For the French Colonial Exposition of 1931, Olivier and Lambert constructed a Grand Palais designed to represent Afrique Occidentale Française (French West Africa). But this monument was an “exaggerated version” of similar structures that had preceded it in French displays (Prussin 1985); the edifice was grossly different from dwellings located in the part of West Africa that had inspired it. To assuage expected criticism, members of the press hastily explained why modifications were made; after all, “If the tower had not been as high . . . one would no longer have a work of art but merely an African construction.” Elaborations by the “architect-poets” were appropriate, they argued, since “those who have never been to Africa find it original and natural and the colonials and indigenes who know there is nothing similar there will discover with joy that it is real to them.”

Much of French colonialism was concerned with trying to figure out how African structures should be presented—diagrammatically and in real life. This is so in the first case because expositions served as a visual display of empire, in the second instance because only certain forms of architecture were deemed appropriate for a given colony. But if all territories being considered were dominated by French rule, what factors influenced the specific ways a given place was depicted? More to the point, why was architecture characteristic of sub-Saharan Africa “merely African,” while Morocco during the same period was deemed the site of an architectural “masterpiece” (Hébrard and Anderson 1913, 1:77)? Of course, writers have dealt at length with the romanticization of “Oriental” Africa (Said 1978, Miller 1985), in contrast to what were considered to be the continent's darkest recesses. But if racism was the sole force behind French perspectives on Africa, why was Casablanca, Morocco, considered to be “chaotic” (Prost 1932: 59) while Rabat, located in the same territory, was proclaimed one of the world's “most beautiful” cities (Vaillat 1934: 74)?

There was a direct connection between French historical relationships with, attitudes about, and policies toward African territories under its control, and the way those spaces were represented.