Lesley Lokko, the award-winning Ghanaian-Scottish architect and educator, has recently been named curator of the 2023 Venice architecture biennale, the first Black architect in this role. Lokko, who founded the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg, later became dean of the architecture school at the City College of New York—a post she left after barely one year, citing a lack of meaningful support. Her next move: launching an architecture program in Accra, Ghana (with the active encouragement of David Adjaye, who has expanded his architectural presence there, and with support from the Ford and Mellon foundations). While her plans for the Biennale are still in formation, Lokko’s perspective on Africa and the global south will clearly affect what has been a largely Eurocentric vision of architecture at prior Biennales. She spoke with RECORD editor-in-chief Cathleen McGuigan; here are highlights from their conversation.