Reexamining the Historic Neighborhood: Highlighting Heritage Architecture and Planning in Accras Future Coastal Developments
Lecture

November 4, 2025
10 am

Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning
Room 2108
2000 Bonistell Blvd
Ann Arbor, MI 48109




The coasts of Ghana’s capital, Accra, have been the subject of development plans for successive governments since the 1960s. A series of plans have been drawn over the decades, but none of them have actually commenced.

The subject area is the 4 km coastal stretch between the Osu Christiansborg Castle and Jamestown, both neighborhoods that hold historical significance as the origins of urbanization in Accra; its history of transatlantic slavery, Afro-European trade and commerce, and a memorial place for the political independence of Ghana.

However, the heritage impact of modern, futuristic developments on these historical communities and sites seems not to be considered in the planning efforts.

This lecture and discussion highlight the history of historic places along the coastal stretch and examine a few of the planning efforts promulgated by various governments and planning firms after independence to date.

As the planning efforts have become a subject of political propaganda for the vision of Accra’s future, historic places are under the threat of losing significance or being erased.

As architects and urban planners, how do we plan for a balance between futuristic development and the preservation of history and cultural place?

Speaker: David Kojo Derban

Arc. David Kojo Derban has been a chartered architect and an associate member of the Ghana Institute of Architects for the last twenty years. He is the C.E.O. of Ethnik International Ltd., a research-based architectural and project management firm based in Accra.

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Design and a postgraduate diploma from the Department of Architecture of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, and a Master’s degree from the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, with history, historiography, and art studies as his areas of interest.

For the last ten years, he has been an advocate for the preservation of heritage places and structures. He is currently serving as a consulting stakeholder on Ghana’s Cultural Policy Review Committee concerning heritage architecture and is the Director of the Center for Architecture and Arts Heritage – Africa.






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