Art deco capital of Africa
In 1890 Italy colonized much of present day Eritrea. The first wave of Italian settlers arrived 20 years later. In 1936 under Mussolini, Eritrea, Ethiopia and what was then Italian Somaliland were “united” under the Kingdom of Italy. Asmara was chosen to be its industrial centre.
By that stage more than half the almost 100,000 residents of the city were Italian. Mussolini, who wanted to oversee the birth of the New Roman Empire in Africa, ordered rapid investment in infrastructure. Italian architects, far away from the style-cramping, red tape of the motherland, were eager to experiment with a virtually empty canvas. In the five short years between 1936 and 1941 over 150 new buildings were constructed, with Art Deco being the predominant style. The result was a thoroughtly well thought out, modern, almost futuristic, African city.
