The Slum Pastoral: Helicopter Visuality and Koolhaas’s Lagos

Abstract

This article explores issues of aerial visuality through Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas’s recent work on urban planning in Lagos, Nigeria. In particular, it focuses on the prevalence of the low-oblique plane of vision in Koolhaas’s helicopter-based photographs of the immense, sprawling complexity of Lagos. This essay also examines the inherent political economy of such an aerial plane of vision. Furthermore, it raises the question of to what extent this representational strategy promotes a fidelity to the subject matter, in this case the citizens and the city of Lagos, by portraying a city through an aesthetics of immensity and the apocalyptic sublime.