Modernity and colonization in an African megacity: The case of Luanda

Abstract

Post-colonial visions on the role of modernization and the modern city in the colonization effort have looked at this process in an exclusively critical way, tending towards diminishing the role of modernity in the construction of a better urban existence. The dwellings for Africans were to be constructed as self-builds based on residential typologies Simoes de Carvalho was developing at the time, as seen in the particular case of the Bairro dos Pescadores in Ilha de Luanda. The Prenda district is a test tube for contemporary Luanda, its complexities and contradictions and its balances and vulnerabilities. Based on its current configuration, can define more appropriate parameters for the “type” of megacity Luanda is becoming. The conversion of all the void spaces in the common areas of the buildings to spaces that added residential comfort, helped the researchers involved in the study to understand the pivotal issue of the lack of housing in the everyday life of Luanda.