Date: Monday, 14 August 2017
CO DECISION,
Eritrea: Asmara 'heritage of humanity' Italian heritage
14 Aug 2017 -
It has all but added little to us that the UNESCO recently declared Asmara "a heritage of humanity" with the motivation: "an exceptional example of modernist urbanism". Yet it would have to be interesting in more than one profile.
L ' Eritrea is the only country where the "stone", which featured sometimes irrationally the Italian colonization, has had time to leave a trace structured.
The Somalia has always been neglected backwater. In Libya the continuing instability and the prevalence given to agricultural development (yes, with fine examples of rural architecture ) have reduced the quality and quantity of interventions. In Ethiopia, the "imperial" projects did not have time to be realized: in all major cities in the country, only the traces of the great constructions started and remained unfinished; And our attempt to retrieve up-to-date urban plans, to send them to the Ethiopian government, did not succeed, despite some attempts.
Living example of Italian architecture in the twentieth century
In Eritrea, however, no time and effort have allowed to give life, especially to Asmara, to what has become a real living example of the history of Italian architecture of the twentieth century: from fake- Tyrolean and pseudo-liberty indicating the status of the first settlers, the great urban development of the fascist period, its mixing of rationalist exploits and grungy magniloquence, to the "palazzinari" of the Second World War, the last sign of an Italian presence that Continued uninterrupted until final expulsion in the Seventies.
So far, this might seem like a somewhat different amarcord of colonial history. If it were not for a fact: that architecture and that urban dimension were not only and not so preserved - which is perhaps inevitable in a poor country that was and remains - but introjected by the country that colonial occupation had undergone. I do not think there are similar examples in other countries, where the legacies of former colonizers have been sometimes accepted and sometimes destroyed, but have always been recognized as strangers.
Autonomous colonial
heritage architecture The most accurate recent country history analysis of the country is not Italian, but it is contained in the beautiful volume: 'Asmara', a work by a group of Eritrean architects who have analyzed it as part of their heritage cultural. By making that modernist architecture and rationalist urban development as many indigenous models on which to continue to build the country's development.
It seemed to me to be worth mentioning. Because I believe it is an unprecedented example of how a daughter colonial legacy of a logic of exploitation has become an enrichment and growth factor that is assumed to be the country's own exploitation. Leaving aside the "Italian" dimension to recapture the "internal" value of the value that makes it a unicum.
Vital Cultural Testimonials and Lethal Political Derivatives
There are no such complete examples in Italy - with the partial exception of places such as Pontinia or Sabaudia - so that those who want to study Italian rationalism and the relationship with the architecture of the whole twentieth century will Do so only by analyzing this testimony - at a time preserved and vital - of Eritrean architecture.
This is something we should be pleased, especially if we look at how things are different in terms of political identity. Isaias Afewerki was the head of the struggle for national independence, but, a farewell vote, first launched Eritrea into one of the most absurd and bloody territorial wars that Africa knew, to turn into a bloody satrape. Demonstrating that he had badly misused the teachings he had at the University of Rome, where he was also one of the protagonists of the student movement ...