‘Panorama and Memories’ exhibition at the Goethe institute
By Matthew Newsome
Monday, 13 June 2011 14:16
The protection and recognition of Addis Ababa’s historical structures and buildings is the inspiration behind the current ‘Panorama and Memories’ exhibition at the Goethe institute.This exhibition of photographs has been organized to raise awareness of the many buildings, structures and areas of beauty and historical distinction in Addis Ababa. The concern of the exhibition is that Ethiopia’s cultural heritage is being lost amongst the rapid modern developments in the city and consequently becoming lost within the awareness of the citizen.
This impressive showcase illustrates the many buildings from different eras of development and growth in Addis over the last century. Photographs of these strikingly original looking buildings within the city evoke the various influences introduced to Addis Ababa during its brief biography of approximately 124 years.
The exhibition is the keynote of a week’s talks and activities based upon the theme of preserving the outstanding beauty and historical eminence of buildings in Addis Ababa. It has been chiefly organized by the NGO Addis Woubet (founded by Princess Maria). The need to preserve, maintain and restore the richness of historical buildings in Addis Ababa is the cause honourably upheld by Addis Woubet.
One of the most destructive costs of modernity is the discontinuity with the past, a marginalization of history which has been identified all around the world as a crisis of modernity and as a cultural disorder largely known as historical amnesia.
Buildings that have been subsequently affected by this historical amnesia and fallen into grave anonymity have been championed by Addis Woubet. Buildings such as the House of Dej Zewdie Gebresellasie is being exhibited as a building in need of urgent preservation.
Sheik Odjole’s residence, once also a majestic building and a source of architectural pride has also been forgotten and allowed to wither into a sad dilapidated state.
How and why these buildings have fallen into disrepair and public ignorance is the question this exhibition and week of related events is endeavoring to understand and solve.
Judging by the way these buildings have been sadly neglected it seems that there certainly needs to be a lot more architectural pride taken by citizens, designers and planners alike in Addis Ababa; this show could just be the catalyst.
How architectural heritage provides one with a source of pride and offers a visible catalogue of history should indeed make these buildings national assets. This is the urgent heightening of cultural awareness being promoted by the organizers to the public as an evaluation to be had before Ethiopia suffers a potential irretrievable loss.
The exhibition informs the responsibility of decision makers by inspiring them with potential functions and roles the buildings could adopt. It was suggested how they could serve as potential venues for the development of arts and crafts or as commercial or even as entertainment centres. That these historical and beautiful buildings could provide a potential source of revenue and employment could be their salvation.
The need for a delicate balance between the interests of economic development and the preservation of Addis Ababa’s cultural heritage without the need for compromise is advocated as an approach to urban development, an approach which is visually absent and needing a lot more attention.
The potential to realize the simultaneous benefits of this convincingly rational approach to building design is stressed by the exhibition as being invaluable to Ethiopia’s cultural heritage. A visitor to the show will see how graphically unexplored this perspective is.
One of the displays offers an educational comparison of building designs. It was an outstanding exhibit entitled ‘Cost efficient housing’ showing a black and white photograph of a community of very elegantly improved huts under the Italian occupation. Next to this was a very modern condominium built quite recently. The functions of these two building designs from different eras of Ethiopian history are the same: cost efficient housing. However the style, design and architectural values represented by these buildings are emphatically very different. The visual comparison bordered on the ridiculous.
I spoke to distinguished Ethiopian architect Fasil Giorghis, he is responsible for the design and restoration of many buildings old and new in Addis.
I asked him why this exhibition is important?
‘Keeping people alive and interested in their heritage is the aim of this campaign. These buildings are touchstones for historical appreciation. They stimulate an enlarged awareness about culture and history; for these reasons I support the campaign which advocates the urgent need for their urgent preservation. This campaign underlines the exhibition’.
I asked him about the defining architectural periods of Addis Ababa’s history. He proceeded to outline for me how there have been four distinctive periods which have left striking legacies in the city.
‘‘The first period was at the turn of the last century; during the reign of Emperor Menelik after the battle of Adwa. Addis Ababa started to soon thereafter become established as a major Ethiopian city. What is known as the Addis Ababa style was the dominant design marking this formative period in Addis Ababa’s history. This style was influenced by migrant Indian craftsmen who brought their traditional native Mughal design to effect in Ethiopia particularly in the Harar region where they were recognized for their architectural craftsmanship.’’
‘‘The second period was under the Italian occupation which introduced the building designs of art deco combined with the national design of the time known as Italian rationalism. This was a very deliberate incursion by the Italians upon Ethiopia’s landscape known as the ‘Master plan’.
The third period was during the 1960’s which saw what was known as the modern formalist style. The style was big, grey, functional and conspicuously dreary; a good example being the municipality building. This aesthetic quickly became the signature of Addis’s urban landscape.’’
The fourth period is the most recent and what Fasil describes as being unremittingly ‘total’. He is referring to the hyper modern building design ethos borrowed from China and Dubai. These are the giant towers of glass and steel that now loom over Addis. They characterize modernity and they symbolize the progress of Ethiopia’s rapid transformation into being the fastest developing country in Africa.
He tells me that ‘this style has turned Addis into a landscape of bizarre extremes. There are ultra modern monuments and low income housing projects such as the very modern looking condominium blocks rising out of hillsides of corrugated iron’.
Considering this style, Fasil starts to sound a note of caution:
‘These most recent developments have only been erected during the last ten years, they are visually blinding in their impact upon the urban landscape’. The risk of marginalizing Addis’s historical buildings worries him. The costs of modernity are not only a visually jumbled up landscape which has caused a lot of displacement and destruction to poor communities but also it is causing forgetfulness or what Fasil refers to as ‘historical amnesia’. This a discontinuity with the past caused by a destructive negligence of those buildings which represent the past.
I asked this luminary who is an authority on the history of building design in Ethiopia what could possibly mitigate the costs of modernisation in Addis, his response was thus:
‘Change is inescapable but urban design must be more sensitive towards these buildings of historical significance. What concerns me most when I am walking around the city is the grave loss of continuity with history; this fills me with anxiety’.
The exhibition successfully presents the evidence that generations in Addis have built beautiful structures throughout the city and each generation has paid homage by protecting and maintaining these buildings.
The current generation is being obligated by the organizers to uphold the campaign to save these buildings and to realize the value that they hold.
The message that the protection and preservation of Addis Ababa’s cultural heritage is ultimately the responsibility of each citizen is relevant, potent and difficult to turn down because when they disappear so does a part of an Ethiopians identity.
Draw your dream heritage house was a competition within schools organized in conjunction with the exhibition. A student was selected from several schools in Addis to participate. An expert in architectural heritage visited and gave a short presentation on a chosen historical building, based upon this students imagined how this historical building could be restored and put to new use within the context of contemporary Addis Ababa.
The exhibition ‘Panorama and Memories’ runs for a week.