ABOUT
What is Afreetekture
Afreetekture is a parallel practice established in Abantutopia
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Location
South Africa
Aim
Through indigenous knowledge practices urgently draw humanity closer to the rhythms of the Cosmos
From Architecture to Afreetekture
Architecture has been defined as the professional practice whose existence is to render services to society within the domains of space and dwelling. However, since the professional and epistemological formalization of architecture, it has been dominated by Western Eurocentric underpinnings, irrespective of its social and cultural context which consequently meant that it consciously or unconsciously brought forth a global cultural homogenization of the creation and organization of human habitats.
Afreetekture is a parallel practice and is inspired by indigenous philosophies and world views from the past till the present. It is a parallel paradigm relative to the modern profession and knowledge field of architecture and is born out of the studies and research of Dr. Sechaba Maape and his long-term investigation in the deep caves of Kuruman in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, as well as the many hours, spent consulting with indigenous knowledge practitioners and is now primarily focused on serving people through establishing an Abantutopia, a parallel world in which humanity has come back home in synchronicity with the rhythms of the Cosmos.
Role of Afreetekt
An Afreetekt’s role is to aid this unity between humanity and life, to mediate between humanity and a vital and living cosmos. An Afreetekt does this in the domain of habitation. They are responsible for aiding humanity to properly be in place and establish habitable orientation as opposed to ‘spatial order’. This is of course later manifest in various ways including in some cases the development of walls, thresholds, buildings, and cities, or establishing relationships with water or land. The Afreetekt works with the Cosmos in an alliance and constantly aids humanity to find pathways to life. This seemingly obvious notion is to a large degree alien in our current situation. Life has become too hidden from society primarily due to the muteness of today's architecture. Architecture today seeks the attention and fails to draw attention away from itself and towards what is infinitely more majestic, which is the mystery and frightful medium of our existence called life, the Cosmos or God.
About Dr. S Maape
Dr. Sechaba Maape is an architect and senior lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) School of Architecture and Planning. He is the Director of Afreetekture. Dr. Maape was born in Kuruman in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. He studied architecture at WITS and obtained a Ph.D. supervised by Prof. Daniel Irurah and Prof. Francis Thackeray. He is currently working on various research projects, and teaches design and theory of architecture, theory and history of architecture, and supervises master’s thesis projects in architecture professional as well as architecture focusing on energy-efficient cities. He currently lives in Johannesburg South Africa, although spends a considerable amount of time visiting ritual sites all over the country