New Heritage sites proposed

2004-03-08 09:16

Asmara, Eritrea - Africa's modern architecture is largely colonial, but the best of its built environment also shows local influence, delegates from eight nations noted this weekend at a UN conference on the continent's cultural heritage.

"Colonial heritage is a major part of Africa's modern built landscape but it goes much further," said Ron Van Oers, the Unesco programme co-ordinator for modern heritage.

Colonisation was not a top-down affair when it came to buildings and structures, since local materials, manpower and even resistance played an important role, participants said at a regional meeting organised by Van Oers' Modern Heritage Centre.

Representatives from Cameroon, Eritrea, Guinea, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania presented potential African sites to join a new "modern heritage" category among Unesco's World Heritage sites, representing the 19th and 20th centuries.

"Not all the African modern heritage was colonial-made," Van Oers said, urging a look at "how Africa reacted to and resisted the colonialism".

Colonial power

The entire city of Asmara, the meeting's venue, was built by the colonial power Italy in the 1930s.

Inhambane, a coastal city in Mozambique, bears the artistic and architectural imprints of the British, French, German and Eastern powers that held sway there.

These sites, seen as potential candidates for the modern heritage distinction, were contrasted with another top contender, the townships of South Africa.

Though far from aesthetically attractive, the poor black shantytowns built outside large cities are an important legacy of apartheid.

"They are not beautiful as such, or of architectural importance, but their interest lies within the concept that was behind their construction," Van Oers said, praising the proposal as one of the meeting's "outstanding presentations".

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) recognises 754 World Heritage sites worldwide, from medieval cities to national parks.

Van Oers noted that Africa, with only 60 sites, is "underrepresented".

But he said that one of the main goals of the Asmara meeting was to introduce the "concept of modern heritage (and) create opportunities for Africa to be on the list."

Meeting participants on Sunday were to ride on part of the country's "modern heritage" - a railway linking the Eritrean capital to the coastal city of Massawa that was built by Italians a century ago and being restored today.

- SAPA