Years ago, in George Ayittey’s Africa in Chaos, I read about African cities replicating European landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, hoping to attract tourists. Unfortunately, I can’t find any photographs or references of this practice online. But, the Wikipedia entry for Architecture of Africa is a fascinating read, “The Italian futurists saw Asmara as an opportunity to build their designs. Planned villages were constructed in Libya and Italian East Africa, including the new town of Tripoli, all utilising modern designs.” Here’s an article on the capital of Eritrea, and another from the NYT, “Bold experimentation that might have gone too far in Europe was permitted, even encouraged, in this colonial outpost. ‘The Italians tried to express the modern Roman empire in grand terms on a blank slate, just as the British did in Delhi,’ said Gabriel Abraham, an Eritrean architect based in Cambridge, Mass. What remains today is an architectural mishmash, but one that makes Asmara one of rarest concentrations of modernism in the world.” Here’s a book about “Africa’s Secret Modernist City.” (And some Flickr images.)

Posted by Joanne on Jun 19, 2008 | Comments | Link

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