Arquitectura Moderna na África Lusófona: recepção e difusão das ideias modernas em Angola e Moçambique

Jéssica Marques

Key information

Authors:

Jéssica Marques (Jéssica Marques Bonito)

Supervisors:

Ana Cristina Dos Santos Tostões (Ana Cristina Dos Santos Tostões)

Published in

12/12/2011

Abstract

The architecture of the Modern Movement found great resistance in our country, due to our political situation, a dictatorial regime. This situation lasted for about forty-five years, so the Portuguese architecture didn?t participate in the development of European architecture, or even global. It was a system with rigid ideals that were also imposed on architecture, which had monumental and nationalistic features. With the end of World War II in 1945 and the consequent fall of the Nazi regime, with which Salazar identified himself, he was forced to make some changes in his Estado Novo, which was also in danger of disappearing. In this context takes place in 1948 the First National Congress of Architecture, to discuss the problems of Portuguese architecture. From this congress comes a younger generation of architects that had the will and courage to face the regime and claim the international principles of the Modern Movement. Some architects of this generation ended up living and working for the African colonies, especially Angola and Mozambique. Over there they developed a freer architecture, because they were away from centralized power. This dissertation intends to show how the ideals of the Modern Movement circulated among our architects and the characteristics of modern architecture built between 1948 and 1975 in African colonies. There for it was developed a study about four African cities and the life and work of some architects that planned there.