Gondar, Ethiopia

786 SEEKING THE CITY The Very Model of a Modern Imperial City: Gondar, Ethiopia DAVID RIFKIND Florida International University INTRODUCTION logical representation with the practical needs of everyday life. Gondar exhibits a striking sensitiv- Italian urbanism during the fascist era illustrates ity to topography and historical preservation, yet the disquieting compatibility between progres- exploits these insights to reinforce the colonial au- sive planning practices and authoritarian politi- thorities’ policies of racial and class segregation. cal regimes. Cities built in Italian-occupied East The city also demonstrates the diversity of Italian Africa further demonstrate the extent to which architecture in Ethiopia, as state, institutional and modern urban design could participate in the co- private interests separately sought an appropriate ercive project of constructing imperial identities, formal expression for their facilities, sometimes both amongst Italian settlers and among African employing experimental construction techniques colonial subjects. As a case study in the design in response to the logistical diffi culties of build- and construction of Ethiopian cities under Italian ing in such a remote location. Altogether, Gondar colonial rule, Gondar displays the themes of iden- offers a valuable example for understanding the tity formation and ideological representation that form and development of many cities throughout animated urbanism in Italy’s African empire. Ethiopia and other former Italian colonies in Af- rica. Italian architects had long recognized that the modern practice of architecture was inseparable Part of the diffi culty in understanding Italian ur- from the “rational” design of cities, and that urban ban planning in East Africa stems from the fact planning was integral to the problem of housing that the Italians themselves were never quite sure the working class. City planners, whether Sitte- why they had conquered Ethiopia and declared it esque traditionalists from the Roman school of the center of their new Empire. Their stated goals Gustavo Giovannoni or CIAM-affi liated modernists ranged from agricultural and demographic colo- from the Quadrante circle, committed themselves nization to a desire for increased international to strengthening the city as the site of civic gath- prestige, all of which impacted the design of Ital- ering and collective action, and aspired to use ur- ian colonial cities. And like the new towns built ban design to foster a mass identity on the part throughout Italy during the fascist period, the of the citizenry, in accord with the fascist regime’s settlements of East Africa were constructed with insistence on obedience and sacrifi ce. Italian an eye toward their role in state propaganda and planners and their patrons saw urbanism as one an emphasis on their ability to help instill their of many tools for reforming the everyday life of inhabitants with a uniquely fascist identity. the public. A PROVINCIAL CAPITAL Gondar expanded dramatically in the late 1930s as a colonial administrative center for Italian East Gondar served as the capital of Amhara, one of Africa.1 The city bears witness to the ways colonial the six provinces created by the Ministry of Ital- authorities and their planners used urban design ian Africa to administer Ethiopia, Eritrea and So- to reconcile the fascist regime’s demands for ideo- malia. The city, which stretches along a ridge in THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN IMPERIAL CITY: GONDAR, ETHIOPIA 787 the northern Ethiopian highlands, functioned as in historical terms, noting that Gondar’s quarters the administrative, legal, military, transportation, had been segregated by ethnicity and religion communications and distribution center for north- (Muslims, Jews) since at least 1669.6 ern Ethiopia. Gondar is centered on a complex of castles built during the 17th and 18th centuries, The use of zoning to physically manifest social and when the city was the resplendent imperial capital political divisions was not restricted to colonial of Ethiopia with a population of 80,000. town planning. Throughout Italy, architects devel- oped residential building typologies calibrated to The Italians saw great propaganda value in the the social class of their inhabitants, and designed city’s status as a former imperial capital, and neighborhoods and cities with clearly delimited sought to appropriate its symbolic importance as class identities. Italians accepted these divisions a regional capital in their own empire. Yet they as natural, and insisted that urban design give denigrated the contemporary town as “presenting concrete expression to social hierarchies. During only small and miserable tukuls grouped around the fascist period (1922-1943), Italian architects the ruins of the castles,” thus requiring the new were particularly concerned with the question of conquerors “to build ex novo a city worthy of translating political order into built form. Colonial the civilization of Rome.”2 The Italians frequently architecture and planning in Ethiopia, like that of stressed that the castles could only have been built earlier Italian settlements in Libya and Eritrea, by Portuguese craftsmen, or under their supervi- added race and religion to the register of identi- sion, as a way of further justifying their “civiliz- ties to be regulated by the built environment. ing mission” among the “technologically deprived” Ethiopians.3 THE CITY PLANS Italian troops occupied Gondar on 1 April 1936, Gondar has grown largely along the lines of a and within two years 2,000 Europeans lived in master plan prepared by Gherardo Bosio in 1938 the city.4 Most of Gondar’s 14,000 Ethiopian in- and implemented that year. The plan was the sec- habitants lived south of the main castle complex ond of two proposals by the Florentine architect, – called the Fasil Ghebbi – where the ridge slopes and incorporated the administrative core of the gently down toward the major market at the city laid out to the design of the provincial offi ce southern edge of town. The Italians concentrated of technical services in 1937, as well as a number their building activity north of the Fasil Ghebbi on of streets and buildings that emerged during the two level areas adjacent to each other, but sep- city’s rapid expansion following its occupation in arated by a signifi cant change in elevation. The April 1936. While much of the city was built before lower area served as a commercial district, with the fi nal master plan was approved, Bosio’s design a wide, tree-lined street running north from the provided a blueprint for growth and organization castles, past the cinema to the prominently sited that guides the city’s growth to this day. post offi ce. The higher area immediately to the east comprised the governmental district, cen- Bosio began preparing plans for Gondar in the tered on two monumental buildings for the mili- summer of 1936, just months after the town was tary authorities, whose towers commanded dis- fi rst occupied, and before he was given a formal tant views and marked the center of power in the contract for the work by General Alessandro Pirzio new Gondar. Biroli, the military governor of Amhara. Bosio was still serving in the army while working for Biroli, The Italian authorities recognized that the castle and was based in Asmara at the time. complex, by dividing the ridge in half, served as an effective barrier for separating the city’s neigh- Bosio’s fi rst plan unrealistically presupposed a borhoods.5 Ethiopian residents were restricted more level site, over which he could impose a to the existing districts between the Ghebbi and grid of streets. To bring order and hierarchy to the market. Italians lived in the more elevated areas city, he sought to defi ne a center and a periph- north and west of the Ghebbi, around the com- ery. Bosio wanted to set the principal government mercial and administrative precincts. The colonial buildings around a great piazza on a leveled area authorities justifi ed their race-based zoning policy between the Fasil Ghebbi and the Ras Biet.7 “The 788 SEEKING THE CITY Governorate building,” Bosio explained, “symbol of the indigenous zones from those for Italian of conquest and power, must architectonically residents.”13 Bosio described the castle complex dominate the whole city and surround itself with as a natural screen separating the city along ra- the most important public buildings… in a zone cial lines. He also planned separate major roads which architecturally forms an urbanistic hierar- for African and European residents, such as the chy for the entire city.”8 Bosio intended the princi- “spine” leading south from the Ghebbi toward the pal streets of the city center to be lined with porti- “indigenous market which forms the heart of the coes and densely planted with trees, much like he black city.”14 was able to achieve later at Gimma. A peripheral road would surround the new city, and offer pan- Bosio abhorred the seeming “lack of discipline” oramic views of the valley below and Lake Tana in evident in the area’s traditional settlement pat- the distance.9 terns, and sought to order it with a circular ring of buildings defi ning the market and linear build- Biroli proved to be an enthusiastic client. In No- ings lining the major street linking the market and vember, he wrote to the Fascist Party Secretary in the Ghebbi, plus its tributaries. Whereas the 1936 the northern Italian city of Como to ask for draw- plan proposed using courtyard-centered blocks, in ings and photographs

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