The exhibition will revolve around two concepts: Building Freedom “denotes the architectural nation-building where masterplans were used to build cities and regions, prototypes and prefabricated systems were used to build education and health centres, and so on.” Finding Freedom, “conversely, denotes the experimental free area that emerged from this encounter between Nordic aid and African nation-building, where progressive ideas could be developed as architectural solutions on a par with the international avant-garde.”
Karl Henrik Nøstvik, whose archives remain intact, will be one of the few architects of the era studied. He was among the first employed by the Kenyan government in 1965, as part of the Norwegian aid package, to design the country’s first government building: The Kenyatta International Conference Centre, a national icon of independent, modern Kenya.