African coastal elite architecture: Cultural authentification during the colonial period in Anomabo, Ghana

This is a study of African coastal elite residential architecture during the colonial period, specifically between the 1860s and 1930s. Anomabo, a historically-significant port town, serves as a microcosm for a Coastal Elite Style that was popular along the West African coastline in every major port city during the colonial period. The Coastal Elite Style combines elements of the Akan courtyard house, European Palladian architecture and the Afro-Portuguese sobrado. These structures demonstrate how the Fante and other coastal Africans used the creative process of appropriation and transformation, or cultural authentification, to communicate their status and identity visually.;African family members who achieve success are expected to extend the family residence or build anew. A home visually reflects the stature of the individual and his family in the community. The family residence communicates their level of connections, wealth, dignity, education and mobility in the global world. More than seventeen stone nog houses survive in Anomabo; all date between the 1860s and 1930s. Although these residences were created during the colonial era, cultural authentification on the coast of modern Ghana is a pre-colonial cultural practice born out of urbanization and multiple cultural interactions.;Residential architecture is germane to this study because it provides a point of entry into larger questions dealing with African agency and the impact of globalization, commercialism and colonialization. Family houses built by African coastal elites visually bridge two cultures -- African and European --and make powerful statements about the ability of this group to assimilate outside ideas and transform them into a new and dynamic art form. This is a story about people who, under social and political duress, find a way to express their identity.