BCAA Travel Blog

Where do you suppose this photo was taken? Miami? Los Angeles? Sydney? Not even close. Try Africa. You are looking at the Cinema Impero in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. Never heard of Eritrea or Asmara? Join the club; few North Americans have. I admit that I knew nothing about Asmara until very recently when I discovered the city while researching a business article. It was quite a revelation. Perched high in the mountains, lined with elegant, palm-festooned boulevards and boasting the world’s finest concentration of 1930s Art Deco buildings, Asmara has been described as the most beautiful capital on the African continent—a virtual museum locked in time.

Located in the Horn of Africa, just north of Ethiopia, Eritrea was colonized by Italy, which controlled the territory from 1889 to 1941. The Italians governed with the same sense of racist superiority that characterized other colonial regimes in Africa, but their legacy would be far-reaching. In the 1920s and 1930s, a daring new architectural movement called “rationalism” emerged in Italy, and Eritrea became an architectural laboratory. Bent on constructing a new Roman Empire, Benito Mussolini gave his architects free rein to indulge their creativity in Asmara, designating it as a showcase for his fascist regime. In just six years, the population of this modest village exploded from 4,000 to 45,000, and Asmara was transformed into a stunning metropolis with more traffic lights than Rome possessed at the time.

The fascists approved of Modernism because it celebrated the machine age and technology. As a result, many of the architects’ designs employed swooping homages to trains, planes and ocean liners, and cutting-edge technology: a cinema with a retractable roof, the world’s longest cable-car route. Others flourishes were simply artistic: curved facades, Art Deco awnings and plastered porticos–all rendered in the colours of Neapolitan ice cream.

Take, for example, the aforementioned Cinema Impero. Painted in a rich earthy red, its Art Deco façade sports 45 porthole lamps, each looking like huge radio knobs. In the 1930s, filmgoers must have felt they were not only entering a palace of entertainment, but an actual entertainment machine. Movies are still shown in its 1,800-seat auditorium today and the marble, chrome and glass features in the lobby are all original.

Another giddy creation extolling speed, motion and urgency is the airplane-shaped Fiat Tagliero garage, built by the architect Giuseppe Pettazzi in 1938. It consists of a central tower and glass cockpit window which incorporates office space and a shop. On either side of the main tower are a pair of 30-metre gravity-defying wings of re-enforced concrete. Pettazzi was forced by planning laws to include pillar supports for the wings. Legend has it that during the inauguration he demanded the wooden props removed, and when the builders refused, Pettazzi settled the argument by climbing to the tip of one of the wings and, holding a revolver to the foreman’s head, threatened to kill him if they did not remove the supports. In the end the supports were removed and the wings held, just as they do today.

Other of Asmara’s architectural gemas include the cubist Africa Pension, the eclectic Orthodox Cathedral and the neoclassical Governor’s Palace, the gigantic Romanesque-style Catholic cathedral and the Renaissance-inspired Asmara Theatre.

Contrary to what one might guess, the Mediterranean influence is still very much alive in Asmara. There are numerous pizzerias and coffee bars, where hissing Gaggia machines pour out cappuccinos and lattes, as well as ice cream parlours and several restored Italian colonial villas and mansions. Cycling remains a popular sport and schoolchildren still wear the same coloured aprons that were once so ubiquitous in Italian playgrounds.

The endurance of this cultural leagacy is all the more remarkable considering that Italian rule ended in 1941, when Allied Forces liberated Eritrea in the first victory against fascism in World War II. After the war, the United Nations combined Ethiopia and Eritrea into a federation. Emperor Haile Selassie then began the brutal process of remaking Eritrea as a province of Ethiopia, and the Eritreans began their fierce battle for independence. The struggle lasted 30 years. On the Eritrean side alone, some 100,000 died. But in 1991, guerrilla leader Isiais Afewerki and his plastic sandal-wearing Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front marched into the capital. Two years later, Eritrea’s independence was formalized in a referendum.

Ironically, Asmara’s isolation from the outside world due to the long years of conflict has helped preserve its unique urban heritage. While developers with more money than sense have ripped the heart out of other African colonial cities, Eritrea’s economic stagnation has left Asmara suspended in a time warp. No major construction has taken place here since the 1940s.

Yet because of Eritrea’s poverty, it’s also true that little restoration work has been done, causing many to worry about Asmara’s future. More than 400 buildings remain from the colonial period, but almost all are now in danger from development and decay. Fortunately, the city centre is now, effectively, a protected zone where new buildings will only rarely be allowed, and in 1999, the Government of Eritrea established the Cultural Assets Rehabilitation Project (CARP). Financed with a $5 million World Bank grant, the project aims to preserve and promote the city’s architectural heritage. As well, efforts are now underway to have Asmara’s historic district classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Hopefully, they will prove succesful.

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