The available information on the subject revealed that from the mid-seventies there was a loosely organized association of the then mostly Freetown based, Architects, Town Planners and Engineers.  At that time, the Ministry of Lands and largely, the Public Works Department: PWD (now, Ministry of Works and Public Assets) were the largest employers of these professionals.

The PWD hence, served was the fulcrum for most of the meetings summoned in those early days, to discuss and dilate on issues of common interest amongst these professionals.  Some of the meetings were reportedly, also rotationally hosted by the key promoters of the association at their homes.

However, buoyed by the emergence of distinct engineering and architectural societies in a majority of jurisdictions of West Africa, the loose alliance began to weaken.  The subsequent SLIA (Sierra Leone Institute of Architects) was formed in 1980 by a group of a dozen or so Architects which included the first and second generations of the largely public sector Architects in Freetown.   

The active membership of this emergent group included Arcs Ransford Jarret-Yaskey, Olu Wright, Abdul Rahman Mahdi, Sahr Matturi, Akii Tuboku-Metzger, George Lewis, Alim Jalloh Jamboria, Melissa Muhlemann, Ibrahim Yillah, Eugene Lisk, Carlton Carew, Rudolph Hamelberg, John Aruna, Dephon Jenkins-Johnston, Gusmond Mason, Milian Thorpe etc.

Then came a realization of the urgent need to organize the institute in a way that will bring it more recognition as a distinct professional guild of practitioners in the field of Architecture.  This spurred the SLIA to assiduously work with the then, parliament on the blueprints of a new Architects Bill to essentially protect the profession from a free-for-all incursion of foreign Architects and legislatively bring it to par with Ghana and Nigeria.

 The high point of the SLIA was the eventual passing of the Architects Act of 1986 (otherwise known as Act No. 7 of 1986) which gave a parliamentary assent to the regulation of the practice of Architecture in the Republic of Sierra Leone as well as, created a Sierra Leone Architects Registration council (SLARC).  Till date, all architects practising in Sierra Leone were trained abroad. The implication is that Sierra Leone has for a long time, been under-serviced by professionally certified Architects and the consequences can be glimpsed from the un-planned quality of the built environment.

We look forward to better days ahead now that a school of Architecture has been established by the SLIA under the coordination of Arc. Alpha Tejan Jalloh and with a large support from a UK charity; MAKE IT HAPpen. The school of Architecture is today in its 3^rd year of training and so far, gradually progressing in its onerous mandate of locally training good quality professionals.