Ìlú
The City as Relationship
01 / INHERITANCE
Begin with the context.
Historical scholarship documents the importance and distinctive development of urban settlements in Yorùbá social life.
Place & variation
Yorùbá places and devotional traditions. Sacred narratives, historical records and material evidence are different forms of knowledge.
02 / SYSTEM — EDITORIAL ANALYSIS
Place & cycles.
Urban life organises gathering, exchange and political relationships in space.
This is the archive’s reading of a structure or relationship, not a claim that the tradition was designed as a modern technology.
03 / FUTURE — INHERITED FUTURES SPECULATION
What would a city designed around relationships prioritise?
A city is more than its buildings: its layout carries patterns of gathering, authority and exchange.
An artistic proposition to explore. Historical documentation does not establish the technological analogy.
FOLLOW THE RESEARCH
Sources & context.
The linked sources distinguish collection evidence, research and contextual reading. They support the inheritance layer; the system and future layers are editorial interpretations.
Research edition 01 · September 2026. A desk-research synthesis; not a practitioner-certified account. Some linked books and articles require library access. Read the evidence guide ↗
Follow another thread.
Editorial links connect shared themes, objects and practices. They do not make the records interchangeable.