In this edition of concrete and kitsch, I am bringing you lurid details from a corner of the Earth to which I have never traveled: Africa! I am so remiss that David and I have yet to go to Africa – I have no words to describe my deeply entrenched white guilt. A few months ago, a random google rabbit hole led me to the crossover of the “Africa” and “Modernist Architecture” Venn diagram, and I haven’t really turned back since. I strongly believe in a sort of modern, traveler-angst type of manifest destiny, and ever since falling into the particular Google abyss that is African modernism I haven’t looked back.
In an endless supply of locations to which I am dying to travel, Africa has always had many faces. There are the beaches (and cuisine) of Mozambique, the rock hewn churches (and cuisine) of Ethiopia, and the Woodaabe beauty pageants of Niger…but only until recent history did Eritrea, and especially its capital of Asmara, come onto my radar. And yes, the cuisine appeals also.
Unlike Ethiopia to the south, Eritrea was under Italian colonial rule from the late 1800s to after World War 2. With the influence of Italian urban planners, Asmara developed into a highly modernist city. Italians had hoped the city would become a center of cultural diffusion in East Africa. In the early to mid-1900s, Italian architects experimented with creating a modern vision of a contemporary city. The buildings that live on today present a hundred-year-old vision of the future from a dying colonial power. In other words – put all of those buzzwords together, and you have a description of a place that has mine and David’s names written all over it.
The buildings each corresponding to different eras in the urban development of the fledgling city: Early Italian colonial influence, Between and shortly after the two World Wars, and Under Ethiopian annexation.
During the first of the three periods, Italians worked to establish a more European style of city planning on the high plateau where Asmara sits. First there was the laying out of streets in a grid pattern, with more traditional residential parts of the city scattered in every direction from the city center. Single story buildings expanded rapidly, while the urban core developed. More indigenous incarnations of wattle and daub architecture blended with contemporary European building techniques, giving rise to a uniquely Eritrean architectural style, prone to outward (rather than upward) expansion.
Mussolini didn’t do Asmara any favors during the second period. Despite being on the winning side of things in World War 1, Italy had a difficult time containing their East African interests. Increased interest in Ethiopia loosened their hold on Eritrea as a colony, and upheaval was common. Architecturally, Eritrea was blossoming – I mean, whoever heard of lack of funds or resources stifling the interests of a fascist state, am I right? Soviet Union, I’m just saying. The adornment and intricacy of the modernist structures built or refurbished during this period is unprecedented across Africa during this same time frame.
And then became the last period. Independent-ish Eritrea bloomed under the weightlessness of the absence of Italy, but was worn down by the new independence of Ethiopia. Modernism was the style en vogue, and despite a worn Italian presence, structures were still built in mother Italia’s name. If one is to understand Asmara by a specific building today, the Fiat Tagliero is it.
I have not personally stepped foot in Eritrea. I am obsessed with the architecture of Asmara by personal fault. I hope to visit the nation of Eritrea, bordered by some of the most contested regions in the world, in the fall or winter of this coming year. Most of the question mark comes from my husband, who thinks that the horn of Africa may be too “unstable” for a week abroad.
Regardless, he passed the test in Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Bosnia. I think I’ll keep him along.
If you are interested in Eritrea, Modernist Architecture, or anything in between, please reach out to me at [email protected]