Although we’d read about it and filed it in the back of our minds, we were both surprised and enchanted by the buildings we saw in Mozambique. From the minute you crossed the border, you felt that this was another world and that the colonial powers here had left a completely distinctive mark on the landscape.It was not only a matter of the signs and adverts in an exotic looking-Portuguese script. In contrast to the vernacular mud, stick and thatch, anything in cement or brick from the humblest structures to the infrequent grander buildings,felt different. There was something about the proportions , the placement of features, the love of accenting windows with thick cement copings and the odd bit of decoration that made it so. There were echoes of our childhood memories of the old Yeoville where Portuguese immigrants created in tiles, cement and that ubiquitous pastel green, homes that spoke to their aesthetic.
And then there were the small scale art deco buildings from Inhambane and Maputo, preserved in all their sweet, nostalgic, imaginative perfection. Can you talk of wit when discussing a building? Not all ( in fact few)were restored and some were positively rotting away but their vintage was unmistakable.
The building below was a social club that we spied on a busy Maputo street and we just had to go upstairs to explore it. It was functioning more or less as a bar/cafe but it was hard to tell if other activities weren’t happening there as well.
To provide the context, the view from where we sat on the veranda onto the streets:
More on the buildings of Mozambique soon.
Architectural delights in Mozambique
Although we’d read about it and filed it in the back of our minds, we were both surprised and enchanted by the buildings we saw in Mozambique. From the minute you crossed the border, you felt that this was another world and that the colonial powers here had left a completely distinctive mark on the landscape.It was not only a matter of the signs and adverts in an exotic looking-Portuguese script. In contrast to the vernacular mud, stick and thatch, anything in cement or brick from the humblest structures to the infrequent grander buildings,felt different. There was something about the proportions , the placement of features, the love of accenting windows with thick cement copings and the odd bit of decoration that made it so. There were echoes of our childhood memories of the old Yeoville where Portuguese immigrants created in tiles, cement and that ubiquitous pastel green, homes that spoke to their aesthetic.
And then there were the small scale art deco buildings from Inhambane and Maputo, preserved in all their sweet, nostalgic, imaginative perfection. Can you talk of wit when discussing a building? Not all ( in fact few)were restored and some were positively rotting away but their vintage was unmistakable.
The building below was a social club that we spied on a busy Maputo street and we just had to go upstairs to explore it. It was functioning more or less as a bar/cafe but it was hard to tell if other activities weren’t happening there as well.
To provide the context, the view from where we sat on the veranda onto the streets:
More on the buildings of Mozambique soon.