Renowned Senegalese architect and visionary Pierre Goudiaby Atepa has chosen to challenge Africa’s current infrastructural narrative, with his mission of building smart and sustainable cities, completely reliant on Africa for the resources and talent needed to pull it off.
During the exclusive, Pierre Goudiaby Atepa gave an inspiring glimpse into his life’s mission of reshaping Africa’s architectural and economic future, one smart city at a time.
Atepa is renowned for creating some of the most recognizable buildings on the continent; still, these days, his main goal is to transform African cities from mere representations of modernism into actual engines of economic empowerment.
When asked for a little tease into his plans for building smart cities, he said it would cost nothing. Atepa refrained, noting instead that details would be revealed later; however, he shared some ideas he has in the works on how to make his projects come to life.
“Well, you see, the real challenge ahead is how do you turn all this into the real economy and change the economy?
Yes, bring wealth to our countries, that’s the real challenge. Because if you see a nice building and you go back home and you don’t have what to eat, what’s the point?” he said.
For Atepa, his vision extends much beyond future skylines and streamlined towers. Economic inclusion, local production, and sustainability are the cornerstones of his smart city concept.
“When we build a new city, we want to build first for new entrepreneurs,” he explained.
“When we started building the new city in Gabon, I told them that I wanted to have a bamboo plantation. Why? Because in five years, when we’ll have to put the tiles, instead of taking tiles from China, we’ll make tiles from bamboo.”
Pierre Goudiaby Atepa’s steel plan
The concept of replacing imports with African resources extends to one of his most ambitious projects yet: the “New Steel and Aluminum Roads” initiative. Atepa envisions an Africa that no longer depends on imported commodities and instead produces its own.
“That’s one thing. The other thing is, instead of taking the steel from China, my biggest project today is what I call the new steel and aluminum roads. We’ll be producing steel here in Africa. Those are the things that I’m working on right now,” he said.
Atepa’s ambitions don’t stop at architecture. He’s championing an industrial revolution rooted in African cooperation and resource transformation.
“We are creating what I call the African Steel and Aluminum Alliance between Sierra Leone, Senegal, Guinea, and Mauritania,” he revealed.
“Because you see, in that circle, we have 27 billion tons of iron ore. If you transform it, you come out with 14 billion tons of steel. You know how much that is? More than 15 trillion dollars.”
He contends that Africa’s long-standing economic challenges arise from a lack of indigenous value creation, which he is committed to addressing.
Atepa vividly described a meeting with an IMF official who underestimated the significance of Africa’s oil and gas resources
“He told us Africa’s oil and gas is not a game-changer in our economy. I said stop. Sir, you’re damn right,” Atepa recalled.
He continued, “If I buy two tons of iron ore, $200. If I take 50 cubic meters of gas, $50, it makes $250. I come out with a rod of steel, $1,250. That’s it. Isn’t that a game changer?”
The IMF official, he said, eventually agreed, and Atepa pushed his point further.
“I told him, if you think I’m damn right, please tell my government. He told them, and I think they listened carefully. That’s what we started doing in Senegal.”
To demonstrate his commitment, Atepa personally took Senegal’s prime minister to inspect Sierra Leone’s mines and Guinea’s resources.
“I took my own prime minister to go see the Sierra Leone mines, and now we are doing everything in the books to put a DRI plant here to transform Sierra Leone’s iron ore into steel. That’s a game-changer.”
When asked what advice he would give to young Africans hoping to think and build like him, Atepa’s response was both simple and profound: “First, I will tell them, don’t be afraid.”
He urged young people to dream boldly and work collectively. “We must put our resources together,” he said. “If we don’t think by ourselves, we’ll never achieve it.”
