New housing in Angola: From modernity to contemporaneity: The role of the Portuguese star system in Luanda’s urban growth

Abstract

The modern city of Luanda of the 1950s and 1960s has, since the beginning of the 21st century, been advanced as the “new Dubai” or “African Dubai”, following the symbolic reaffirmation of power in the urban landscape. Today, emblematic ar - chitecture competes for the best views, with six- and 7-star hotels, luxury flats and offices, priced out of reach; this is in contrast with the modern legacy, outlining the distance between how modern architects have approached urban and housing problems and how to summarise today’s urban strategies in Luanda. This article aims to (re)think modernity through housing, preserving cultural, social and archi - tectural values of the inevitable link between Angola and Portugal, from neigh - bourhood units to iconic standalone buildings, some carried out by Portuguese architects between 1960-2020, some not: from the “African generation” and its involvement in the “modern Luanda”, to the contribution of the Portuguese star architects in the “international Luanda” of the new millennium. Today, Angola’s modern heritage from the colonial period is overcrowded and de - graded and successively gives way to the imposing verticality of the glass façades of the globalised world. Among others, “The luxurious Sky Center changes the face of Luanda” in 2013. Projects built, or not, take over the territory, fitting into the city’s skyline and urban life, based on promotional videos and three-dimensional images of fantastic architecture close to the emerging Asian metropolis. The in - tention is to find examples that demonstrate the possible conciliation with modern heritage of the late colonial period by proving the formal and constructive logic of modern architecture and its viability to develop the “new housing in Angola”, highlighted by the Portuguese-Angolan architectural path.