Adeyemo Shokunbi is an architect, who combines his crafts with visual to have the desired designs. He believes that the environment should benefit from his knowledge of refurbishing historical establishments as EDOZIE UDEZE reveals in this report.
Recently, Oliver Enwonwu of the Omenka Art Gallery, Lagos, raised the issue of using architecture to refurbish historical legacies and monuments across towns and cities. In it, he featured Adeyemo Shokunbi. In a lengthy interaction with this renowned architect who combines his works with interior art and designs, it is clear, that Shokunbi is at home with the professional ideals he has set out to accomplish and achieve.
Shokunbi is an architect, artist, and craftsman. Trained in England where he practiced his trade for a time before relocating to Nigeria, he is known as an environmentally responsive architect/artist. This is why he describes himself as an architect/builder. He has been involved in the total rehabilitation of many abandoned or dilapidated historical buildings across Nigeria, mostly in Lagos.
In fact, in England where he worked for a number of UK architectural firms before setting his own firm called CFA Interior Ltd, he distinguished himself in most historical edifices that needed to be refurbished. As an architecture and interior design outfit, it specializes in the designs, building and the total refurbishment projects in the commercial and private sectors across the U.K.
In 2006, he returned to Nigeria. He then founded Patrick-Waheed Design Consultancy with Patrick Koshoni. Often also and where necessary, Shokunbi resorts to visual to replicate his works. This way, he also involves some artists in his deep artistic thinking, creation and implementation.
In all these, he believes that both visual and architecture have the power to transform and rebuild the environments in ways that give identity to our everyday life and cities. Across Lagos he has done so much in this regard in a way that some of these historical institutions have received his professional touches.
For him, architecture should be responsive and intuitive enough in providing solutions, wonderful solutions as it were, to the environment, climate, culture and the vernacular place. This was why once he returned to Nigeria, he quickly changed his orientation which was more of British and American architecture to suit the local requirements. Today that has paid off, for he uses local materials to effect his art. The beauties are seen in his works across the terrain.
Shokunbi therefore believes that there is a new definition of the revival of Nigerian identity through afrobeat, art, fashion, and Nollywood. So, architecture contributes to representing a new identity to Nigerian and indeed the world art. A generally creative person, deep thinker and innovator his love for the restoration of monumental and historical edifices propels him on and on.
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