MAPUTO MODERN
To see anew
Maputo is the city of my birth and the place I called home until turning 20. Thereafter, I spent the next 15 years away, to study and then work and teach in Cape Town, with a brief passage through Sydney as a student intern. I've returned to the city in 2016, to call it home again.
Returning after a long period away, means to re-connect. And part of that, as an architect, is to look at the city again, to perceive and record changes. To capture the essence of the built environment, what makes it unique. To look and see. This is my journey, and here are some of my findings.
GOOD BONES
• • •
.
Small apartment blocks such as these in Bairro da COOP were built in Maputo in the 1970's, and there are quite a few throughout the city, in various states of disrepair. Good bones such as these can withstand a lot of weathering, and the facade treatment has a few elements which today are considered expensive, yet make all the difference for a better quality of life.
.
Modernist Maputo architecture keeps on giving, and teaching, still today. It invites reflection about the longevity of buildings.
• • •
.
Maputo has many of these small apartments blocks, mostly built in the ’60’s and ’70’s. The typology is representative of a very specific way of thinking about urban living, where medium density is encouraged in buildings of 3-4 storeys in height, with with a relatively narrow façade. This is then repeated in a row of say four buildings, each with a separate entrance but abutting each other, so as to create a continuous streetscape.
The "segmentation"of what could be a single, long apartment block (as is sometimes seen in Berlin), not only allows for visual identity markers (such as colour variation, individual entrance gates), but also encourages a sense of ownership and belonging, since the building has the scale of a very large house, and each entrance only gives access to a limited number of apartments. There are bigger scale variations to this, with taller buildings - for example, in Alto Maé, along Av.24 de Julho - but the principle is the same.
.
Recently, I was standing in front of this one in Av. Maguiguana. I had some time to kill, and so tried to capture another characteristic aspect: The façade elements and their articulation, which plays on a concrete frame structure, from which certain elements are projected, recessed or hung. The horizontal (width) proportion also appears to be 60/40, something curiously harmonious for this 4-storey height.
In spite of the relative state of disrepair of these buildings, their good bones shine through.
• • •
.
These 10-storey apartment blocks in Bairro da COOP, known as PH, are part of my childhood referential universe, sitting opposite my paternal grandparents' former home.
.
Façade composition: a choreography of distinct elements providing degrees of protection from the weather. This gradual screening is typical of Maputo apartment blocks, as is the use of breeze blocks.
PINK CITY
• • •
Pink Rules
Perhaps it has been there all along, and I just hadn't noticed it before. Nevertheless, the more I walk around the city, the more I notice the prevalence pink as wall colour. Virtually its entire spectrum, from the palest baby hues, to salmons, to dark pinks becoming red. The patina on this wall cannot hide its history with pink, a palimpsest.
• • •
.
A concatenation of odd façade elements, otherwise unified by the same salmon-pink wall colour. The interlocking square screening at the external stairwell of the Rhulany School is an interesting shielding element.
-
Avenida Olof Palme,
Cidade de Maputo
.
Marshmallows in the sky.
The façade treatment of this building stands out as being less common in Maputo, for an apartment block. The balconies project outward, instead of the more common recessing or “voiding” (as in the adjacent building on the right). The balconies are also curved, rather than square, square being prevalent in the city. This not only assigns a differentiating character to the building, but the use of pink as backdrop further exaggerates the "popping" effect of the balconies. I estimate it was built in the 1970's.
-
Avenida Julius Nyerere,
Cidade de Maputo
.
Memphis-like pastels colour palette at the main access stairwell of the Rosas de Moçambique building. Pink harmonises the disparate patterns.
-
Avenida Julius Nyerere,
Cidade de Maputo
.
Relevant ugliness.
Small apartment block, possibly from late 1960’s.
This is a modest facade (made ugly by time and lack of maintenance), yet not naked: balconies and recesses are indispensable in this city. It’s about enjoying the good weather – a way of life.
And importantly, protecting openings from rain during the wet summer season, whilst catching breezes and cooling rooms beyond. Simple gestures, not always seen on new builds around town.
-
Avenida 24 de Julho,
Cidade de Maputo