Mohamad Alim Jallo-Jamboria was born in Sierra Leone in 1934 and educated at St. Edwards Secondary School (1947-1951) and Fourah Bay College, Freetown, graduating in 1953. He was then employed as an architectural draughtsman within the Public Works Department, at Freetown, from 1952-1957, before travelling to the UK and attending the Hammersmith College of Art and Building, in London. He then transferred to the Architectural Association in September 1959, where he entered as a 2nd Year student, funded by the Sierra Leone Government. As part of his final AA Diploma year, in 1963-64, Jallo-Jamboria elected to study under the AA’s Department of Tropical Studies, where he appears to have flourished. He graduated with an AA Diploma in 1964, his final history thesis being upon the subject of housing in Sierra Leone. It is not known to us when Jallo-Jamboria returned to Sierra Leone but by 1969 he had been appointed as a Senior Architect within the Ministry of Works in Freetown. Promotion seems to have come rapidly, as by 1974 he is recorded as Acting Chief Architect of the Ministry of Works, acquiring to the full title of Chief Architect by 1982. In addition to his public service, Jallo-Jamboria was also a partner in the Freetown-based practice of Turma Associates during the 1980s. Details of Jallo-Jamboria’s design work for the Ministry of Works and Turma Associates are not know to us, other than that he was responsible for the iconic Samuel Bangura building, in Gloucester Street, Freetown, which housed the Bank of Sierra Leone and, at 16 storeys high, remained the tallest building in Sierra Leone for many years.
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