At 90, architect Demas Nwoko’s legacy extends beyond his art, embedded in the walls of his rural sanctuary in southeastern Nigeria, a masterpiece he built by hand using natural materials drawn from the rich earth of Delta State. He invites AD inside.
The drive to Idumuje-Ugboko, a historic town in Aniocha in the north of Nigeria’s Delta State, unfolds slowly, as if the road itself is biding time. Asphalt loosens its grip as the traffic thins; the landscape softens into long stretches of red laterite, palm groves and low, spreading trees casting uneven shadows.
As we continue to amble along the uneven roads, houses rise modestly from the earth. Some are coated in ochre or clay, others bare, revealing the rough texture of sunbaked brick or timber. Bold geometric patterns mark some walls; carved wooden doors, sometimes crowned with ornate lintels, hint at the pride of their makers. Small verandas offer a gentle threshold between the interior world and the rhythm of the street.
A path curves, and Demas Nwoko’s home comes quietly into view. Its unassuming form emerges as a quiet dialogue between earth and light: modest, deliberate and wholly attuned to its surroundings. There is no interruption, no sudden declaration. Arriving here feels less like an encounter, and more like the quiet culmination of what the journey has been whispering all along.
Nwoko, now 90, has been described as many things: artist, master builder, sculptor, architect, designer, teacher. Yet to reduce him to these labels is to miss the point. His varied pursuits gather and overlap, forming a unified legacy of creativity that continues to shape generations of designers and artists, drawing a devoted following far beyond the borders of Nigeria.
Raised in the royal household of Idumuje-Ugboko as the son of Obi Nwoko II, a traditional ruler, Nwoko first found his architectural inspiration amid the palace and surrounding structures built by his father – forms rooted in neighbouring Benin City’s architectural traditions. Across the Yorubaland region, he notes (which spans southwestern Nigeria, Benin and Togo), this style was reserved for palaces, but in Benin, it was domestic. “It was a model I knew from childhood,” Nwoko recalls. Though Nwoko’s early career in theatre and scenography arose from a series of unplanned events – he later taught drama at the University of Ibadan – his earliest memories still trace back to the palace. “By then, I had already decided I was going to promote the architecture of Benin [in my work],” he says. “I had examined it up and down; there is no architecture like it.”
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Nwoko’s own home, built in 1978, bears clear traces of the structures in the ancient Benin City: ridged exterior columns at the entrance echo the fluted walls of the Oba’s Palace (home to the ruler of Benin City), while the pitched, overhanging roof – a signature across his projects – nods to traditional houses in the southeast of the country. Shuttered windows use local timber. Every element of the home was designed and built by Nwoko himself, using traditional methods and local materials – with subtle adaptations. Modelled on the New Culture Studios in Ibadan, his ever-evolving arts and culture centre (which began as his personal studio and residence), the home’s exterior is clad in blocks of laticrete – a material Nwoko developed when laws prohibited the use of local laterite soil. By mixing it with ten per cent cement, he created a material rooted in tradition, but adapted to modern regulations. “There is nothing wrong with mud,” Nwoko insists, citing three-storey homes across Yorubaland built with the readily available material. “A building is not viable if it doesn’t make use of local materials.”
Inside, Nwoko’s home exudes an almost sacred silence, broken only by the low hum of a television. Natural light is kept deliberately low, emanating largely from the central impluvium (a fibreglass-lined funnel that carries a controlled stream of rainwater from the roof into the house) that hangs above an indoor courtyard. The open-plan space is composed of distinct zones: the dining area features stained-glass panels reminiscent of Nwoko’s earlier works, such as the Dominican Chapel in Ibadan, and is flanked by his signature interlocking wooden chairs, crafted without a single nail. “That is our way of living: open plan, no rooms,” Nwoko says. “The house is modelled in a similar way, so you can move through it very freely.”
For Nwoko, the impluvium is a defining feature of the home, and one which embodies the architecture of the tropics. “I understood that architecture was about geography,” he muses. “You have no business replicating the architecture of one geography in another. The purpose of designing any building, or habitat, is to protect the human being.”
“[The impluvium] made a great impression on me as a child,” Nwoko laughs, his voice softening. “During the great rain belts, heavy storms would blow and it felt as if the trees would almost uproot themselves. Inside, the water would come through the impluvium like a gentle waterfall, and we would sit around and watch it pour down softly into the small space. Everything inside felt calm, while outside, the storm was still brewing. It was a wonderful feeling that I never forgot.”
Since the 1970s, Nwoko’s home has remained largely unchanged, the only later addition being a second floor that acts as his private quarters. “It is an ageless building,” says Bofu Nwoko Ugbodaga, the designer’s daughter and senior partner at their architectural firm, New Culture Designs. “It is a perfect example of sustainable architecture, without any major shifts, even in the use of its spaces which all continue to serve their original functions. Every choice ever made here was intentional.”
Upstairs, Nwoko draws on the Igbo architectural tradition of a “conical square”, a pitched roof that lends the space a sense of verticality, anchored by a single structural pillar at the centre. “You know, everything you see here is built in my factory. Every work of wood and ceramic was laid down by me because I couldn’t afford to hire anyone to do it,” Nwoko says. “I had to do it myself, against the world model of hiring different professionals for different jobs. But I wouldn’t be fooled. I am a prince of a town that has kept its traditions.”
Despite his many creative contributions, Nwoko’s momentum carries on, and he has recently inaugurated a new church tower. He is also working on a new book about tropical architecture. “More and more people are realising that my model is the truth, and they are giving me new jobs,” he says. Working alongside younger collaborators, the creative pluralist is forging ahead. “The least I can do is to help as much as I can," he says simply. “As long as there is work to do, how do I stop?”
This article was published in the AD Middle East print issue for February/March 2026.
