Authors : Bambourbo Makoal Raoul; Mahamat Talba; Bwemba Charles; Dr. Ahmadou Katarkalah; Prisque Ndjinga Ndjinga

Volume/Issue : Volume 11 - 2026, Issue 7 - July

Google Scholar : https://tinyurl.com/3jy7b3pf

Scribd : https://tinyurl.com/psm25mez

DOI : https://doi.org/10.38124/ijisrt/26jul933

Note : A published paper may take 4-5 working days from the publication date to appear in PlumX Metrics, Semantic Scholar, and ResearchGate.

Abstract : More than sixty years after independence, Cameroon faces a deep structural identity crisis inherited from colonial and postcolonial history, a “double erasure” of both precolonial cultural structures and the memory of the independence struggle. The National Museum of Cameroon (NMC), housed in the former Presidential Palace, suffers from architectural and museographic inadequacies that prevent it from fulfilling its role as a place of collective memory. This article presents a systematic literature review examining three interconnected questions: the nature and mechanisms of Cameroon's postcolonial identity crisis; the theoretical framework of immersive spatial narrative as an architectural tool; and the precedents of memorial architecture capable of generating national cohesion through space. Drawing on sociology, phenomenology, museology, and architectural theory, the review identifies four founding principles — narrative threedimensionality, event intentionality, sensory corporeality, and polyphony of the route and establishes the conceptual basis for a narrative, immersive, and identity-centered underground extension of the NMC. The article demonstrates that such an extension represents not merely a functional response but an architectural act of political and social significance.

Keywords : Spatial Narrative; Immersive Architecture; Postcolonial Identity; National Museum of Cameroon; Memorial Museology; Collective Memory; National Cohesion; Underground Extension.

References :

1. F. Galangau-Quérat and Y. Girault, “Museum Experiences in Cameroon as a media for tangible and intangible heritage,” in Commodifying Culture? Cultural Villages and Living Museums, Windhoek: ICOM-ICME, 2012.
2. S. Mbondobari, “Le maquis camerounais. Écriture,” Fabula, 2021.
3. Molo, “Identité nationale et mémoire collective au Cameroun,” 2021.
4. J. L. Nfi, “The Monument of Reunification and national memory in Cameroon,” Journal of African Cultural Studies, 2013.
5. Koubga, “Le Musée National du Cameroun: collections, récit national et cohésion identitaire,” 2021.
6. H. Heumen Tchana, “Le Musée National du Cameroun: histoire institutionnelle et enjeux muséographiques,” 2017.
7. F. Aba Nkasse et al., “Extension of the National Museum of Cameroon: Functional and Architectural Proposal,” International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology, vol. 10, 2025, pp. 1860–1870.
8. S. Nessak, “L'état critique de l'identité et la crise du vivre-ensemble en contexte camerounais,” Revue Della/Afrique, 2023.
9. E. Deudjui, “La sociologie du bar,” Le blog des Camerounaiseries (Mondoblog), Apr. 2022. [Online]. Available: https://achouka.mondoblog.org/2022/04/04/la-sociologie-du-bar/
10. M. S. Fallut, Les églises de réveil en Afrique centrale et leurs impacts sur l'équilibre du pouvoir et la stabilité des États, Paris: IRSEM, 2012.
11. A. Desvallées and F. Mairesse, Concepts clés de muséologie, Paris: ICOM / Armand Colin, 2010.
12. ICOM, Museum Definition, Prague: International Council of Museums, 2022.
13. S. MacDonald (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies, Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.
14. B. Tschumi, Architecture and Disjunction, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994.
15. M. Besset, Le Corbusier, Geneva: Skira, 1987; P. Amaldi, “La promenade architecturale et la dissociation corps/regard,” Architectural Theory Review, 2024.
16. J. Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses, Chichester: Wiley-Academy, 2005.
17. L. Fraser and A. Coulson, “Memorial Architectures: Space, Memory, and the Politics of Representation,” in Architecture and Culture, 2012, pp. 185–210; L. Lau, “Spatial empathy and carceral memory,” Journal of Architecture, 2012; L. Hourston Hanks, “Narrative architecture and the museum experience,” Museum Management and Curatorship, 2012; S. MacLeod, L. Hourston Hanks, and J. Hale (eds.), Museum Making: Narratives, Architectures, Exhibitions, London: Routledge, 2012.
18. I. M. Pei, “The Pyramid at the Louvre,” in Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993.
19. S. Psarra, Architecture and Narrative: The Formation of Space and Cultural Meaning, London: Routledge, 2009.
20. H. Jenkins, “Game Design as Narrative Architecture,” in First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, N. Wardrip-Fruin and P. Harrigan (eds.), Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004.
21. P. Zumthor, Atmospheres: Architectural Environments, Surrounding Objects, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2006.
22. P. Nora (ed.), Les Lieux de mémoire, Paris: Gallimard, 1984.
23. G. Austin, Useful Cinema, Durham: Duke University Press, 2012.
24. C. Duncan and A. McCauley, “Corporeal engagement and memorial architecture,” Environment and Behavior, 2012.