Colonial era stucco townhouses, cathedral towers and bridges over the lagoon, with the market streets Gangs of Lagos used on location.
What Lagos Island looks like
Marina Road runs along the waterfront under a covered pedestrian overpass, mid rise office blocks in painted concrete and dark glass lining both sides. The stands on the Marina itself, a grey stone tower with a clock face and pointed arches rising over the traffic.
Toward Kakawa Street the buildings drop to two and three storeys. is a stuccoed Afro Brazilian townhouse with arched window heads and iron balconies, its ground floor given over to shops, with yellow tricycle taxis parked along the kerb. Similar cream stucco facades with floral plaster ornament continue down the block.
The 1906 Secretariat building stands on among its older blocks. rises in cream stucco off Catholic Mission Street, with a rose window set over its main doors. Inside the old Secretariat, open corridors run behind pink painted brick walls, timber floorboards and white wooden doors along a colonnade.
sits behind iron fencing off Broad Street, with fountains, trees and a statue on a cenotaph at its centre. Carter Bridge and Eko Bridge carry elevated roadways over the lagoon at the edge of the island, passing above market stalls and minibuses on the streets below.
Shot in Lagos Island
Gangs of Lagos shot on location in Isale Eko, the old market district on Lagos Island. The film plays the neighbourhood as itself, with no studio build or other city standing in for it.
Gangs of Lagos, 2023
Gangs of Lagos was shot on location in Isale Eko, the historic market district on the Lagos Island side of Carter Bridge, over two months in 2021. The production used the real streets rather than a built set. Its treatment of the Eyo masquerade drew public objection from the Lagos State Government and the Oba of Lagos. No single building or street is named as the exact location, only the neighbourhood. Street View
What Lagos Island can double for
Pelourinho in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
The Afro Brazilian returnees who built Lagos Island's Brazilian Quarter modeled their houses on the stuccoed, balconied townhouses of Bahia. Pelourinho's streets show the same arched doorways and iron balconies as Water House on Kakawa Street, both cramped colonial streets built up solidly to the kerb. Pelourinho's houses are painted in brighter blues, yellows and pinks and sit on a steep hill. A flat, muted stretch of Lagos Island reads closer to Bahia in desaturated grading than in full colour. Try searching stuccoed colonial townhouses now.
Habana Vieja's commercial streets show the same stuccoed facades, iron balconies and ground floor shops as Broad Street. Both were laid out as colonial trading streets running down to a harbour. Havana's buildings are taller on average and many keep ornate cornices Lagos Island's plainer blocks do not, so a tighter frame on a single facade holds the match better than a wide street shot. Try searching colonial harbour trading street now.
Casco Viejo's narrow colonial streets and balconied facades give it a similar scale to the Brazilian Quarter, both built as compact trading quarters on a peninsula. Casco Viejo's streets run on a strict grid and its balconies are painted in brighter pastels, so a wide or aerial shot will show the difference. Try searching narrow balconied colonial streets now.
