I am making a series of posts on this blog about overlooked African and African-descended architects and architecture before the mind-twentieth century. I focus on the geographical area that is now Ghana, but due to pre-colonial configurations I will occasionally discuss people and work in other countries.

Long long long before my Accra Archive project, before Judith Opoku-Boateng set out on her career path in archival studies, before Anita Afonu was inspired to preserve Ghanaian film archives, and before all of us Ghanaian archivists, historians, and memory workers were even a twinkle in our mothers’ eyes, John Mensah Sarbah lamented on the loss of West African historical records.