe what architecture can become in an era defined by ecological crisis, colonial legacy, and the urgent need for community-centred practice.
About This Book
Published to accompany the sixth exhibition in the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art's The Architect's Studio series, this monograph centres the work of Kenyan architects Stella Mutegi and Kabage Karanja of Cave_bureau. Eight projects are presented through striking visual documentation, while a series of essays confronts the defining pressures on contemporary architecture: the Anthropocene, the long aftermath of colonial extraction, and the systematic erasure of African architectural histories. The cave — as primal shelter, as geological record, as metaphor for what lies beneath dominant narratives — becomes a framework for asking what an ecologically sensitive, low-carbon architecture might actually look like.
Key Features
- 208 pages of project documentation and critical essays with full visual coverage of eight Cave_bureau works
- Edited by Mette Marie Kallehauge and Malou Wedel Bruun
- Eight named projects by Stella Mutegi and Kabage Karanja of Cave_bureau
- Published by Lars Müller Publishers
What You'll Discover
- How Cave_bureau deploys the cave as an architectural and philosophical framework to challenge the assumptions of mainstream contemporary practice
- The ways colonial extraction has shaped — and continues to distort — the development and recognition of African architecture
- A critical engagement with the Anthropocene as a condition that demands architects rethink materiality, ecology, and responsibility
- The specificity of place, continent, and geography as architectural determinants, resisting the universalising tendencies of global design culture
About the Author
Stella Mutegi and Kabage Karanja are the founders of Cave_bureau, a Kenyan architecture practice. Their work, as presented in this publication, engages questions of community, ecology, and the cultural erasure produced by colonialism across eight projects documented here.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 208
- Dimensions: 30 x 24 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783037787311
- Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects and students interested in African contemporary practice, design critics engaging with postcolonial theory, and anyone rethinking architecture's relationship to ecology and community.