Albert Kwetia Amartey is recorded as a Ghanian student, from Accra, enrolled in the 1962-63 postgraduate course run by the Architectural Association (AA) Department of Tropical Studies. One of his projects, a joint proposal for a school in Lagos, designed with fellow students, F.W. Smith, B. Sobowale, K.R. Surintraboon and V.P. Tarazi, was published in the AA Journal of April 1963. Amartey’s early educational history is not yet known to us but it is likely that the ‘Albert K. Amartey’ listed in 1953 as an engineering student from Accra, studying at Michigan University, is the same person. Amartey was closely involved in the architectural scene in Ghana and was a founding member of the Ghana Institute of Architects (1962). By 1973 he was working for the Ghanian Public Works Department and was responsible (with Hannah Schreckenbach) for the distinctive Mamprobi Post Office, on Guggisberg Avenue, Accra – its open-ended, aluminium barrel vaults extending to provide shade and protection, whilst louvred windows ensure cross ventilation.

Sources

• Architectural Association Council Minutes, 13th February, 1963. AA Archives
• Architectural Association Journal, April 1963, pp302-309
• Student Directory 1953-54, University of Michigan, 1954
• ‘Our History’ Ghana Institute of Architecture website, accessed 6th July, 2026: https://gia.com.gh/our-history/
• Pottgiesser, U., Tostoes, A. (eds), Modernism in Africa: The Architecture of Angola, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda. Docomomo International, Birkhauser, 2025.