Demas Nwoko, an influence to Modern African Architecture

"...The Priory is an architectural landmark, designed and constructed by Demas Nwoko, who is acclaimed far and wide for his artistic and architectural productions..." "....The motifs which Nwoko chooses for his pictures are often taken from the Bible, and his commitment to the Christian religion is also shown by his architecture. In the course of his career he has designed several buildings, mostly for the catholic church, like one of his main works, the Dominican Abbey in Ibadan (1966-70). Here, too, he has been concerned to bring design up to date, trying on the one hand to show traditional roots and on the other hand to show a new identity. For this abbey and the church beside it, Nwoko used burnt tiles and a wedge-shaped almost expressionistic bell-tower rising to a point, and decked the whole with large-scale abstract mosaics in full colour. The result is an architectural masterpiece whose meaning and rank are much more than national..."