Programme
20 july
16h30 – 17h20 Opening Session – Pedro Ressano Garcia
Keynote Speaker
Pedro Ressano Garcia Arquitecto, tem-se dedicado a estudar a reconfiguração das cidades portuárias, tema da sua tese de mestrado e de doutoramento. No seu atelier, em Lisboa, procura combinar teoria e práctica em projectos de arquitectura e desenho urbano, participando também em concursos nacionais e internacionais. Iniciou o seu percurso académico como docente na Universidade de Berkeley, na Califórnia, e, desde 1997, é assistente da cadeira de Projecto na Universidade Lusófona, Lisboa. Tem participado como professor convidado e conferencista em universidades portuguesas e estrangeiras. Desde 2010 é Coordenador do European Workshop on Waterfront Urban Design e participa regularmente em workshops internacionais. Foi bolseiro da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian e da Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia. Publica regularmente em livros, revistas e seminários internacionais. Em 2010 recebeu o prémio de arquitectura Pancho Guedes.
Introduced by
José Gomes Pinto, CICANT – Universidade Lusófona, holds a PhD in Philosophy. He teaches in the School of Architecture, Arts and Information Technologies at Lusófona University in Lisbon, Portugal, where he is the Vice-Dean. He is also Invited Professor at Fine Arts Faculty, Lisbon University, Master in Communication Design and New Media. He taught also as a Guest Professor at Salamanca University, Spain, and Évora University, Portugal. He is the head of a PhD Program in Philosophy and of a graduation in Media Art. He was a visiting post-doctoral fellow at Humboldt University, Faculty of Philosophy, Medienwissenschaft Seminar, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Friedrich Kittler. His main areas of interest are Aesthetics and Theory of Art, Media Art and Media Theory, Philosophy of Technology, Philosophy of Communication.
17h30 – 21h10 Documentaries
Portuguese Colonial & Pos-Colonial Hybrid Architectures
Grande Hotel, 60’, Beira – Mozambique, by Lotte Stoops, 2010
In one of the grandest hotels in the world, born of and to luxury, today you enter ‘at own risk’. More than 2500 people live there without water or electricity. They have taken possession of the building and manipulated not only the stones but also the dreams. A journey through present and past of a city in a city; a story about colonial megalomania, revolutionary vanity and feeling at home.
African URBAN Dreams, 50’, Maputo – Mozambique, by Noé Mendelle, 2012
In a country which has lived through so much political and historical turmoil, it matters a lot for families to invest enormous effort and savings in the building of their home. The film explores how their initiative and the rapid expansion of Maputo both solves but also threatens people’s dreams of owning a permanent home. Catarina, Mayla, Maria, Francesco and Teresa all have a different use and way of life of the bairros. By entering their life we get an insight of their understanding of what is a home and what is at stake.
CASALATA, 15’, Mindelo – Cape Verde, by Ângelo Lopes and Lara Plácido, 2013
The high cost of construction, inflation in the cost of property and land, in conjunction with the growing rate of unemployment, make purchasing or renting a home difficult for most Cape Verdians. The construction of illegal shelters has therefore spread and is often the only option for poor families who have no housing alternatives or means. Is this illegality a crime?
Hybrids in Other African Countries
Habitat Marocain. André Studer in Conversation with Sascha Roesler, 30’, Zurich – Switzerland, by Sasha Roesler, 2011
If, as various sources suggest, it was clear from the start that the buildings would undergo continual adaptation, then we can only really understand Habitat Marocain if we examine its life post-completion. The post-and-slab construction method (using pillars rather than load-bearing walls) chosen for Habitat Marocain made it particularly suitable for modification. Over the years, many of the 1.8-m-high walls of the patio balconies were extended upwards and ceilings were added so as to gain more inside space. The interview with André Studer recalls how Habitat Marocain was planned and built and reflects on the reasons for its subsequent transformation. Studer describes the complex intercultural background of a project designed by Swiss architects working under French planning regulations and a French political regime and intended to provide housing for Moroccans in colonial Morocco. The interview with André Studer was conducted at his home in Gockhausen near Zurich (Switzerland) on June 16, 2006, in other words, around fifty years after Habitat Marocain was built.
Negotiating Space: Old Fadama, 13’, Accra – Ghana, by Barbara Roosen, Ana Beja da Costa, Nii Obodai and Nyani Quarmyne (funded by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation)
Old Fadama is an exemplar of the environmental reality of many African cities, where the urban population, through the manner in which it lives, far outstrips the resilience of ecological systems. This particular “toxic neighborhood”, built on waste accumulation on the banks of the Odaw River and Korle Lagoon, embodies some of the most pressing environmental challenges facing contemporary African cities with regard to water resource conservation and waste management. At the same time, it is a microcosm of the social and economic realities of rural-urban migration, powerfully reinforcing the need for recognition of the impact this phenomenon continues to have on African cities and their urban environments. Now more than ever there is a need for fresh thinking that allows for positive change that addresses environmental issues while recognizing, preserving and reinforcing the basic rights and dignity of slum residents.
21h10 – 21h40 Discussion
21 july
16h30 – 20h00 Documentaries
Hybrids in Other African Countries
Africa Shafted: Under One Roof, 55’, Johannesburg – South Africa, by Ingrid Martens, 2011
Filmed in Africa’s tallest residential building located downtown Johannesburg, South Africa, that housed more than 4,000 people, this is a serious, poignant, humorous, and uplifting universal documentary. It gives you an honest glimpse at the tragic reality of xenophobia through the eyes of people from every corner of Africa living under one roof. It also conveys a powerful message that through dialogue and understanding, respect starts to take root.
Many words for modern. A survey of Modern Architecture in Tanzania, 60’, Tanzania, by Jord den Hollander, 2007
In 1950 architect Anthony B. Almeida was one of the first to introduce modern architecture in Tanzania. At that time architectural modernism was the preferred expression of the intended colonial welfare state. After Independence in 1961 Nyerere’s African socialism used the same architectural style to convey the hope and strength of the new African nation. Following Almeida and some of his colleagues, the film questions what is left of the dreams and ideals of this first generation. It searches for new definitions of happiness in booming African cities like today’s Dar es Salaam. The film documents the everlasting human pursuit of modernity, not only in architecture but also in contemporary urban life.
http://www.manywordsformodern.com
Dr Duncans Tema, 20’, Tema – Ghana, by Jord den Hollander, 2009
Dr. Duncan What is life like in the modernist cities that were built in the sixties in Africa? How did local culture combine with western planning? You would expect a mismatch on so many levels, but what is it really like? This short movie, made by filmer/architect Jord den Hollander and commissioned by Crimson Architectural Historians (as part of their project New Towns on the Cold War Frontier) depicts daily life in the harbour city Tema in Ghana. This city was designed in 1960 by the Greek planner Constaninos Doxiadis. We are being shown around Tema by the most famous DJ of Ghana, Dr. Duncan, who grew up in this remarkable city.
The Arcades Project 2.0, 10’, Kampala – Uganda, by Thomas Aquilina and Alex Lyons, 2015
A documentary-film on the downtown arcade buildings in Kampala. The work was produced collaboratively, supported by the Ugandan Arts Trust, and is part of a wider research project at Cambridge Design Research Studio at The University of Cambridge.
Keeping the City in Line?, 10’, Kampala – Uganda, by Thomas Aquilina and Alex Lyons, 2015
A documentary-film on the partially disused railway line cutting a distinct east-west route through Kampala. The work was produced collaboratively, supported by the Ugandan Arts Trust, and is part of a wider research project at Cambridge Design Research Studio at The University of Cambridge.
The Terrace, 25’, Nairobi – Kenya, by Laura Horelli, 2011
As a child Laura Horelli and her family lived in a row house in Nairobi, Kenya, for a period of four years before moving back to Helsinki, Finland. The video revisits the family’s former home situated in a gated and guarded compound in the neighbourhood of Kilimani. The compound consists of four vaguely modernist row houses, which were designed by the architect Braz Menezes and constructed in the late 1970s by the Kenyan Indian owner Mehnga Singh Juttla, who also resided there. Shots of the buildings and grounds are interspersed with sequences in which the artist sifts through a series of photographic prints, taken by her mother in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Horelli reflects upon the social and physical environment of the compound, concentrating on the terrace opening into the gardens and her memories of Esther, a Kenyan woman employed to help with domestic work, who lived with her own children in the back of the compound, hidden from view. The video focuses on the spatial dynamics of the compound, the private and public spaces navigated differently by children, “Nairobi Finns” and Kenyan workers. The narrative touches subtly on Horelli’s parents’ work in the UN and the women’s organization Maendeleo ya Wanawake as well as on the conditions in postcolonial Kenya during the dictatorship of President Daniel arap Moi.
20h00 – 20h30 Discussion
22 july
16h30 – 19h00 Portuguese Colonial & Pos-Colonial Hybrid Architectures
African Species, Luanda – Angola, Filipe Afonso and Vasco Magalhães (Arquitectos Anónimos)
Can the new computational technologies, interpreting the nature’s processes, significantly change the role of design in the futures of space conception? This project presents an urban dwelling proposal for Luanda city outskirts, dealing with specific geographic conditions, common in semi-arid climates, contributing for the idea of a native functional urban development. This proposal intends to create a model able to translate social and cultural particularities of being African, using material systems inspired in singularities observed in African biological diversity as source of inspiring forms and shapes. The complexity of Nature’s shapes is built up by modulated repetition of a few basic types of structure. The exploration of biological entities, like the African Anophelines Larvae, as an information source from the viewpoint of evolution, differentiation and self-organization of geometries and shapes was used as a metaphor for the development of this “African Species” dwelling project.
Luanda, Cidade Assíntota – Espaço Público da Cidade Informal, Luanda – Angola, Maria João Teles Grilo (METAPOLIS – Planeamento, Arquitectura e Consultoria)
Cerca de 50% da população mundial vive em cidades informais. Estima-se que em 2050 essa percentagem suba para 70%. Se por um lado esta cidade regista um nível de sobrevivência, ausência de infraestruturas sociais, sanitárias, os seus cidadãos assumem-se como investigadores e decisores da transformação urbana. Todo este potencial constitui um tipo de lógicas e de instrumentos que o urbanismo não tem incorporado como válidos. E, também, não se regista em mapas e desenhos bidimensionais. Por isso, a metodologia adoptada é (the visual research). O registo e mapeamento visual (fotografias, vídeos e registos áudios) usam método indutivo. Por um exercício de investigação de acupunctura urbana, propomo-nos extrair as incrustrações preciosas e malignas que existem na dinâmica urbana informal. Descobrimos que os seus habitantes inventam estratégias, novos módulos, novos conceitos, estabelecem redes humanas e técnicas, encontrando soluções e compromissos urbanos essenciais a revisão do urbanismo, como disciplina de intervenção, de forma a acrescentar e repensar, conceitos e linhas estratégicas para fazer fluir a cidade contemporânea.
Seis-Quartos: Arquitetura Popular: Um encontro entre o tradicional e o colonial, Guiné-Bissau, Geraldo Pina (Universidade Lusófona de Humanidade e Tecnologias)
Com a colonização portuguesa da, hoje, Guiné-Bissau, alterou-se completamente o panorama daquele território. Os povos que o habitavam, que tinham práticas culturais e formas de vida muito ligadas à terra e à natureza (selvagens, na ótica eurocêntrica), viram-se obrigadas a mudar e a adaptar a forma de viver dos colonialistas. Visto que as alterações culturais acontecem de forma bastante lenta, porque a cultura, baseada em tradições, é resiliente às mudanças, nunca os colonialistas portugueses conseguiram se impor tal e qual queriam sobre os “guineenses”, porém provocaram grandes mudanças que alteraram todo o espectro cultural dos povos guineenses, inclusive na sua arquitetura. Os povos guineenses que sempre praticaram a arquitetura vernacular, muito ligado à terra, de repente, começaram a alterar a sua forma de construir, imitando a arquitetura colonial portuguesa, no entanto, afastando-se da tradição e não alcançado a meta de construir como os colonialistas, acabaram por criar uma tipologia e estilo próprio, a arquitetura guineense: o “seis-quartos”.
La modernidad ignorada. Arquitectura moderna de Luanda, Angola, Paz Núñez Martí & Roberto Goycoolea Prado (Universidad de Alcalá)
“La modernidad ignorada” is a network of researchers interested in the study, cataloguing and recuperation of less known aspects of urbanist modernist patrimony in Africa. The project is coordinated at the Universidade de Alcalá (Espanha) by Roberto Goycoolea Prado y Paz Núñez Martí. The extensive research by Angolan, Portuguese and Spanish architects and historians, had various outcomes in the past years, which will be presented during this communication: a digital platform/archive/ catalogue with photographic material and historic information of the most representative buildings of the modernity in Luanda, a publication, a travelling exhibition, various researche articles etc.
19h00 – 19h30 Discussion
23 july
15h30 – 19h00 Panel 1 – Colonial Hybrid Architectures
Navel-gazing in the Study of Colonial Era Architecture in Africa, Foumban – Camaroon, Mark Dike DeLancey (DePaul University)
The study of architecture in Africa during the colonial period has tended to focus entirely on introductions by Europeans, and on occasion examine how Africans adopted or responded to these new approaches. This approach is more or less a continuation of the colonial paradigm of history in Africa being the history of Europeans in Africa, and neglects to fully privilege the architectural innovations of Africans themselves. A study of the Palace of King Njoya in Foumban, Cameroon will provide one example of how focusing on adoptions from European architecture has blinded architectural historians to the full range of references in this extraordinary work. Njoya’s palace indicates how the competition for prestige between African rulers led to surprising innovations that superseded anything introduced from Europe. Yet these innovations have been thus far largely overlooked. Placing King Njoya’s palace in a broader context, including the palace of King Manga Bell in Douala, the palace of King Achirimbi II of Bafut, and the palaces of Banyo and Ngaoundéré, will help convey to what degree Cameroonian rulers were looking at each other’s works as much as those of the colonizers. It will also clarify that this spirit of innovation did not begin, nor did it end, with the colonial period.
The Sabena Tropical Towers in Kinshasa, Kinshasa – D. R. Congo, Manlio Michieletto & Alexis Kabeya (ISAU – Higher institute of architecture and urban planning in Kinshasa)
This text gets back a research carried out at the ISAU, Higher institute of architecture and urban planning in Kinshasa, regarding the application of the architectural tropical grammar in the highrise building construction. The French architect Claude Laurens was called in the 40’s-50’s by the Sabena Airlines to design all the company’s buildings, above all dwellings for pilots and officials. Among the different projects plays an important role in the in hybridization between local climate and modern architecture the realized project of Sabena Towers in Kinshasa.
Hybrid Repair Strategies for Hybrid Urban Architectures. The Case of Kaloleni, a 1940s Neighbourhood in Nairobi/Kenya, Marijke Martin (University of Groningen), Pauline Bezemer (University of Groningen) & Robert van Kats (DASUDA)
The growing fascination for sub-Sahara African cities – within such domains as Urban History, Cultural Geography, Urban Sociology, Planning and Design – seems to underestimate the need for thorough insight into origins, transformation and current conditions of native neighborhoods as built since the 1920s. These neighbourhoods turn out to house interesting hybrid typologies and architectures, due to their complex origins and transformation over time. It seems logical therefore that these neighbourhoods require intelligent urban renewal strategies, reflecting their historically bound hybrid characteristics. The historical analysis and the renewal plan in the pilot case of Kaloleni illustrates how hybrid urban design and architecture can help to (re)create layered qualities of space through building upon the existing, and through the inclusion of both stakeholders and inhabitants during the participatory process of historic analysis, plan making and future implementation.
Asmara – African’s Jewel of Modernity. A Photographic Presentation, Asmara – Eritrea, Stephan Boness
Asmara, capital of the state of Eritrea, remains a living museum of modern architecture and is a wonderful visual timepiece. The city is considered to be an impressive example of European urban construction of the 20th century. To this day, the influence of the former colonial power of Italy on the architecture of the city from the early 20th century to the 1940’s remains visible. Many of the buildings, erected in the futuristic, expressionistic or rationalistic style have been preserved and dominate the cityscape of Asmara. The architecture of this period does not fit neatly into stylistic categories. In Asmara you find avant-garde buildings next to reactionary architectural elements, sometimes a symbiosis of both.
http://www.iponphoto.com/en/topic/13.news.html
17h30 – 18h00 Discussion
18h00 – 19h00 Painel 2 – New Hybrid Architectures
An Adapted Urbanity: an Example of New Starting Points for African Cities, the Charles de Gaulle Boulevard in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), Halimatou Mama Awal (National School of Architecture of Grenoble)
The necessity of a sustainable city makes the intelligence of the “already there” conspicuous. It entails putting the existing local human-material resources into use a new starting point for an architectural thought. Today, the informal economy “système D” allows for the subsistence of African cities. Here exists community initiatives in the form of formal-informal interdependence (Rem Koolhaas 2000), the concept of people as infrastructure (Simone 2004) by which the people produce subsistence devices to overcome institutional economic failures, and an architectural form, village community (Francis Kere 1998). From these attitudes of learning the modus vivendi of a people, I developed in my thesis (Mama Awal 2015), knowledge for new means of project, beginning with a constructed synthesised set of figures. From here the figure of ‘tar’ was developed, around which small facilities (eg. trade, economic activities) diffused in the metropolis of Ouagadougou. The paved roads of the capital (tar) generate multiple partnership in informal and formal sectors, causing the system to add value by association with each other.
Curating Architecture: On the Road in Burkina Faso, Ayca Beygo (Architekturmuseum der TU München)
The first retrospective exhibition of Francis Kéré will be held in Architekturmuseum in Munich from November 2016 to February 2017. This is the story of an experimental trip, a report of life in Burkina Faso, an evidence of hybridity and the search of a language to narrate the architecture of Francis Kéré who represents the hybrid himself. The combination of diversities in Burkina Faso led us start looking at every possible element around. Filming, was an inevitable instrument providing us a broad perspective to tell the stories of the hybrid. The complex task of curating, the process of creating the exhibition as the final product will be presented by stories, photos, short footages, the architect and the architecture itself.
19h00 – 19h30 Discussion