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new housing offered to the inhabitants
ERIPHERY
ZANGO
I negociated with the State already. They will sell the plot as soon as the inhabitants leave
REHABILITATION NOT DEMOLITION !!!
WE WON’T GO TO ZANGO !!!
we could build a 30 storey luxurious « condo » here... the inhabitants private investors
You will be given brand new accomadations
state representatives
CITY CENTER
At 24 rua Antonio Barroso, in Luanda, there is a building. In this six storey Modern style building, erected in the sixties, they are forty apartments. These apartments have been a home to as many families, and some of them have been living there for over four decades. A month ago, the inhabitants received an unexpected and upsetting news, the city council had decided to demolish their building in months to come, due to precarious living conditions. It’s true that not having been maintained through out the years, infiltrations, mould, and dirt have tarnished the construction. Still none of these inconvenience are truly irreparable, and what the residents were actually hoping for was a rehabilitation. The demolition of the building and them therefore being stripped of their homes is a decision they don’t understand. They have decided to protest against it, but as they are only owners of their apartments, while the building and the plot belongs to the State, the ultimate decision rests with the city council. If they fail to overturn this decision, they will have no other choice than to move to the apartments the State will relocate them in. One could think being given a new flat in a recently constructed building could be an improvement for these families, but is it really the case when it means living forty kilometers away from the city center in an over-centralized metropolis such as Luanda ? When the first demolitions of residential edifices, built between the forties and the mid-seventies began, their inhabitants were happy, they believed they would have better living conditions. Only, they quickly realized that living in the recently and hastily urbanized areas they were being sent to, was far from ideal. These isolated government funded housing projects they moved in, were not easily accessible by public transportation, hours of bottling away from the city center, built in the most monotonous architecture and truly nothing more than bedroom communities. Moreover, the inhabitants of the center’s old residential buildings, who mostly are middle class families, realized that the vacated plots of the demolished buildings were systematically sold by the state to private investors. The latter would then build office towers, shopping centers or luxurious « condos » destined to the wealthier.
Rua = street
Speculation, fueled by the State and local and foreign private companies, and the gentrification that results from it, has started to slowly dislodge the middle class families from the city center, exiling them to the remote periphery. Reactions are starting to arise, as the inhabitants try to find ways to prevent these financially motivated demolitions. At 24 rua Antonio Barroso, the families decided to take matter into their own hands and create a fund to auto-finance the rehabilitation of their building, and by doing so they RESIST.
Next time I’ll buy the fruits from the zungueiras. These imported ones are so expensive ... I’VE BEEN SELLING AT THIS SPOT FOR 25 YEARS !!! I’M NOT GOING ANYWHERE !
Mam, I will ask you to leave ! street vending is prohibited here now.
You are disturbing public order !!
Let’s just go they don’t want us in the city center anymore
Mãe Maria is a zungueira, a term used to refer to the female street vendors that walk the streets of Angola, selling a variety of items. For 25 years, every morning she made her way down to the city center, carrying her marchandise in a bucket she placed on her head, while chanting « Bananas, avocados, oranges, watermelons, mangos... » to draw the attention of the passerby. While some street vendors walk all day long, mãe Maria had a permanent selling point. She sat under the shadow of a tree, in front of a residential building located on a busy street of the city center. The many passerby would buy her fruits and vegetables and she could always count on the inhabitants of the surrounding buildings, who had become regular clients through the years, to rid her of her marchandise by the end of the day. However, the forty years old residencial building was demolished on order of the city council three years ago. The inhabitants were then relocated in one of those new « low-cost » housing project the government had been funding, constructed in the distant periphery of the city. The vacated plot was then sold to a private investor who constructed a shopping center. Not only did mãe Maria, lose her regular clients, now she also has to sustain the unlawful competition of a shopping center. Even thought her prices are at least three times lower than those of the imported fruits and vegetables sold in the supermarket, she still lost many clients since the opening of the shopping center. Even worse, with all the new projects being erected to « modernize » downtown Luanda, street vendors like herself are less and less welcome in this area. The Police was given instructions by the State to disloge the street vendors, since their presence is, in their opinion, inconsistence with the idea of a « developed city ». All of the sudden, a practice that is so common in Luanda, that it became part of the urban landscape and the day-to-day of the inhabitants of the city, had now been marginalised, putting the already precarious livelihood of millions of families in jeopardy. Many of the street vendors who used to sell by mãe Maria’s spot, tired of being daily chased down by police officers, have given up and moved to more peripherical areas, where they are still tolerated. Mãe Maria refuses to do so, this has been her spot for decades. She was there long before the arrival of the shopping center and all those new office buildings, and she plans on remaining long after. The streets of Luanda’s city center have always been a place of social diversity, were the most humble street vendors and the most influent business mans would run through each other and interact.
Mãe = mother Zungueira = female street vendor
She stays because she believes that as a zungueira she has as much right to be the city center than anyone else. So everyday she keeps coming to her usual spot, displays her marchandise and waits, for the clients or the Police to come. She knows she could probably have more clients and tranquility elsewhere, but by standing her ground, in her own way, she RESISTS.
Heard they’ve been offered 10 million dollars for the house ! They’ll sell sooner or later ...
WHAT A WASTE ! Thats a nice spot for an hotel or a shopping center
THATS OU AND ITS NOT we’ve been for 30 y
UR HOME T FOR SALE ! n living here years !
Senhor Pedro is 41, he lives at 45 rua Serpa Pinto, in Luanda. He was born in this house, his parents moved in right after the independence, in 1976, and his family never left. He lives there, with his wife, their three children, his now widowed mother and his wife’s cousin who came to the city to attend college. Even though his brothers and sisters moved out a while ago, they still come to the house quite often. Every family gathering, whether to celebrate birthdays and weddings or morn a death, on special occasions or at random, are held at the family house. His house used to be one of many, he used to have neighbors, that he knew well and was even friends with, but it’s no longer the case. Since the peace was restored in Angola in 2002, the country has known significant economic growth. The real estate industry has thrived and investors, equally local and foreign, have purchased many of the extremely well located houses of the city center. They offered their owners tempting amounts of money, then demolished the houses and used the vacated plots to build high rise buildings they could then rent or sell, at very high rates. Senhor Pedro’s neighbors progressively sold their plots and most of them used the money to purchase a brand new house in one of the private condominiums, inspired by American gated communities, where every house is the same, that are being built in the outskirt of the city. Their houses were replaced by thirty storey buildings, that surround senhor Pedro’s house, depriving him of sunlight and intimacy. He now lives in the shadows of the surroundings towers with thousand of windows overlooking his backyard. He receives at least a monthly offer, from some private investor, willing to give him millions for his house. Sometimes senhor Pedro is tempted to sell. The real estate pressure he is under is becoming more and more asphyxiating, and the price of everything in the neighborhood, food, school, restaurants, is becoming higher by the day. Wouldn’t it be best to take the money and buy a bigger, brand new house in some recently urbanized residential area ? Probably, but the house he lives in, has history, his and his family’s, but also the city and the country’s history. The house was built by the end of the nineteenth century, during colonial times, and was first occupied by four generations of a portuguese family of merchants, and then by his own family after independence. The disappearance of houses such as his, equates to the loss of pieces of national heritage and pages of History. Adding to that his strong emotional attachment to the house that has always been a home to him, that he grew up in and in which he has so many memories, makes this walls priceless to him. Despite the feeling of now living in an enclave, senhor Pedro continues to refuse every offer and hopes the house remains in his family for many generations to come, and by doing so he RESISTS. Senhor = mister Rua = street
In 2030 we will have no reason to envy New York or Dubai
LUANDA 2010
what about local identity !?
BUT THAT’S NOT LUANDA ANYMORE !
Luanda city center will become a bustling business hub thanks to audacious contemporary architecture projects ...
of cour building
state representative
private investor
WHAT ABOUT HERITAGE !?
W w
Andre is a young architect, today with a few friends he’s attending a presentation at Luanda’s city hall. The city council will present to the public the master plan and project for « Luanda 2030 ». He has great expectations. For decades the country has kind of stagnated because of the war. During those years, due to lack of maintenance the buildings, roads and infrastructures of the city have deteriorated. The lack of new constructions combined with the arrival of millions of persons fleeing the conflicts and the poverty that ravaged the countryside, has led to the expansion, multiplication and saturation, of auto-constructed residential areas resulting from a spontaneous occupation of land, known as musseques. The musseques are often considered as « slums » due to lack of basic infrastructures, which results in precarious sanitary conditions and the sometimes « illegal » status of their inhabitants. Close to half of Luanda population lives in the musseques. Andre expected the city council to address all these issues, that had been left aside due to political and economical unstability. Now that the peace has been restored and the economy is « booming », he wants to know what will be done to rehabilitate the buildings from the historical center of the city, to improve leaving conditions in the many musseques and what new projects will be promoted by the State to make Luanda a more livable city. He thought this would be the matters discussed during this presentation, and was ultimately deeply disappointed .
rse a few heritage g will be preserved
LUANDA 2030
Why copy Dubai when we can have our own architecture ?
The projects presented by the state representative and the private investors were focused only in transforming the historical center of the city in yet another business hub, with it’s usual glazed skyscrapers and commercial galleries. Not only would this project endanger most of the historical fabric of the city, but they also promote an architecture that is totally unsuitable for the tropical climate of Luanda. Those concrete, steel and glass tower would be totally unlivable without air conditioning. MOST OF THE HISTORICAL CENTER WILL BE DESTROYED !!!
Plus, he feels like this project would make Luanda into nothing more than a pale copy of New York or Dubaï, stripping the city of all that makes it unique and specific. Luanda has an heterogeneous city center, were centuries old early colonial constructions, mid-twentieth century Modern buildings, and auto-constructed houses and shacks coexist, just as well as all social classes. All that would be lost if this new project that specifically targets only the wealthiest should come to be. Luanda is about to heed the calls of the sirens of globalization. At the end of the presentation he was relieved to notice that other members of the audience shared his view and skepticism towards this project. After discussing with some of them afterwards, they decided to create an association to fight for the preservation of the city center and try to increase awareness of heritage conservation amongst the inhabitants of the city. They would promote thematic walks through the city, start petitions, organize protests, to try to preserve as much buildings as possible and by doing so they would RESIST. Musseque = auto-constructed settlement resulting from spontaneous occupation of land
R E C N AT S I S E