Category: News

  • 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?

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

  • Architecture + Infrastructures. Questioning the contemporary landscapes, 2010-2025

    Architecture + Infrastructures. Questioning the contemporary landscapes, 2010-2025

    Exhibition

    Architecture + Infrastructures. Questioning the contemporary landscapes, 2010-2025

    Event: Architecture + Infrastructures. Questioning the contemporary landscapes, 2010-2025
    Curator: Coletivo A+I

    Date: 1 April 2025 – 30 June 2025

    Location: ISCTE, Lisbon, Portugal

    Sights from the exhibition
    Sights from the exhibition

    Summary

    A+I architecture+infrastructures is a collaborative research collective based at the DINÂMIA’CET-Iscte, working on a variety of issues concerning the Critique, Theory and History of architecture with implications for the present. It involves a group of independent researchers interested in housing, colonial and postcolonial studies, gender, and the teaching of architecture and urbanism. It aims to map Portuguese architectural culture with links to countries and/ or regions where Portuguese is one of the official languages. It maintains partnerships with research centers and cultural institutions in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia. It promotes teamwork to build research networks and cultural interventions, benefiting from the coordination and participation in projects funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), the Cost-Action Association and the European Research Council (ERC). 

    The group works with archives and diverse sources, from cartography to architectural drawings and/or audiovisual materials, using study visits, oral histories, and workshops with local communities. It promotes new historiographical, essayistic, and artistic narratives. It offers alternatives to traditional Eurocentric visions by investigating long chronological periods and broad geographies, focusing on territories that intersect or have intersected with Portugal, and questioning its position in the world.

  • Colonial and Post-Colonial Landscapes I – Architecture, Cities, Infrastructures in Africa

    Colonial and Post-Colonial Landscapes I – Architecture, Cities, Infrastructures in Africa

    Book Launch

    Colonial and Post-Colonial Landscapes I – Architecture, Cities, Infrastructures in Africa. Coast to Coast Researchers’ book

    Book: Ana Vaz Milheiro (coord.)(2025). Colonial and Post-Colonial Landscapes I – Architecture, Cities, Infrastructures in Africa. Coast to Coast Researchers’ book. Lisbon: Dinâmia’CET-Iscte
    Date: 1 April 2025

    Location: Lisbon, Portugal

    Book cover
    Inês Lima Rodrigues and Leonor Matos Silva with some of the authors: António Deus, Elisiário Miranda and Sónia Henrique

    Summary

    This first volume of the book series Colonial and Post-Colonial Landscapes presents the work of a group of researchers who, since 2010, have organised themselves into teams, crossing different research projects funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), starting with The Colonial Urbanisation Offices: Architectural Culture and Practice (PTDC/ AUR-AQI/104964/2008). The book brings together the main themes and arguments presented at the I International Congress Colonial and Post-Colonial Landscapes: Architecture, Cities, Infrastructures, as a result of the project ‘Coast to Coast’ – Late Portuguese Infrastructural Development in Continental Africa (Angola and Mozambique): Critical and Historical Analysis and Postcolonial Assessment (PTDC/ATP- AQI/0742/2014). The congress was held in Lisbon, at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, from the 16th to 18th of January 2019, and was attended by 166 scholars. Its parallel programme included the exhibition Colonizing Africa – Reports on Colonial Public Works in Angola and Mozambique (1875-1975) at the Overseas Historical Archive [Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino], also in Lisbon. As a follow-up, a cycle of six seminars and a workshop for children were based on the exhibition theme and held at the Archive’s facilities, until April 2019.

    The Coast to Coast project aimed to survey, catalogue and contextualize the infrastructural process of the former Portuguese colonial territory in continental Africa (Angola and Mozambique) during the last century of Portuguese colonisation (1875-1975). The research questioned the influence of colonial strategies on current architectural and urban praxis in both these countries. It started from the analysis of the infrastructure process by mapping three specific typologies of colonial public works, approached from the perspective of archival and documental analysis, cartography, and histo- riographical description to the phase of identification and critical analysis of the state of these infrastructures (reuse, consolidation or abandonment) after Angolan and Mozambican independence in 1975. The central argument was based on the hypothesis that colonial territorial infrastructure processes left resilient marks on the post-colonial landscape, whose impact should be analysed to support future actions. Three programmatic typologies were chosen which were decisive in the territorial occupation and are still visible today: (i) transport networks (roads, ports, railways, and airports); (ii) hydro-electric power production (dams and facili- ties); (iii) settlements associated with the exploitation of natural resources (mining and agriculture). The three programmes were interconnected, reproducing the centralising model of Portuguese colonial exploitation. The team gathered Portuguese, Angolan and Mozambican researchers, architects, historians, and archivists. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Eduardo Mondlane University (Mozambique) and Universidade Técnica de Angola were partner institutions. 

    Click here for the original publication.

  • Colonial and Post-Colonial Landscapes: roundtable series II. Infrastructures + Labour + Transport

    Colonial and Post-Colonial Landscapes: roundtable series II. Infrastructures + Labour + Transport

    Roundtable

    Colonial and Post-Colonial Landscapes: roundtable series II. Infrastructures + Labour + Transport

    Event: Colonial and Post-Colonial Landscapes: roundtable series II
    Date: 1 April 2025

    Location: ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Elisiário Miranda (Universidade do Minho, PT) delivering the lecture “From the Colonial Era: Transportation Systems and Infrastructure in Mozambique”
    Nina Kleinöder (University of Bamberg, DE) delivering the lecture “Building the Empire. German Construction Companies in West and South-West Africa, ca. 1900-1915”

    Summary

    Since 2019, the Colonial and Post-Colonial Landscapes International Congresses (CPCL) have been critical forums in enquiring about the entanglements between Architecture and Colonialism. While built works have often been the focus of architectural history, many actors and agendas remain to be understood. This second Roundtable on Infrastructures + Labour + Transport aims to question the role of still overlooked actors, namely mass labor, in different occupation strategies during late colonialism. The debate will bring together the team of the research project ArchLabour, funded by the European Research Council (ERC), based at Dinâmia’CET-Iscte, along with invited scholars.

    The morning session will feature the launch of the book Colonial and Post-Colonial Landscapes I – Architectures, Cities, Infrastructures in Africa. Coast to Coast Researchers’ Book. The volume offers a series of articles by the “Coast to Coast” research team (PTDC/ATP-AQI/0742/2014), that were presented at the first edition of the CPCL Congresses, held at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon. The session will be moderated by Inês Lima Rodrigues and Leonor Matos Silva (Dinâmia’CET-Iscte) and with the participation of the authors, either in person or remotely.

    In the afternoon, Elisiário Miranda (Universidade do Minho) and Nina Kleinöder (University of Bamberg) will be invited to share their perspectives on transport infrastructures – namely airports and railways –, construction sites and companies, mass labour, and colonial public works, crossing different colonial experiences and opening new avenues for research. Ana Vaz Milheiro (Iscte-IUL), ArchLabour’s Coordinator, will chair the debate.