Whatever happened to the CIA?

The spawning of new movements is often wrought with a synergy of like minds, all focused at the same goal within the same creative space. Thus the city invariably becomes the stage for such acts. Take for example, the Werkbund and the Machine Aesthetic which gained grounds in Germany in the early 20th century. Having undergone rapid industrialization under a military aristocracy, Germany soon dominated world politics and thus set the pace for world architecture.
Germany embraced the machine for all it was worth and instituted an organization (the Werkbund) under the architect Peter Behrens to bring together designers and industry for the creation of efficient designs for mass production. Architecture and the machine were married and the machine aesthetic was born. This new machine style was to be developed by three young architects who worked with Behrens on the Werkbund: Walter Gropius, Mies Van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, whose contributions to architecture and design still influence current thinking today.

Several decades later, in Lagos Nigeria, another collective of bright minded individuals reared its head and seemed set to change the architecture and design scene. Dubbed the Creative Intelligence Agency (CIA), the collective had an impressive list of collaborators in the building design and art sectors and operated on an informal structure towards the elevation and refinement of creative thoughts and processes in design related matters. In an astounding show of enthusiasm for multi-practice and multi-disciplinary collaboration on creative matters, frontline architectural firms like MOE, James Cubitt Architects, Design Group, A T Onajide, Adeniyi Coker Architects etc, talked shop with Brand Specialists- Alder Consulting, Metal Work Artist- Olu Amoda, Landscape Designer- Fatima Lawanson of Kiosque Vegetal, Photographer- Jide Adeniyi Jones, Stage Set and Marketing Support Specialists- Total Consult, Lighting Consultants- Konu and Morrow amongst others.



Tackling a conceptual Millennium Urban Renewal brief for the Marina and Broad Street stretch of Lagos Island (tagged Lagos 2000+) as its first major exercise in June 1999, the CIA collective led by the energetic Koku Konu, (then of Konu & Morrow) engaged 55 students of architecture, design and allied sectors from the University of Lagos, Yaba College of Technology and Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, together with 23 professionals from the different collaborating firms (working together in 14 different units) in a series of intensive and interactive workshop sessions that dovetailed into a joint presentation session where each unit’s intervention was subjected to a grand jury.

Prior to that, the practitioners had made first contact with the students a month before at a student workshop where they (the students) had been assigned markers, cardboard, copper wire, pastels, adhesive and etcetera with which to interpret in their own way, an excerpt from Olaudah Equaino’s memoirs. Needless to say that the professionals found most of the student responses rather prosaic and spared no pains in saying so….but that was the whole idea!

Lagos 2000+ was well received and got exclusive coverage in Glendora Review. Though the proposed Millennium Publication that was to wrap it all up did not come through eventually, the CIA was not done yet.

In February, 2000, the collective had two representatives go to the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife to run a one day workshop at the instance of the students of the Department of Architecture of that University. Again, an assortment of materials: foam, rubber, nylon, netting, rope, pins, straws, glue, etc were handed out with twigs from live shrubs. The challenge was to create accommodation for a specific type of activity within the twigs (signifying trees) within 4 hours. The resultant ‘installation’ pieces were queer in appearance but heavy on philosophy in most cases.

The following month, back in Lagos, a brief was circulated for what was to be a follow up student workshop to the Lagos 2000+ project of the previous year. For two intense weeks, three units explored the deconstruction of Olu Amoda’s metal work as a signifier (hopefully) for fresh architecture, an urban renewal effort to turn Allen Avenue in Ikeja into a chic, modern high street, and a brain wracking attempt at connecting the different proposals that had come out of the previous Lagos 2000+ endeavours. These (highfalutin) projects were followed through to different levels of completion, like all other CIA projects, they were exercises in ‘mind over matter’…the process (as opposed to the product) was the big deal.

Then, the big clincher, in August 2000, Koku Konu led a posse of students on a study tour of Europe which took them through major cities, buildings, museums, and design studios. The week long exhibition of their efforts which followed the three weeks of intensive travel, study and analysis was not sufficient to capture the euphoria and relevance of the experience for the students and their coordinator. In fact, as if the last impetus had been exhausted by that tour, the CIA went relatively silent after the Euro-Tour.

Yet, all the programs organized by the collective within the first two years of its existence had afforded the students and professionals a rare chance for free interaction, aided by an abundance of food and drink. Like minds connected and alliances were made, which have endured over time with many of those students first having their internship with the same professionals they had course to interact with at the workshops and then going on to work for their firms at the conclusion of their training in school.

Five years after, the dust has settled, every one is back to the old grind of getting that next (big) job and earning a (bigger) living ….but every once in a while, the mind courts with reminiscences, a gleam comes to the eye and the question is asked….whatever happened to the CIA?

-Ayodele Arigbabu.
arigbs@gmail.com