Two exhibitions currently on view at the Vitra Design Museum shine a big spotlight on design in Africa. One explores the present: how design is promoting political and economic change through every medium from graphic design to architecture. Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design (through September 9, 2015) features the architecture of Francis Kéré, objects by Cheik Diallo, and work from designers of many disciplines.The other traces the past. Architecture of Independence: African Modernism (through May 31, 2015) documents more than 50 experimental buildings, in Central and Sub-Saharan Africa, through which emerging nations expressed their national identities after their independence in the 1960s. The exhibition was curated by architect and author Manuel Herz and includes photographs by Iwan Baan. Click through the slideshow to view a sampling of the work in the two exhibitions.