Beira, a modernist landscape in Tropical Africa

Abstract

Beira is a complex and unique case study regarding the implementation of modernist ideas in tropical countries. The city became prosperous due to the high yields provided by its rail and port interface connecting to Rhodesia/Zimbabwe; it attracted wealth, ambitious, talented young Portuguese architects and civil engineers that built a paradoxical metropolis, filled with iconic modernist buildings, complex and unorthodox technical solutions that filled an unique urban plan in the Portuguese colonial Africa. This article discusses the city expansion process based on a modernist matrix, deeply influenced by Brazilian architectural and urban imaginary, emphasizing the application of modernist influence in the city's expansion logic as well as technical and political options. It also discusses the importance of the exchange of ideas; and urban and architectural models among Portuguese architects and civil engineers based in Mozambique. The authors methodologically conducted an established recognition fieldwork of the city's matrix and identified the modernist architectural legacy of Brazilian influence by selecting the most emblematic examples among the buildings.

Keywords:
Modernism; Urbanism; Urban morphology; Colonial urbanism