Editors: Ana Tostões, Ivan Blasi
Keywords: Modern Movement, Modern architecture, Tropical architecture, Design with climate, African modern architecture.
Since the 1990s architectural historians discovered Modern architecture in Africa as part of a cultural production related to colonialism. With the introduction of postcolonial theory in the historiography of architecture, an exclusively ideological critical sense has been developed preventing disciplinary autonomy or practice of architecture and finally condemning any objective look. Recently, the development of concepts such as hybrid or the otherness has been promoting a nuanced historical analysis about architecture and politics in the 20th century in Africa. The recognition that a widespread awareness of Modern Movement architecture has always been serving colonization involves rethinking the basic principle of Modern welfare society and practiced architecture as a mission: how Modern principles have been exchanged, resulting from a Eurocentric culture with the cultures from the East and Africa. In addition, it must be said that the case of Sub–Saharan Lusophone Africa is now beginning to be studied in depth putting together peripheral universes.
Published:
2013-07-01
Editorial
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Since the 1990s architectural historians discovered Modern architecture in Africa as part of a cultural production related to colonialism. With the introduction of postcolonial theory in the historiography of architecture, an exclusively ideological critical sense has been developed preventing disciplinary autonomy or practice of architecture and finally condemning any objective look. Recently, the development of concepts such as hybrid or the otherness has been promoting a nuanced historical analysis about architecture and politics in the 20th century in Africa. The recognition that a...
Lectures
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The following keynote lecture was presented at the 12th International docomomo Conference that took place in Espoo, Finland, in August 2012. The author, an active member of docomomo since its creation, used this opportunity to do what is traditional when someone ‘comes of age’, that is, use it as a milestone to look back at where docomomo came from, and forward to what it might become.
Essays
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Post–colonial theory, following the lead of Edward Said’s Orientalism, holds that the discourse that justified colonialism was not marginal to European culture, but that it formed a core ingredient of European thinking about Modernity and Modernism. This thought–provoking argument has not yet been thoroughly processed in architectural history and theory. This article explores these issues by introducing some of Said’s thoughts and by discussing how they might be relevant for an interpretation of Modernism in architecture. It looks at primitivism in architecture as encountered in the work...
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This essay explores the various strands of the advent of Modernity in African architecture. It starts from the assumption that the history of Modernity in African architecture is a complex and rich subject that merits increased scientific attention.
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More than ever, it is urgent to expand the new emerging consciousness focused on the need to include other territories in our efforts to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the “Modern Diaspora.” Recently, the development of concepts such as ‘hybrid’ or the ‘otherness’ has been promoting a nuanced historical analysis on architecture and politics in the 20th century beyond a Eurocentric vision. The recognition that a widespread awareness of the Modern Movement architecture has always been serving colonization involves rethinking the basic principle of Modern welfare society and...
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The Huambo (former Nova Lisboa) Veterinary Academic Hospital, designed by Vasco Vieira da Costa in 1970, was never completed. With the independence of Angola in 1975, a civil war started and lasted 27 years, with its main battlefield in the country’s central region, where the opposition party was settled. The building has served as a military headquarters since the 80’s, becoming extremely damaged in the last three decades. Peace was restored in 2002 but 30 soldiers are still nowadays living in the ruins to defend the building from vandalism. The University is planning the renovation of...
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The Polana High School in Maputo, designed by José João Tinoco and José Forjaz around 1970, is a plain functional building both as regards to the spatial organization of its composing pavilions and as to its construction that is mostly made of exposed reinforced concrete structures and elements. After decades of heavy duty use and an almost absolute lack of maintenance, it recently went through some urgent repair operations. In this sense, it exemplifies what could be today effective conditions regarding economic possibilities and cultural problems to recover Modern heritage in Africa.
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Modern architecture has recently been the subject of a more systematic analysis in the formerly Portuguese African territory. These studies aim at understanding the specific circumstances from which Modern Portuguese architecture first arose. Following the international debate on housing during the 20th century, Mozambique has been the arena of a new and experimental approach to collective housing in accordance with the guidelines set out by Le Corbusier. A singular social, economic and cultural territory, it adopted a tropical variant of the gallery typology, briefly introduced in this...
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Aiton Court, in Johannesburg, is a case study in how heritage and economics clash in economically constrained cities. This iconic and formally innovative Modern apartment block from 1937 is located in an area where the income levels of tenants are now very low. Although the building is protected by legislation, the viability of its restoration is being further tested by a rent boycott. The article covers the building’s history, and questions how to approach its conservation differently, given the strong demand for housing at a cost level that would be excluded by purely market–led...
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Seminal publications on West African Architecture such as Kulterman’s New Architecture in Africa and the Architectural Review’s New Commonwealth Architecture came to define the African Modern Movement as it was understood internationally. This paper explores the specific context within which this new architecture developed and the actors that helped to shape it. Vaughan–Richards’ Ola–Oluwakitan House and Cubitt’s Elder Dempster Offices are analyzed in terms of their engagement with the socio-cultural context in which they were conceived, the site-specific Modernity of the former...
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Otto Koenigsberger is considered a pioneer in researching specific models and technical solutions for architecture and planning in the tropics. Educated within the core of the European Modern Movement, under the mentorship of Hans Poelzig, Bruno Taut and Ernst May, Koenigsberger moves away from the ideal and expressionist realm to the real and specific context whilst working in India. This non–western experience triggers an interest in developing countries, mainly tropical ones. In 1954, Koenigsberger conceives a new course on Tropical Architecture at the Architectural Association in...
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In the mid–1950s, British architects Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew were among the leading figures behind the institutionalization of the Tropical Architecture field, contributing to the proliferation of publications, international conferences and establishment of academic centers. During the same time, the global shortage of housing and United Nations’ development agendas for the “third world” brought a shift in planning priorities. Focusing in that particular moment, the paper traces the efforts for the de–tropicalization of Africa and planning practice alike, through the research...
Documentation Issues
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The novelty of modern architecture in the former Portuguese African colonies derives from the fact that the ideology of the Modern Movement was interpreted locally. This built heritage is represented in terms of its responsiveness to the physical environment in which it operates, by means of Design with Climate–A Bioclimatic Approach to Architectural Regionalism (Olgyay, 1963). Combining tradition and innovation, this approach sought to address the specific socio–cultural context within which modern architecture was conceived (Kultermann, 1969). With the purpose of contributing to the...
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Many 20th century sports facilities are in need of upgrading according to present standards and the 1938 (1952) Olympic Stadium of Helsinki is no exception to the rule. The international sports federations increase their requirements and security issues become more prominent by the year. Finland’s largest stadium is mainly used in summer for soccer matches, athletics, rock concerts and other events, and additional usage throughout the year would be welcome in order to strengthen the venue’s financial position and to pay for the extensive maintenance and renovations. At the same time the...
Tributes
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Modern master Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012) was the most important Brazilian architect. Graduated in the Escola Nacional de Belas–Artes in 1934, he soon became world–known for his role, together with Lúcio Costa (1902–1998), with the design of the Brazilian Ministry of Education (1937) in Rio de Janeiro; or for their Brazilian Pavillion in New York World Fair in 1939. His solo work in the Pampulha buildings was immediately published in the catalogue of the “Brazil Builds” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1943.
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The news of his death was instantly dispersed, displacing all other issues of national or international interest. When I read the message that Louise Noelle sent to all docomomo Mexico members, I accepted it as a plain and sad confirmation of what had happened: “Dear colleagues, this tragic note is to inform about the death of architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez today, April 16. He was one of the most prominent architects of the Modern Movement and his work has been part of our writings”.
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It is with regret and sadness that docomomo Argentina informs the international docomomo community that architect Clorindo Testa passed away on April 11 2013. Testa was an architect and urban planner but also a painter whose artistic sensitivity has been always present in the way he conceived architecture.
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Born in 1934 in Milan, Roberto Segre migrated to Argentina with his family in 1939, fleeing the anti–Semitism of Benito Mussolini’s fascist government. He graduated as an architect at the University of Buenos Aires in 1960 and soon after, in 1963, settled in La Havana, Cuba, where he taught history of architecture for three decades. In 1994, he began his career as a Brazilian researcher and professor on graduate courses in urban planning at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), where he served until March 2013. During these decades...
