Asmara's Colonial Heritage

Asmara’s Colonial Heritage: Preserving a problematic chapter in the history and the building of a nation R6 Anne Marte Aure Brent Patterson 1 July 2020 Cover page Asmarinos back at the once forbidden Market Square. Courtesy Sami Sallinen.1 1 https://samisallinen.photodeck.com/-/galleries/asmara CONTENTS Asmara under Italian occupation 4 Eritrea fghting for independence 16 Underlying values in heritage politics 19 Asmara’s heritage conservation facing UNESCO’s 21 European bias Conclusion 25 Bibliography 27 Asmara under Italian occupation The boundaries of Eritrea were, as was the case for other post-colonial countries, established during the “Scramble for Africa” in the late 19th century. Eritrea became an Italian colony in 1889 with the port of Massa- wa on the Red Sea as its frst capital. Six years later, Asmara became the new capital when the Italian government merged four existing villages into one. Located 2000 metres above sea level, the surrounding highlands offered milder climatic conditions and better water supply than the initial capital. With plenty of land and few people, Italy’s Eritrean colony was seen as “an absolutely new country” that was to be peacefully built by hard-working Italian families.2 At this time, Italy was struggling with poverty and the lack of land pri- marily in the southern parts of the country. As a direct consequence, a signifcant number of poor peasants began leaving for the Americas. The Italian Prime Minister, Francesco Crispi, was worried about the de- mographic development and the consequences this could have for the building of the Italian nation.3 In his speeches, he played upon national- ist and expansionist rhetoric where reproduction and expanding borders would be necessary to survive. Manual labour would provide the basis of national and political identity and cohesion. According to Crispi, by offering peasants land in Eritrea they thus became ‘true’ representatives of the razza italiana (Italian race), while building and expanding in this new territory.4 2 Rhiannon Noel Welch, Vital Subjects: Race and Biopolitics in Italy, Liverpool University Press, 2016, p. 57. 3 Ibid. p. 9. 4 Ibid. p. 12 4 The historiography of the Risorgimento, which is the term used to de- scribe the Italian nation building, is also depicted as an aesthetic activity. Monuments, poetry, opera, painting, and later on, cinema, all represented powerful tools in the formation of a national identity. Architecture and urban planning, are public art par excellence because they involve the body in public space and therefore played a particular role in developing this new national identity. The functional and practical aspects of city design supply to their aesthetic language and therefore affects the everyday life to all citizens. Unlike other North African colonial cities, Asmara of- fers an unique example since the Italian’s planned the whole modern set- tlement from the ground up. Considering the entire town was established upon this idea of a total project, it contains a signifcant concentration of modern buildings underlining the Italians’ totalitarian aspirations. There- fore, Asmara held an important role in creating a certain image of a new society that was forcefully connected with the image of the “new man”. The grid system was employed in the urban planning to accommodate further expansion of the city, starting in the centre (the European zone). The Italian architect-engineer Odoardo Cavagnari’s plan of 1916 pro- moted racial segregation.5 It was a plan designed following functional principles that enabled the control of the native population using zoning to decrease encounters between Europeans and Eritreans.6 5 Laura Vaughan, Mapping Society: The Spatial Dimensions of Social Cartography. London: UCL Press, 2018. p. 155. 6 Ibid. p. 154. 5 Figure 2 Racial Zoning Map of the City of Asmara, 1916. Courtesy Edward Denison and the Asmara Heritage Project.7 In this plan, Asmara was divided into four distinct urban quarters (see fg. 2), one exclusively for Europeans, a second for Arabs, Jewish and Greek merchants, a third for Eritreans, and the last one designated for industry. The Eritrean vernacular buildings that were left from the four villages, prior to the European invasion of Asmara, were demolished because they prevented the expansion of the city. In the socio-political context of this time, the native vernacular architecture was seen as a symbol of poverty.8 Eritreans were forced out of the centre, being moved to the north, which was separated from the rest of the city by the industrial zone.9 Although Cavagnari’s urban plan made it harder for encounters between the different communities in Asmara, the Market Square quickly became an exception. As the hub of commercial activities, it became an important social gathering place. In the late 1930s the Market Square was 7 L. Vaughan, op. cit., p. 154. 8 Kabila Faris Hmood, Conservation - Rehabilitation of Architectural and Urban Heritage, Intech Open, 2019. p.8. 9 Ibid. p. 155. 6 transformed by demolishing the old market stalls, replacing them with a series of uniform buildings with arcades at street level.10 The buildings formed a large piazza between them. Quickly after the improvements of the square, Mussolini introduced his racial law, and the market area was considered socially unacceptable by the fascists.11 Due to the complicated geography and complex topography, most of As- mara was constructed using local labour. This was hard manual work that demanded a large number of men. Eritrean labour was considerably cheaper than Italian, besides, the Eritreans living in the city very much outnumbered the Italian population. (Between 1895 and 1934 there were only 4000 Italians living in Asmara, compared to 100 000 Eritreans.)12 During the frst years of colonisation, Eritrean workers dug trenches for water and sewage pipes; they installed power lines, quarried rocks for buildings and for the paving of streets.13 In fact, they were building them- selves out of the city. Cavagnari’s plan refected how the Italians adopted a European layout with squares, gardens and boulevards.14 The plan re- sulted in improved levels of hygiene, but only for the European population. Despite the large number of Eritreans living in Asmara, the Eritrean population was allocated very little land compared to the European one. The underdeveloped native quarter was extremely dense and created a variation in the standard of living within the city. In terms of morphology and architecture, it was closer to typical villages found in the Eritrean highlands. The native population lived more or less independently using their own building techniques with very little help from the Europeans. 10 Asmara Heritage Project, “Amara – Africa’s Modernist City” (the UNESCO World Heritage Nomination Dossier, UNESCO, Paris 2017). p 117. 11 Asmara Heritage Project, op cit., p 117. 12 Edward Denison, Guang Yu and Naigzy Gebremedhin, Asmara: Africa’s secret modern city. London, New York : Merrell, 2003. p 52. 13 Asmara Heritage Project, op cit., p 299. 14 E. Denison, G. Yu and N. Gebremedhin, op cit., p. 33. 7 The Eritrean vernacular architecture found in the highlands was largely constructed from wood, stone and soil and two or three different residen- tial typologies were to be found. The hidmo, generally rectangular in plan with a fat roof and the agdo based on a circular plan with a conical grass roof. The hidmo has a main entrance covered by an extended roof which provides shelter for livestock at night and several side entrances. The roof is constructed from layers of branches placed on top of stone walls that can be up to a metre thick. The agdo is often much smaller meas- uring approximately three metres in diameters. The walls are also made of stone and the roof is covered in grass. The dwelling has one entrance and the interior space is often divided into two separate rooms.15 The Eritreans continued to use these ancient vernacular styles and building techniques when they were sent up to the North, to the native quarter of Abashawl. In this dense quarter, an important social and cultural development took place. Most residents would agree that this quarter remains the heart of the capital.16 Another unique, older vernacular constructing technique used in the highlands is the monkey head technique. The name comes from the dow- els that were binding together horizontal layers of wood that looked like monkey heads. (see fg. 3) Unfortunately all the monkey head construc- tions were destroyed during the construction of modern Asmara and the sole evidence of its existence can be found in Cavagnari’s interpretation in his design for the Degghi Selam, at the entrance of the St Mary’s Or- thodox Cathedral built in 1917. Asmara Theatre, located on the grand boulevard Viale Mussolini (today Harnet Avenue) was designed in 1919 and was the frst purpose-built 15 Asmara Heritage Project, op cit., p 260. 16 Ibid., p 296. 8 Figure 3 Cavagnari’s interpretation of the monkey head technique in the Degghi Selam,1917. Courtesy Sami Sallinen.17 venue for the performing arts in Asmara.18 It was one of the last works of Odoardo Cavagnari, and the program, in addition to the building’s style itself, indicated the importance of representing Italian nationalism. The most distinct feature of the facade is the portico including seven Roman arches supported by Ionic columns. (see fg. 4) The building has two entrances; the main entrance, marked by two arched doorways that lead up to two elegant sweeping staircases, reserved at the time for Europe- ans, and a back entry with tiny stairs leading up to the balcony for the Eritreans.19 Constructed in reinforced concrete, it experimented with this new material in Romanesque and Renaissance styles.

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