This thesis explores the role of architectural hybridization in shaping the postcolonial landscape of Nigeria. By engaging with the indigenous architectural traditions of the Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo people while also analyzing the lasting effects of British colonialism, this thesis argues that Nigerian and West African architecture has developed a third architectural paradigm that is neither fully indigenous or colonial. Through extensive analysis of three major buildings-CMS Grammar School, Lugard Hall, and the First Storey House-this research traces the evolution of hybridization across three sectors–education, legislation and government, and residential. In doing so, it reveals how architecture has been used to push back and adapt existing power structures. Furthermore, this work broadens the existing conversation of hybrid architectures to include modern applications as a method of creating contemporary designs rooted in indigenous traditions. Ultimately, hybridization emerges not only as a reflection of Nigeria’s history but as a tool that can be used to elevate Nigeria, West Africa, and the Global South onto the global stage.

This thesis concerns itself with the use of photographs to construct narratives regarding cities and urban change through an examination of W. Eugene Smith’s Pittsburgh photographs. In Chapter I, I examine Smith’s photographs in the context of Stefan Lorant’s illustrated history book, Pittsburgh: The Story of an American City. This chapter looks at the photos through the lens of portraiture, arguing that Lorant uses images to contribute to an overly simplified progress narrative of Pittsburgh’s postwar urban renewal. Chapter II looks at Smith’s own photo-essay of his Pittsburgh work, entitled “Labyrinthian Walk,” suggesting that the piece pushes back on the progress narrative of Lorant and attempts to characterize the city in a more nuanced way, particularly through the formal effect and structure of contrast. Here too, the images operate in a less rigid documentary manner. Chapter III considers the omissions from these two presentations of Smith’s Pittsburgh photographs, which are made visible by the archival record. I then delve into a discussion of my own curation of Smith’s omitted Pittsburgh photographs, seeking to produce a more abstract, non-narrative sequence which draws from a sense of collective memory and personal experience. Together, these chapters contribute to our understanding of the malleability of these photographs and how they are made to fit differing perspectives on the meaning of this transformational period in Pittsburgh’s history.