Category: News

  • Material, labour, construction sites. The military reordering of rural areas in Guinea-Bissau (1968-1974)

    Material, labour, construction sites. The military reordering of rural areas in Guinea-Bissau (1968-1974)

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    Communication

    Material, labour, construction sites. The military reordering of rural areas in Guinea-Bissau (1968-1974)

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    Event: Military History Consortium 2025
    Authors: Francesca Vita
    Date: 4 – 6 June 2025

    Location: ISCTE, Lisbon, Portugal

    Soldiers and population unloading adobe blocks on the construction site, Nhabijões 1970 (Guinea-Bissau). Courtesy of Eng. Simões Santos, 2025
    House under construction, Nhabijões strategic village, 1970 (Guinea-Bissau). Courtesy of Eng. Simões Santos, 2025

    Summary

    In 1968, the Governor-general António de Spínola inaugurated a new phase of the war to ensure the Portuguese rule in Guinea-Bissau. Together with canonical military operations, Spínola’s strategy comprised a vast campaign of “development” programs. This plan, promoted under the slogan “A Better Guinea” (“Uma Guiné Melhor”), comprised the construction of new infrastructures (roads, bridges and wells) and the establishment of new villages in rural areas aimed at regrouping disperse population living in strategic war zones. In five years, the Portuguese army managed to build approximately 60 villages, 11880 houses, 196 schools and 51 sanitary posts. This construction effort was aided by the Engineering Battalion 447 (BEng447) based in Bissau. The BEng447 supervised the opening of new roads, wells and bridges; it coordinated the construction sites of new houses and collective services; it supplied building materials on the ground and it provided skilled labour and basic know-how to construction sites. 

    This article seeks to study the military reordering of Guinea-Bissau rural areas and the strategic villages program (1968-1974) through the lens of material, labour and construction sites, answering the following questions: who built the strategic villages in Guinea-Bissau and the collateral war infrastructure? How did the army organise the construction sites and the labour division? Where did the building materials (zinc sheets, palm poles and adobe bricks) come from? And how did BEng447 supply them on site? What was the human and environmental impact of these military operations?  

    The analysis of materials, labour and construction sites management undertaken under Spínola’s government during the war to implement the vast programme of rural reordering and population control, enables a multifaceted understanding of the last stage of war strategy in Guinea-Bissau, revealing the collateral impact of colonial wars, both in the natural and human environment, which constitutes an overlooked subject of studies.  

    Related Case Studies

    Strategic Villages, Guinea-Bissau

  • On What Material Do You Want It to be Made…? Negotiations and Colonial Building Sites in African Territories under Late Portuguese Rule

    On What Material Do You Want It to be Made…? Negotiations and Colonial Building Sites in African Territories under Late Portuguese Rule

    Communication

    On What Material Do You Want It to be Made…? Negotiations and Colonial Building Sites in African Territories under Late Portuguese Rule

    Event: IASTE 2025 Alexandria: Cosmopolitanism and Tradition
    Authors: Ana Vaz Milheiro
    Date: 23 – 26 May 2025

    Location: Alexandria, Egypt

    Bairro dos Pescadores (Fishermen’s neighborhood, Luanda, Angola). Source: Ana Vaz Milheiro, 2023.
    Ingorezinho, Guinea-Bissau. Source: Ana Vaz Milheiro, 2022.

    Summary

    In 2000, in Cidade Velha, Cape Verde, the Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza was queried by an immigrant who was building his house regarding the design of the roof: “It is not good here, the straw. If it catches fire, this whole part will burn. It would be better to let me use tiles”. The episode illustrates the clash between the people’s expectations and the architects’ wishes. In another house, also thatched according to local tradition, the occupant complained about the difficulty of finding materials: “I have fought many wars and I did not accept the thatch”. She wanted a tiled roof, associated with economy, low maintenance and cosmopolitanism. Approximately 35 years prior, during the period of Portuguese colonial rule in Africa, the fishing communities on the island of Luanda, Angola, faced a similar challenge when presented with a proposal for new housing made by the Administrative Commission of the Popular Neighbourhood Fund. Whilst answering the question in the title of this paper, these dwellers indicated to the colonial authorities their preference for fiber-cement roofs, as opposed to the traditional coconut leaf thatch proposed by the architects’ team (Carvalho and Cunha, 1963). 

    The construction of self-built housing units has been accompanied by conflicts between residents and technicians in former colonized countries since the late period of Portuguese colonialism. These conflicts reflect a process of combining multiple construction techniques with different cultural and ethnic origins that affect self-built landscapes. This phenomenon was initially documented by colonial bureaucrats and officials in the 1960s (Redinha, 1964). In response to the colonial government’s decision to support self-built housing as a strategy to address the local population’s lodging shortage, debates about the potential of combining vernacular and industrialized techniques began to emerge within the architectural culture. During modern colonization, various Western design proposals were thus put forth to integrate solutions perceived by the Colonial Public Works’ experts to be expressions of local culture. These proposals assumed that the inherited knowledge of the labor force could be used to facilitate this integration. 

    This paper examines the application of the concept of “community development” in the context of the construction of single-family homes in former Portuguese colonial territories in Africa during the Cold War era (Jerónimo, 2024) to gain insight into the strategies of self-production housing employed by the Portuguese authorities. It crosses the “omnicompetence” of pre-colonial societies (Adamson, 2020), as a latent civilizational dynamic, with a “new vernacular” construction, sponsored by industrialization, via the lens of “creole technologies” (Edgerton, 2007). The aim is to trace a narrative of the colonial building sites of these residential landscapes through three processes of (alleged) optimization: how technicians described the core tasks of domestic-scale works, identifying local agents with the “right skills”; how they tested the receptivity and capacity for self-production of housing through demonstrations (such as model houses); how they managed the interplay between local labor, traditional techniques and industrialized materials to achieve a greater number of units. Finally, the paper questions how the building sites’ dynamics impacted project design.

    Click here for more information.

    Related Case Studies

    Neighborhoods, Angola

    Strategic Villages, Guinea-Bissau

  • The bungalow: counter-histories of a global colonial home

    The bungalow: counter-histories of a global colonial home

    Communication

    The bungalow: counter-histories of a global colonial home

    Event: IASTE 2025 Alexandria: Cosmopolitanism and Tradition
    Authors: Francesca Vita
    Date: 23 – 26 May 2025

    Location: Alexandria, Egypt

    Cuntima resettled village, c.1970 (Guinea-Bissau)
    Enlarged view of Cuntima resettled village, c.1970 (Guinea-Bissau)

    Summary

    In 1984, Anthony King suggested that a certain type of house, the bungalow, was spread across different continents by colonial empires shaping a global culture of dwelling from Britain to India, from Africa to Australia. In the African context, in the first half of the 20th century, the bungalow was mobilized by colonial administrations to steer urbanization processes, responding to the demands of cost economy and construction efficiency. This simple type of house, a detached home raised off the ground with a veranda, provided an effective tool for settling the indigenous population, mostly nuclear family and workers, in the cities according to Western expectations of hygiene standard and the need for inhabitant control. At different stages of the imperial project, the bungalow served the colonial agenda of the “civilizing mission”, the “assimilation policy” and the “socio-economic development” of the indigenous population. Within this framework and based on King’s assumption that the bungalow constituted a ‘tool of empire’, often attributed to colonial and western imagery, this paper seeks to prove whether it also represented a site of cosmopolitanism: a contested site of (colonial and modern) universalism. To this end, this paper aims to collect and discuss case studies in which the bungalow has failed as a global colonial home, in detriment to a cosmopolitan, hybrid and multicultural dimension. Examining the inhabitants’ appropriation of housing projects for the indigenous population promoted by the colonial state in Guinea-Bissau, Angola and Mozambique in the last decades of the Portuguese rule, this paper raises the following line of questions: how did the bungalow at last fail as a global colonial home? Can evidence of resistance and contestation by the inhabitants be found hidden in the colonial archives? How did indigenous customs occur within the colonial constraints of order and control? Did the universal and global home allow for a cosmopolitan version of it? How did the bungalow promote hybrid dwelling forms and practices under colonial rule? By analyzing archival material (e.g., administrative accounts, photographic surveys, study mission reports undertaken during the colonial period) and exploring specific case studies, from rural resettlement program carried out during the liberation wars to the first urban neighborhoods for the African population, this paper aims to reveal evidence of resistance and contestation of the bungalow as a “tool of empire”. Engaging and discussing the notion of global and universal versus cosmopolitan and hybrid, this paper unearths counter-histories of the bungalow as a global colonial home in order to contribute to King’s research about dwelling forms, cultures, and global exchanges.

    Click here for more information.

    Related Case Studies

    Strategic Villages, Guinea-Bissau

  • Mining Labor, Housing and Building Sites in Late Colonialism across Central Africa

    Mining Labor, Housing and Building Sites in Late Colonialism across Central Africa

    Communication

    Mining Labor, Housing and Building Sites in Late Colonialism across Central Africa

    Event: IASTE 2025 Alexandria: Cosmopolitanism and Tradition
    Authors: Beatriz Serrazina
    Date: 23 – 26 May 2025

    Location: Alexandria, Egypt

    Source: DCV-UC/AD
    Source: DCV-UC/AD

    Summary

    The construction of mining camps in late colonial Central Africa, specifically in Lunda (Angola) and the Copperbelt (encompassing parts of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo), presents a complex narrative that questions the multifaceted roles of laborers within these colonial enterprises. This paper examines the conditions, contributions, and agency of workers engaged in the construction of housing and infrastructure under the rule of the Belgian Union Minière du Haut- Katanga (UMHK) and the Portuguese Companhia de Diamantes de Angola (Diamang), between the 1920s and 1970s, revealing a critical dimension of colonial exploitation, social dynamics, and resistance from the building site.

    Workers and families in Lunda and the Copperbelt were pivotal to the construction of mining camps, yet their contributions are frequently overshadowed by the broader narrative of colonial expertise and development. Despite challenging conditions, laborers demonstrated significant skill in their construction efforts. Traditional artisans, with expertise in masonry, carpentry, and other crafts, played a crucial role alongside large groups of still “invisible” men and women. They were often tasked with building their own housing, using a combination of traditional construction techniques and new methods introduced through colonial influence. This self-construction not only mitigated the inadequate housing provided by the companies but also reflected – to some extent – the laborers’ adaptation to new materials such as brick, corrugated iron sheets, and imported cement. The use of local materials like mud, straw, and wood, along with the incorporation of European architectural elements, led to the emergence of hybrid forms of housing that were both practical and culturally significant.

    Against this common corporate backdrop – shaped by strong cross-border and inter-imperial relations between UMHK and Diamang –, this paper questions the similarities and differences between mining camps, laborers, and building sites in Elizabethville (now Lubumbashi) and those in Lunda. These sites had different conditions and environments influenced by varying colonial administrations, mining company policies, and local contexts. While Elizabethville developed into a significant urban center, with diverse socio-cultural influences and a mix of populations from various regions, the Lunda region was arguably shaped by more dispersed and rural mining settlements. How were housing, construction methods, and technologies affected by these circumstances? What did the building site (un)cover about authorship and knowledge transfer? Were the construction yards places for the formation of cosmopolitan communities?

    Click here for more information.

  • Colonial Building Sites: Labour, Skills and Construction Technologies

    Colonial Building Sites: Labour, Skills and Construction Technologies

    Panel

    Colonial Building Sites: Labour, Skills and Construction Technologies

    Event: IASTE 2025 Alexandria: Cosmopolitanism and Tradition
    Authors: Ana Vaz Milheiro, Beatriz Serrazina
    Date: 23 – 26 May 2025

    Location: Alexandria, Egypt

    Session Speakers: Cole Roskam (pulpit), Robby Fivez and Sidh Losa Mendiratta.
    Session Speakers: Robby Fivez, Cole Roskam, Sidh Losa Mendiratta (table) and Ana Vaz Milheiro.

    Summary

    The spatial dimension of colonialism is a topic frequently addressed by architectural historians, who examine the finished buildings as evidence of the historical processes at work. However, the construction sites themselves were the setting for significant interactions between people, skills, materials, and technologies. Despite the ephemeral nature of these spaces, they exhibited a significant cosmopolitan dimension that has yet to be fully elucidated. What were the dynamics of interaction between laborers from disparate backgrounds and with different agendas? What construction skills and technologies were considered in the process? What was the impact of these interactions on the relationship between tradition, cosmopolitanism, and colonialism?

    This session on Colonial Building Sites: Labour, Skills and Construction Technologies encompasses a diverse range of temporal and geographical contexts, including examples from Africa and Asia. The aim is to facilitate a more nuanced and intricate comprehension of the construction site as a pivotal space that simultaneously supported and challenged colonialism across time and space.

    The contributions will include questions about authorship, construction materials and methods, design, architectural modernity, the coexistence of multiple skill sets, recruitment and urban unrest, the transfer of knowledge, and the dynamics of expertise.

    Click here for more information.

    Presentations

  • Waterford Kamhlaba: nove frames de um estaleiro habitado (notas de campo)

    Waterford Kamhlaba: nove frames de um estaleiro habitado (notas de campo)

    Book Chapter

    Waterford Kamhlaba: nove frames de um estaleiro habitado (notas de campo)

    Book: Miguel Santiago (ed.). (2025). Cem Anos Pancho Guedes. Fundação Serra Henriques.
    Author: Ana Vaz Milheiro
    Date: 24 May 2025

    Invitation Book Launch “Cem Anos Pancho Guedes”. Editor: Miguel Santiago, 2025
    Residents, Workers and Students of Waterford Kamhlaba, c. 1962/1963, now the Kingdom of Eswatini. Frame taken from the 1962/1963 film, shot during the construction of Waterford. Filming: anonymous; Editing: Miranda Stern.

    Summary

    Em Fevereiro de 2025, Pedro Guedes visitou o nosso gabinete no Iscte. Trazia consigo duas pen drives com pastas de arquivos do pai – Pancho Guedes – que desejava partilhar. Entre o material de arquivo que partilhou estavam dois filmes, com 28’27 e 17’31 minutos, sobre os primeiros tempos da escola de Waterford, em cuja construção Pancho esteve envolvido entre 1961 e 1972. Os vídeos tinham-lhe chegado via email, através de uma rede ligada às históricas lutas políticas anti-segregacionistas da África do Sul. Este artigo é uma primeira tentativa de compreensão do processo de construção da actual escola Waterford Kamhlaba – United World College for Southern Africa, actual Essuatíni, a partir do primeiro filme, que assinala o arranque da constução da escola, entre 1962 e os primeiros meses de 1963, com uma câmara de filmar de Michael Stern, o seu primeiro director. Foi escrito a convite de Miguel Santiago, para uma edição comemorativa do centenário do nascimento de Pancho, publicada pela Fundação Serra Henriques.

    Click here for the original publication.

    Related Case Studies

    Waterford School, Eswatini

  • Colonial Public Works: Architecture Beyond Labor Subalternity

    Colonial Public Works: Architecture Beyond Labor Subalternity

    Panel

    Colonial Public Works: Architecture Beyond Labor Subalternity 

    Event: The Society of Architectural Historians 78th Annual International Conference
    Authors: Ana Vaz Milheiro, Francesca Vita
    Date: 30 April 2025 – 4 May 2025

    Location: Atlanta, United States of America

    Session Speakers: Jingliang Du, Sarah Melsens, Romain David, Brian McLaren and Maggie Freeman

    Summary

    The history of architecture and urban planning in former colonized territories has been shaped by canonical narratives and single agents (Lagae&Boonen, 2020). The question of architectural authorship has been at the center of most colonial studies, whether they focus on the designer, the engineer, the owner, or the political-administrative decision-maker who approved the territorial infrastructure, the urban settlement, or the building. “Can the subaltern speak” (Spivak, 1988) overcoming the architectural history focused on the designing elite? We welcome scholars to critically engage with the representativeness of labor subalternity and its importance throughout the process of architectural design and construction, questioning: who were those workers whose role was crucial to the colonial sphere, but who remained underrepresented in the history of colonial architecture? How did their labor, presence and skills influence the building site, construction methods and the project/design?
    This session intersects the history of colonial architecture and the theme of labor, encouraging scholars to submit papers that address the agency of labor in the Public Works Departments during the late colonial period, between the 19th and 20th centuries. Contributions related to the African and Asian contexts are particularly appreciated, as are those related to the history of colonial architecture focusing on the relationship between project design and unskilled labor and analyzing the impact of subalternised collective subjects (workers) who remained largely “hidden” in both colonial and postcolonial narratives. This session seeks for papers that explore the liaison between architecture, colonialism and labor, addressing: i) construction methods and skills; ii) construction sites; iii) authorship; iv) gender and race; v) division of labor. Researches based on both case studies and methodological approaches to the theme are welcome to enable a discussion on the impact of labor within the colonial architectural effort and how to approach it from a theoretical perspective.

    Presentations

    • Beatriz Serrazina (Dinâmia’CET-Iscte), Building the Benguela Railway: laborers and construction skills
    • Sarah Melsens (French National Centre for Scientific Research). Shivaji Bridge’s Construction Workers: Redressing Archival Absence
    • Jingliang DU (University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong). Reconstructing Colonial Architecture: Labor Dynamics under Chinese and British Contractors in Early 20th Century Shanghai
    • Maggie Freeman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Architectures of Control and the Labor of the Controlled in the British Mandatory Middle East (1920-1948)
    • Brian McLaren (University of Washington). Architecture and Indigenous Labor in the Libyan Coastal Highway
    • Romain David (Harvard University). NEDECO 1952-1959: Unskilled Intellectual Labor and Postcolonial Experts in Colonial Nigeria
  • Building the Benguela Railway: laborers and construction skills

    Building the Benguela Railway: laborers and construction skills

    Communication

    Building the Benguela Railway: laborers and construction skills

    Event: The Society of Architectural Historians 78th Annual International Conference
    Author: Beatriz Serrazina
    Date: 30 April 2025 – 4 May 2025

    Location: Atlanta, United States of America

    Natal Indians at work. About 2000 Indians were imported from Natal to supplement local labour, 1907. Source: Album “Benguela Railway,” J. Norton-Griffiths
    Construction work at kilometer 394. Source: Report, 1913, AHU, OP17539

    Summary

    The Benguela Railway represents one of the most significant mobility
    infrastructures developed during the Portuguese colonial period in Angola. The railroad was constructed between 1883 and 1931. The primary objective of the project was to establish a transportation network connecting the Lobito Port in Angola to the mineral- rich region of Katanga in the southern region of the former Belgian Congo. The construction was overseen by a private English company, yet it consistently received substantial support from the colonial state, particularly in terms of recruiting labor.

    A substantial body of research has been conducted on the political, economic, social, and territorial impacts of the Benguela Railway. The project’s promotion facilitated significant inter-imperial connections, the establishment of new settlements along the route, and the creation of an important transportation corridor that would serve a large area extending over 1,800 kilometers. However, the role and building skills of the thousands of African workers who participated in the construction of this line and associated buildings remain to be evaluated.

    This presentation aims to examine the impact of African workers on the building sites, mobile yards, and tasks along the construction of the Benguela Railway. The diversity of political, economic, and technological factors in this case study will be employed to examine the nature and evolution of the concept of “skill”. In particular, the paper will focus on the types of skills developed by the workers and the changes in discourse surrounding those skills over time and across diverse geographical locations. What insights can be gained from a more nuanced perspective that extends beyond the dichotomy of skill versus unskilled? The research will identify and compare information from different sources, including reports produced by the company and colonial inspectors, drawings, and photographs.

    Related Case Studies

    Benguela Railway, Angola

  • Capitalist Colonization vs. Assisted Colonization: Italian Practices Highlighted in the Colonization of Angola (1925–1971)

    Capitalist Colonization vs. Assisted Colonization: Italian Practices Highlighted in the Colonization of Angola (1925–1971)

    Communication

    Capitalist colonization vs. assisted colonization: Italian practices highlighted in the colonization of Angola (1925–1971)

    Event: Congresso Internacional “À margem: Itália Portugal”
    Authors: Ana Vaz Milheiro, Filipa Fiúza
    Date: 10 – 11 April 2025

    Location: Faculty of Architecture of University of Lisbon, Portugal

    Junta Provincial de Povoamento – Brigada de Estudos e Construção de Obras de Engenharia, relatório anual, 1964. Source: Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino OP13016
    Antigo colonato da Cela, Angola. Source: Ana Vaz Milheiro, 2014

    Summary

    Em 1971, a revista “Reordenamento” da Junta Provincial de Povoamento de Angola (JPPA) analisava em retrospectiva as estratégias italianas de colonização da Líbia, interrompidas pela segunda guerra mundial. Opunha-se então uma “colonização capitalista” com recurso a “mão de obra indígena”, a uma ocupação que colocava o “colono” no centro das políticas de imigração e de assistência. A retirada italiana da Líbia não permitiu a verificação dos resultados destas políticas de ocupação, dando azo à aplicação dos dois modelos em colónias como Angola. Como reagiram os responsáveis portugueses pela colonização dos territórios rurais às experiências promovidas pelo colonialismo italiano em África? Que lições poderiam ser colhidas pelo regime português, apostado em prolongar a ocupação colonial, 28 anos após o fim do colonialismo italiano neste continente? Este paper aborda o caso italiano no âmbito dos debates sobre as estratégias portuguesas tardias de colonização europeia. Analisa as primeiras tentativas que procuraram “aportuguesar” o território angolano, considerando aspectos como, por exemplo, as operações de redistribuição de população rural pelo “império” realizadas pelas autoridades italianas. Recorre a documentação administrativa do período colonial à guarda de instituições como o Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino. Cruza esse material com artigos publicados por agências próximas ao regime colonial português, como o Boletim Geral das Colónias/Ultramar ou publicações da JPPA que, entre 1925 e 1971, foram lançando algumas reflexões sobre o processo italiano e seus possíveis desdobramentos nas colónias portuguesas.

    Click here for more information.

  • Trânsitos coloniais e gênero

    Trânsitos coloniais e gênero

    Course / Exhibition

    Trânsitos Coloniais e Gênero

    University: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil
    Author: Ana Vaz Milheiro
    Date: 3 – 8 April 2025

    Location: Recife, Brazil

    A+I exhibition held during the course “Trânsitos Coloniais e Gênero”
    Participants in the course “Trânsitos Coloniais e Gênero”

    Summary

    The course addresses the participation of female architects and women in the construction of territory in Africa and Macau during Portuguese colonialism. It also analyses the relationship between large-scale labour and the production of the colonial landscape, including the design, construction and maintenance of infrastructure and buildings.

    Programme:

    03/04 – Infrastructure + Work + Gender | Research by the A+I Collective

    04/04 – Architecture and gender in former African territories under Portuguese colonial rule 1: Modern Tropical Interiors in Africa

    07/04 – Architecture and gender in former African territories under Portuguese colonial rule 2: Housing and Gender Studies

    08/04 – Women and public works in former territories under Portuguese colonial rule (Africa + Macau)

    Click here for more information.