Palais de la Culture Bernard Binlin-Dadié

A visit to the Palais de la Culture can mean two very different things: walking the lagoon-front grounds and gardens by day, or attending a concert, play or exhibition by night in one of its several halls. Francis Sossah's postmodern complex, spread across 12,900 square metres, holds two indoor auditoriums seating 500 and 1,000, the smaller 605-seat Kodjo-Ebouclé hall, and a 2,500-seat open-air theatre, so the scale of any given event varies widely with the venue booked. In the grounds, the converted Fokker F27 presidential aircraft, nicknamed the bird-books and now used as a small library, is a distinctive and easily photographed landmark that most visitors seek out. A daytime walk of the grounds, including the aircraft-library and the waterfront promenade toward the Général-de-Gaulle bridge, takes about an hour; attending an evening performance extends a visit to two or three hours including the show itself. The complex is best known as the home of the biennial Marché des Arts du Spectacle d'Abidjan (MASA), when the grounds and halls are at their busiest and most festive; outside festival dates and scheduled events, the grounds are calm and make for a pleasant lagoon-front stroll. Evening visits coinciding with a performance give the fullest sense of the venue's role in Abidjan's cultural life, while weekday afternoons suit visitors who prefer to see the architecture and gardens without a crowd.