Africa's Secret Modernist City

Bordering the Red Sea, Asmara — the capital of the small east African country of Eritrea — is one of the most important and exciting architectural 'discoveries' of recent years.

Built almost entirely by Italians in the 1930s, the city has one of highest concentrations of Modernist architecture anywhere in the world. It has even been described as "the Miami of Africa."

Desperate to build quickly, the colonial government of that time allowed radical architectural experimentation that would not have found favor in the more conservative European environment.

Therefore, Asmara became the world's prime building ground for architectural innovation during the Modernist Movement. This important architectural legacy has escaped the destruction wrought by war and the exploitation of land that, elsewhere, has occurred in peacetime.

Now that the city is open to the world — following Eritrea's declaration of independence from Ethiopia in 1991 — there has been a growing awareness of its architectural richness and significance.

"Asmara: Africa's Secret Modernist City" is a building-by-building survey — illustrated with rare archival material and specially commissioned photographs — that tells the unique tale of one of the finest Modernist cities in the world.

About the Authors

Edward Denison and Guang Yu Ren are design and architectural consultants. They have spent two years in Eritrea with the Cultural Assets Rehabilitation Project (CARP).

Funded partly by the World Bank, CARP is an organization with a mandate to identify the cultural assets of Eritrea, to raise international awareness of these assets and to preserve its fragile heritage.

Naigzy Gebremedhin — one of Africa's most experienced and highly regarded consultants in the fields of architecture, engineering and the environment — is Director of Eritrea's Cultural Assets Rehabilitation Project.