Samuel Ajayi is recorded as entering the Architectural Association (AA) in London, in September 1956, as a Third-Year student on the five-year Diploma course. For his final year, in 1958-59, he elected to carry out a 3-term project for the planning and development of the port of Sabele, in Nigeria – his tutors being Peter Smithson and Arthur Korn. Following his graduation, Ajayi remained in London working with the Architects’ Co-Partnership and British Rail. However, in November 1960 he returned to Nigeria, travelling by boat from Liverpool to Lagos. The following year he took up a position within the Architect's Department of the Western Region’s Ministry of Works and Transport, based in Ibadan. In late 1963 the Eleti Ofe newspaper noted how he, along with three other Nigerian architects from the Ministry (Adeleki Adebiyi, Ernest Osemeka and Ekiel Fakoya), had been dispatched to London for six months of postgraduate study at the Architectural Association’s Department of Tropical Studies. The newspaper notes that the students had been funded through the Nigerian / British Technical Assistance scheme. Of the four students, Ajayi was the only one to have previously studied at the AA. After completing the Tropical course, Ajayi appears to have returned directly to his employer in Ibadan but by 1967 had been transferred to the Architect’s Department of the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing headquarters at Lagos. Details of his subsequent career are not known to us but he seems to have remained in with the Ministry, in Lagos, until at least the late 1970s. His private practice of Ajay-Samuel Associates is recorded in the RIBA Directory for 1985, their address being in the Ebutte-Meta neighbourhood of Lagos.
Sources
- Architectural Association Council Minutes, 4th January, 1960. AA Archives
- Architectural Association Council Minutes, 16th March, 1964. AA Archives
- Architectural Association Student Register 1945-1972. AA Archives
- Architectural Association Diploma Roll, 1924-1963. AA Archives.
- Architectural Association Membership List, 1969, 1974, 1979
- The National Archives, Kew, UK; BT27 Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and Successors: Outwards Passenger Lists; Reference Number: Series BT27-
- ‘Nigerians Study Tropical Architecture’, Eleti Ofe, Vol. XIV, No. 892, Oct.-Nov. 1963
- The Kalendar of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 1965, p37
- Federal Republic of Nigeria Gazette, Official Gazette, Vol. 57, No. 40, 9th July, 1970
- West African Builder and Architect Vol. 7, No. 5, Sept/Oct 1967, p140
- RIBA Directory, 1985. Royal Institute of British Architects, 1985, pM9
