Reading the Ruins of Mozambican Colonial Modernism 1948-75 as Embodied by the Grande Hotel
Emma Hall UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE 2013 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of BA in Architecture, 2013
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PREFACE Moderno Tropical, as coined by Ana Magalhães1, represents the era of Utopian architecture in Mozambique during the Portuguese Colonial years of 1945-75. Today many of these buildings stand as monumental ‘living ruins’ - their conditions possibly a lamentation of their failures. Overall by exploring the Grande Hotel in Beira and its community of residents, this essay will explore the idea that; such buildings are in fact failures, however perhaps there is a beauty to be gained from these failings that should not be overlooked. This essay will conduct a detailed historical and cultural investigation into the subject of Utopian Architecture in Mozambique, whilst assessing it in light of: colonialism, social class, beauty and permanence. These are all elements which have been neglected in the study of Mozambican Modernism and yet are all defining, major and therefore extremely relevant aspects of Mozambique and Utopian Architecture. They are also generative in revealing the underlying controversies of the subject and its place in Mozambique today.
Magalhães, Ana and Gonçalves, Inês, ‘Moderno Tropical. Arquitectura em Angola e Moçambique 1948-1975, 2009 1
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ABBREVIATIONS CIAM
Congrès internationaux d'architecture moderne (International
Congress
of
the
Modern
Architecture) FRELIMO
Frente de Libertacão de Moçambique (Mozambican Libertation Front)
RENAMO
Risisencia Nacional de Mocambique (Mozambican National Resistance)
MUD
Movimento de Unidade Democrática (The Movement of Democratic Unity)
ORTHOGRAPHY
All titles of books and periodicals retain the original language and orthography. Quotes in the body of the text and interviews with Senhor João and Olivia have been translated from Portuguese and Chiabo by Rita Hall and the author.
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ACKNOWLAGEMENTS
I would like to thank everyone who offered me their help and support; Senhor Ivo, the staff at Newcastle, minha Mãe, Chica, Senhor João, the Camões Institute, Caroline Pitt, Marta Lança and Mark Minkjan. Thanks also to the inhabitants of the Grande Hotel for allowing me to interview them and photograph their home.
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Introduction
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1. The Failure of the Hotel; Run down into failure 1.1.The Hotel’s Former Beauty; Manipulating The Precepts Of Modernism
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1.2Failed by the People; Ruin By Destruction
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2. The Failures of the Hotel A re-examination of the Actions of the Inhabitants 2.1The Inhabitants
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2.2The Failings of the Hotel
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2.3The Cultural Context
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2.4National stoicism
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2.5Cultural Disconnection
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3. The Beauty of a Living Ruin 3.1Seduced by the Ruin
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3.2The Reality
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Conclusion
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List of Illustrations
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Bibliography
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Fig 1 The Grande Hotel by Guy Tillim
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Fig 2 Beira by Guy Tillim 2008
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INTRODUCTION
Guy Tillim is a South African photographer whose work in 2009 was exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery London. The 2008 photographic series
Avenue Patrice Lumumba depicts
the
“haunting”2 nature of the remnants of modernism in the context of African ex-socialist settings [see fig. 1 & 2]. Within the frail and spoiled settings a “peculiar power” 3 is created through the paradox of simultaneous beauty and desolation. Part of Tillim’s collection is the Grande Hotel, an abandoned luxury hotel in Beira, Mozambique which today is home to over 2000 squatters4 [See fig 2]. It was this set of photographs which led me to visit the hotel in 2012 and begin my studies on Utopian Architecture built during the colonial period. Completed in 1955, the Grande Hotel, like the photographic series, is also part of a larger conversation about Mozambican Modernist Architecture built during the colonial years.
Gardner, Robert as cited in Tillim, Guy, Avenue Patrice Lumumba (2008, MA, Prestel Verlag) Foreword by Robert Gardner 3 Ibid 4 Lança, M, We, the ones from the Grande Hotel da Beira, BUALA, May 2010, Retrieved 10 December 2012, Available at: <http://robertcruiming.nl/grandehotel/?page_id=8> 2
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Termed Moderno Tropical by Ana Magalhães5, the topic’s leading source, 1948-75 architecture in Mozambique can be seen as part of the later stage of modernist architecture; born out of the conditions after the Second World War and the third generation of CIAM architects. Recognised by Magalhães is the modern aesthetic and approach influenced by Corbusier and Brazil in Mozambique’s modernist buildings6. Not addressed fully though is the more explicit connection with the humane modernism 7 movement proceeding in Britain and Europe at the same time. This can be seen in Moderno Tropical’s form, ethics and connections between architects at the time. This attributes perhaps partially to why Magalhães’ reading of these buildings is so positive. Unlike in Britain where the failures of modernism are imbedded in the study of post-war movements, most famously brutalism 8 , Moderno Tropical, comes already forgiven, but forgiven for what? What failings have not been addressed?
Magalhães, Ana and Gonçalves, Inês, ‘Moderno Tropical. Arquitectura em Angola e Moçambique 1948-1975, (2009, Lisbon, tinta-de-China) pp. 3 6 Ibid., pp. 59 7 Coleman, Nathaniel, Utopia’s and Architecture, (2005, London Routledge) pp. 1 8 McArthur, John, Brutalism, Ugliness and the Picturesque Object (,Department of Architectue Queensland, 2000) pp. 259 5
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Helping in understanding what these failings may be is the addition of two new defining factors. First is the acceptance that Moderno Tropical has not completely adhered to its traditional modernist context. Instead it is important to understand the context most inextricably bound to this Portuguese blend of modernism; Portuguese colonialism. An understanding of Portuguese colonialism is an element Magalhães does not refer to in her reading and yet is perhaps the most defining and failing aspect of modernism in Mozambique. From this her reading seems underwhelming, as if in appeasement of her Portuguese audience and follows the flaws of many Portuguese who ‘hide’ this element of history through a mixture of guilt and misunderstanding9.
Mozambique gained official independence from Portugal on June 25th 1975 after 10 years of armed struggle. This coincided with the downfall of Portugal’s fascist government Estado Novo. It is often assumed that Portuguese rule existed for 500 years following the country’s discovery by Vasco de Gama. However, the Portuguese never formally ruled Mozambique until 1891,
Marques, J, Páez, D, Valencia J, Vincze O, ‘Dealing with collective shame and guilt’, Pscicología Politica , No32, May 2006, pp. 60 9
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Fig 3 Map of Mozambique
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when a formal agreement was made with Britain and Germany10. Prior to this, Portuguese settlers profited from the land and set up trade with existing local chiefs and Arab traders. Significant are the difference in the aims of Portuguese colonisers to that of Anglophone ones. Firstly are the cultural aims set out to assimilate locals rather than to completely segregate them. Second is the use of a bureaucratic system, rather than a physical one, to separate the coloniser from the colonised.
The
implications of these systems help to understand the attitudes of Mozambicans today and those of Modernist architects and urban planners of the time. Salazarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s regime must also be understood, as it explains the sudden rise in interest for architects in coming to Mozambique and the context in which the post-war modernist architects were formed.
Another perspective taken into consideration is that of the majority of Mozambicans; the lower classes. Two years after independence, the country found itself plunged into a 15 year civil war between the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new government (FRELIMO) against the Rhodesian funded RENAMO. From this many of
Adjaye, David and Allison, Peter, Adjaye Africa Architecture: Tropical (2011, Thames and Hudson Ltd) 10
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Mozambique’s lowers classes found themselves as displaced wandering refugees. Many migrated into the cities. Beira, where the Grande Hotel is located became a popular haven and as a result the cidade de caniço (city of reeds) grew. Many assume this class are the one’s living in the cement city, where the majority of buildings are modernist. However, today this is not the case. Instead the lower class exist merely as empragadas (live in maids) or guards. Their homes instead lie in the caniço city as they did during the segregated colonial years, and it is this segregation from the modernist buildings which remains to be explored. Despite its understanding as a peripheral city, these precarious settlements of Mozambique’s cities are thriving and constantly growing areas, as exemplified in census of Maputo in which ‘precarious settlements’ housed 183,000 people in comparison to the 164,00 of the cement city11, but they remain segregated from the main city. This is another factor not taken into account in current readings of Tropical Moderno but which raises a lot of cultural, social and economic issues within the ruins of Moderno Tropical.
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Pp.181
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However, this social group, like others, are also limited by their inability to directly verbalise their historical and cultural understanding or reaction to utopian architecture. Therefore an analysis has been made in light of Paul Oliver who states;
â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The behaviours that we may observe are the perceptible symptoms of cultural intentions and meanings that may be obscured, because they are based on shared understandings that are not necessarily articulatedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;12.
From this, a reading of lower class relationship with Utopian architecture will be judged from personal accounts and the classâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s environmental behaviour as exhibited in the study of the Grande Hotel. The Grande Hotel provides a perfect base to study Tropical Moderno in light of these factors due to its unique condition as a squatting ground for its lower class inhabitants. Having addressed the context and audience this essay will bring into the study, the structure of the essay can now be discussed.
Oliver, Paul, Built to Meet Needs; Cultural Issues in Vernacular Architecture (2006, Boston: Architectural Press) pp. 51 12
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The essay will be constructed into two main parts, with their own individual chapters.
The first part will study the failings of The Grande Hotel which can be categorised into two categories. Firstly, that its failures are produced directly from the destructive inhabitants who have illegally taken shelter there. This is a popular opinion and is therefore worth exploring. Secondly it will look at the idea that the hotel’s inhabitants are not solely to blame and that their actions are actually a symptom of the failures they have found intrinsic to the building’s design. Part of this discussion will result in perhaps reconsidering the importance and viability of the previous claims of failure.
Having established the failings, the second part of this dissertation will discuss the potential beauty from these failings, drawing mainly from the argument that there is an innate pleasure13 in ruins which springs from not just the ruin aesthetic but the fact that they are ‘freighted with possibility’14.
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Dillon, Brian, Ruins (Whitechapel: Documents of contemporary Art (2011, MIT Press/ Whitecapel Gallery) pp. 11 14 Ibid., pp. 18
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The ubiquitous nature of utopian architecture in Mozambique makes its lack of readings startling, especially when considering how intertwined it actually is with the modernist movement internationally. Therefore it is intended that this dissertation will help in furthering studies into the field and draw attention to the new reading of how these unique examples of utopian architecture can deliver a new reading of its failures and beauty. More importantly though it is envisioned that the attention brought to the forgotten population of Mozambique will restore the social groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pertinence in the discussion of Mozambican Architecture in the country today.
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