Diversity and multiculturalism: Research and design for Bafatá upon the 90th anniversary of Amilcar Cabral’s birth

Abstract

This paper aims to present the results of a research made by a group of students about the city of Bafatá, in Guinea-Bissau. This work was launched due to the commemorations of the African independence leader Amílcar Cabral’s birth (1924-1973) in that city on the Geba riverbank, ninety years ago. The research made with students finalizing their Integrated Master in Architecture of ISCTE-Lisbon University Institute had as main goal the recognition of the urban changes of Bafatá and the designing of an ephemeral structure with the purpose of preserving and showing Cabral’s life and thoughts. Bafatá’s centre is strongly marked by the Portuguese colonial presence, visible in the urban design, and in the several layers of architecture that qualify the city. It is around the boulevard, which articulates, in the Northeast/Southwest direction, the main entrance in town with the river Geba, that the blocks layout was organized (the hospital, the school, the governor house, the church, the post-office, the neo-Arab municipal market, and a badly damaged small pool complex from the 60s, are the most remarkable buildings). The house, where supposedly Amílcar Cabral was born, is integrated in this nucleus. Nowadays, the atmosphere of the formal city contrasts with a huge and informal periphery surrounding this nuclear settlement. The difference between these two realities is very sharp, while the city centre of Bafatá remains sparsely populated and depressed, the big dimension of the periphery conveyed housing and the main commercial activities. The discourse of multiculturalism and ethnical unifying enunciated by Amílcar Cabral since the early 50s - particularly meaningful in this period of politic instability in Guinea-Bissau - was taken as a fundamental argument for territorial development of Bafatá in the designs by the groups of students.