The 'New Flower' - The modern city of Addis Ababa as a symbol of African union in the 1960s

Abstract

The 1960s marked the start of a new era for Ethiopia. While Africa was in the phase of decolonization, Ethiopia gained more importance due to its status as the only non-colonized country in Africa. In the context of these historical developments, the emperor Haile Selassie aimed to modernize Addis Ababa, which was supposed to be recognized on the global map, with architectural designs that would make his country proud. However, how exactly did Addis Ababa undergo this process of modernization? And how was the representation achieved through architecture ? In this period, there was a great number of international architects who contributed to the modern cityscape of Ethiopia. But especially the architects Michael Teodros and Zalman Enav who worked together in a joint firm, have made a very great contribution. For the understanding of Ethiopian modernism it becomes inevitable to understand their approach and to address their works of modern architecture.
In order to understand how modernism expressed itself in Addis Ababa in the 1960s, this work will analyze architectural features of a political and residential building built by these architects. The documentation of the projects is provided by the Israeli Planning, Architecture and Development in Africa (ISPADA) archive, an online archive that studies Israel’s past involvement in architecture and documents architectural projects designed by Israeli architects. This work will explore in what way these projects contributed to the former plan of the emperor to create a modern capital of an unified Africa and if they actually led to the creation of a new African identity.