The Bartlett Africa Heritage Symposium

Engaging the Past for Sustainable Built Futures

2026 marks 200 years since UCL was founded on a radical idea: that knowledge belongs to everyone. Since the appointment of the UK’s first Chair of Architecture in 1841, the Bartlett has grown into the world’s number one faculty for architecture and the built environment – training thousands of students from across the globe, including many who have gone on to shape cities, communities and built environment practice across the African continent.

Supported by the UCL200 Staff Contribution and Engagement Fund, this symposium uses the bicentenary as a moment not only to celebrate, but to ask what kind of education best serves contemporary practice – and whose knowledge and experience should shape it.

Engaging the past

We will be joined by Bartlett alumni who currently practise in Africa. They will reflect on what their Bartlett education gave them in practice, how local conditions, constraints and opportunities have shaped their work, and what they believe the next generation of built environment professionals needs – from their education, from institutions like the Bartlett and from each other.

Their reflections will be followed by an audience Q&A chaired by Dr Mpho Matsipa, Associate Professor and Co-Director of Spatial Justice at the Bartlett School of Architecture.

Towards a sustainable future

Africa is home to some of the world’s fastest-growing cities. The built environment challenges facing those cities — in housing, infrastructure, climate adaptation and equitable urban development — are among the most urgent of our time. This symposium addresses how practitioners are trained, what knowledge systems built environment education draws on, and whether institutions like the Bartlett are genuinely equipped to support practice on the continent — now and over the long term.

This event is open to built environment practitioners, current students, alumni and prospective students considering a career in architecture, planning, engineering, urban design or sustainable development.

The Bartlett Africa Heritage Symposium is a UCL200 event, delivered in partnership with the Bartlett Pan-African Indigenist Collective.

2026 is the year in which we celebrate UCL’s bicentenary, marking 200 years since UCL’s establishment as the first university in London. On 11 February 2026, UCL will begin a year of celebration to mark our Bicentenary. UCL200 will be an exciting and varied programme of activities, events and storytelling, celebrating and reinforcing UCL’s commitment to our founding values, highlighting the excellence and impact of our groundbreaking work and people, and presenting an ambitious and inspiring portrait of our future.

Image: University College Ibadan, 1962. A side view of a four-story dormitory flat building on campus from the third floor. NSAG (Nederlands studenten Afrika Gezelschap)