African Metropolitan Architecture

With a mix of photographs and text about buildings, and the spaces and lives around them, this is an arresting visual introduction to cities across the continent. Part of a seven-volume work, African Metropolitan Architecture features 53 conurbations grouped by terrain. Focusing on how cities grow – the colonial legacy, the natural environment, the social and political structures supporting them – this is emphatically not a coffee-table book but,  rather, a learned journey into the vibrant, beating heart of contemporary African life. – David Adjaye (2011)