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Asmara - The Frozen City
Asmara,
the capital of Eritrea, remains a living museum
of
Italian "Nuova Architettura".
Asmara is a wonderful timepiece. Although its
origins date back more than 700 years, the city
really exploded into life after the arrival of
Italian colonists in the 1930s.
Inevitably the new inhabitants brought with them
a European aesthetic. The architecture of official
buildings was influenced by Mediterranean symbolism
of the Rationalist architecture movement of the
thirties. There is also evidence of architectural
experimentation. The city centre, for example,
is dominated by a mixture of Expressionist, Rationalist,
Futurist and Cubist styles.
Perhaps the greatest surprise is that the city
remained virtually undamaged throughout 30 years
of Ethiopian occupation, which devastated much
of the country and only ended in 1991. One direct
result of the invasion was that modernisation
was never allowed to occur.
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