From the air, Juba, South Sudan, the capital of Africa's newest country, looks like nothing so much as a giant village, sprawling brown, flat, and ragged from the banks of the White Nile. At first glance this might seem a most unlikely frontier for architects seeking new markets, but the closer one looks, the more this city begins to resemble a vast construction project waiting to happen.

I had been warned to carry a lot of cash with me here, because there were no international banks, much less functioning ATMs, from which to access funds. But wandering by foot “downtown” my first evening in the city, on a dusty side street I stumbled upon the gleaming local headquarters of Stanbic Bank, a subsidiary of South Africa's Standard Bank and a major presence around the continent. When I inquired, the watchmen standing guard out front informed me that the large blue glass-and-metal structure had been inaugurated by the new nation's president that very week.