Description

The University of Khartoum traces its history to the founding of the Gordon Memorial College, established as a technical school in 1899 by the then governor of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Lord Kitchener. It was situated in the current Central Campus and its first building was what is today known as the Library Building, overlooking the Blue Nile River to one side and forming a three-sided courtyard garden on the other, with its brick arched colonnades. The college expanded over the years, teaching a variety of undergraduate courses affiliated with the University of London, and established several other campuses in the city.

After independence in 1956, the parliament passed a law granting university status to the college and it was renamed as the University of Khartoum. Engineering was already a taught subject but not architecture. The Minister of Public Works and the university’s Vice-Chancellor worked to establish its first department of architecture under the Faculty of Engineering, appointing Alick Potter from England to become its founding professor. Potter arrived in Khartoum in 1957 and much is known about his time there from his published memoirs written with his wife who accompanied him, the accomplished illustrator Margaret Potter. Soon after their arrival, Alick Potter was given the additional task of designing a new examination hall for the growing university.

The design brief for the hall was simple. It had to be large enough to accommodate 500 students on widely spread tables, and it had to be column-free to afford visibility from a single vantage point. Additionally, it would be used for public events, and could be subdivided to allow several lectures to take place at the same time. The new government of Sudan at the time placed restrictions on imported building materials, adding a constraint that would lead to the hall’s most important design gestures. Creating such large, single-span spaces had normally relied on the use of steel girders which had to be imported, while local building methods would have created hypostyle type halls which were not suitable.

To solve this problem, the architect, Potter, sought the help of a friend and colleague. Ezra Levin was the chief architect of the Timber Research and Development Association in Britain, and he suggested the use of a new technology ⎯ the hyperbolic paraboloid timber shell roof. This would utilise an underused resource from the south of the country, mahogany wood, to form a shell structure that could provide the necessary span.

At completion, the examination hall was a roughly rectangular, single-storey building. It consisted of a large hall and secondary halls to the north and south, separated by folding doors that can partition or combine the spaces. The main entrance was on the west, while secondary entrances existed on the north and south. A service block ran parallel on the eastern side and housed ancillary activities that included toilets, staff offices and a bookshop in the north.

The hall was constructed of load-bearing local brickwork, left exposed externally, with the interior plastered and painted white, ready to take its calligraphic word paintings. Panels of hit-and-miss brickwork provided ventilation at low level, while high-level windows allowed warm air to escape. The walls supported the curved timber shell roof, made of rich, brown mahogany slats that served as both the roof and the interior finish. The top ventilation lantern served as a lightning protection mast. The metal damp-proof course projects externally from the base of the external wall and helped in preventing termites from reaching the timber roof.

Potter designed a lighting chandelier, which was put in the main hall, and also developed the chairs which were locally made. A large curved concrete cistern at the entrance collected rainwater from the roof via a large spout, a common feature in Modern Movement buildings.

The hall is of technical importance as it is an early example of the use of hyperbolic paraboloid timber shells. It has been described as the archetypal modern building as it derives its design directly from its needs and constraints, and is, in fact, the first of many Modern Movement buildings to grace the growing university campus and future universities of the country. It is also of cultural importance, being associated with the founder of the first school of architecture. Its interior is embellished with the calligraphic murals of one of Sudan’s foremost artists of the 20th century, Osman Waqiallah.

Sadly, the original timber shell roof did not survive several years of neglect, and in the early 2010s it had to be replaced with a steel grid clad internally with mahogany to match the original. However, the fact the building was heavily restored instead of being demolished and redeveloped is a testament to its historical value.

References

Ahmed, A. M. (2020). “Modernism in the Architecture of Sudan’s Cities”. Dar Madarik (in Arabic) الحداثة فى عمارة مدن السودان

Akcan, E. (2022). “Decolonize or Redistribute? Abdel Moneim Mustafa and Mid-Century Modernism in Sudan”. Montreal: The Canadian Centre for Architecture. https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/articles/85227/decolonize-or-redistribute-abdel-moneim-mustafa-and-mid-century-modernism-in-sudan

Booth, L. G. (1997). “The Design and Construction of Timber Hyperbolic Paraboloid Shell Roofs in Britain: 1957–1975”. In: Construction History, vol. 13. Cambridge University: The Construction History Society.

Khalifa, H. (2020). “The Modernism of Abdelmoneim Mustafa Launches with Classical Sails in the University of Kharoum”. drhashimk.com (in Arabic) حداثة عبد المنعم مصطفى تبحر بأشرعة كلاسيكية فى جامعة الخرطوم

Potter, A. and Potter, M. (1984). Everything is Possible: Our Sudan Years, Allen Sutton, Gloucester.

 

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Originally published in: Uta Pottgiesser, Ana Tostões, Modernism in Africa. The Architecture of Angola, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Birkhäuser, 2024.