W.E.B. DuBois Cultural Centre

Marcus Garvey Scholars Residence Building, DuBois Mausoleum
Jerome Haferd Studio and Atelier, Inc. (Accra)

Client: W.E.B. DuBois Foundation
Location: Accra, Ghana
Status: Schematic Design Completed
Size: Masterplan and full service architectural design services on two buildings

Jerome Haferd Studio is collaborating with Atelier, Inc. on the design of the newly reimagined W.E.B DuBois Cultural Centre campus in Accra. Ghana. This includes new architectural, interpretive, and landscape interventions while respecting and engaging UNESCO and historic preservation efforts on this major cultural site. The multi-acre campus in the heart of Accra is seeking to renovate and ugrade the campus, while uplifting the ongoing and unfinished work of DuBois and the Black Internationalist, Pan Africanist movement he helped to create.

JHS is leading the design of a six story, 50 room residential building on the historic site, and co-designing the new mausoleum and burial site of W.E.B and Shirley DuBois. The Marcus Garvey Scholars Residence echoes the “double veil” design language of the new museum complex while also creating a “house in the trees”. The perforated facade will incorporate Pan Africanist motifs, exploring how the architecture can also serve as an archival medium.

For the mausoleum itself, the design concept creates a dialogue with the specific archaeology of the burial site and the DuBois’ ancestral cosmology.

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