Haile Selassie's Imperial Modernity: Expatriate Architects and the Shaping of Addis Ababa

Author:

Levin Ayala1

Affiliation:

1. Princeton University

Abstract

In the 1960s, Addis Ababa experienced a construction boom, spurred by its new international stature as the seat of both the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the Organization of African Unity. Working closely with Emperor Haile Selassie, expatriate architects played a major role in shaping the Ethiopian capital as a symbol of an African modernity in continuity with tradition. Haile Selassie's Imperial Modernity: Expatriate Architects and the Shaping of Addis Ababa examines how a distinct Ethiopian modernity was negotiated through various borrowings from the past, including Italian colonial planning, both at the scale of the individual building and at the scale of the city. Focusing on public buildings designed by Italian Eritrean Arturo Mezzedimi, French Henri Chomette, and the partnership of Israeli Zalman Enav and Ethiopian Michael Tedros, Ayala Levin critically explores how international architects confronted the challenges of mediating Haile Selassie's vision of an imperial modernity.

Publisher

University of California Press

Subject

History,Visual Arts and Performing Arts,Architecture

Reference94 articles.

1. For a history of the OAU, see P. Olisanwuche Esedebe, Pan-Africanism: The Idea and Movement, 1776–1963, 2nd ed. (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1994).

2. Dejene H. Mariam, “Architecture in Addis Ababa,” in Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Centenary of Addis Ababa, November 24–25, 1986, ed. Ahmed Zekaria, Bahru Zewde, and Taddese Beyene (Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa City Council, 1987), 199–215. For a short discussion of Enav and Tedros's partnership, see Ayala Levin, “Zalman Enav, Michael Tedros and Addis Ababa's Imperial Modernity,” in Africa: Big Change, Big Chance (Milan Triennale 2014), ed. Benno Albrecht (Bologna: Editrice Compositori, 2014), 168–69. In the same volume see a brief account of Mezzedimi's work in Ethiopia and Eritrea: Martha Mezzedimi and Marcello Mezzedimi, “Arturo Mezzedimi: Imperial Architect,” 154–56. Chomette's work in Africa is documented extensively in Diala Touré, Créations architecturales et artistiques en Afrique sub-saharienne (1948–1995): Bureaux d'études Henri Chomette (Paris: Harmattan), 2002. See also Léo Noyer-Duplaix, “Henri Chomette: Africa as a Terrain of Architectural Freedom,” in African Modernism: The Architecture of Independence: Ghana, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, Zambia, ed. Manuel Herz (Zurich: Park Books, 2015), 271–82.

3. See Olúfémi Táíwò, How Colonialism Preempted Modernity in Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010); Jacob F. Ade Ajayi, “Colonialism: An Episode in African History,” in Tradition and Change in Africa: The Essays of J. F. Ade Ajayi, ed. Toyin Falola (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 2000), 165–74.

4. Although his focus is on Italian planning, David Rifkind points in this direction in a recent essay. See David Rifkind, “Colonial Cities at the Crossroads: Italy and Ethiopia,” in Urban Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa: Colonial and Post-colonial Planning Cultures, ed. Carlos Nunes Silva (New York: Routledge, 2015), 145–46.

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