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Abstract
This paper aims to study the military housing campaigns carried out in the last 14 years of Portuguese colonialism (1961–1975), through archival and documentary treatment, cartography, historical and architectural description. Critical assessment and architectural analysis of the settlements and villages promoted in a warfare context allows an assessment of how large-scale housing programs are still present in the built and social landscapes of formerly colonized countries. Some of the data recollected suggests that, in Guinea, about 100 military resettlements were built; in Angola, only in the Lunda region, 730 villages were intervened; and in Mozambique the new settlements caused the displacement of one million peasants. The article will focus on the Guinea case by introducing what is described here as ‘the architects’ feebleness’, debating the pragmatism of the military in opposition to the idealism of the architects.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The exhibition was open to the public at the CCA headquarters between April 12 and September 5 and at the Nederlands Architectuurinstitut between 10 December 2011 and 25 March 2012.
2 The military involved in the writing of this report were: Joaquim Franco Pinheiro (major), Carlos Costa Matos (captain), José Basto Carreira, Emiliano Quinhones de Magalhães, Nuno Almeida Frazão and José Almiro Canelhas (the last four were infantry captains). The editors were essentially concerned with the training of Portuguese troops for guerrilla warfare in Africa.
3 Following a previous article from 2015 (Curto & Cruz, 2015). The authors described regedorias as ‘artificial villages designed to concentrate scattered peasants – made by the civil branch of the colonial state’ (p. 205). The indication of this trainee architect appears in the report of the Junta Provincial de Povoamento de Angola, Studies on the rural reorganization of the Viana Regedoria (Estudos sobre o reordenamento rural na regedoria de Viana, PT/IPAD/MU/RPAD/1415/01931), which includes not only the regedoria’s project, which would have a dose of idealism in its design, but which was not implemented (as much as the exploratory visits to the site let to perceive). Its inclusion in later publications without identifying the authorship reinforces the idea of the accumulation of technical knowledge that involved the gathering of ‘urbanistic schemes for a village - the seat of a typical regedoria - that [could] serve as a guide for the work of the Commissions of Reordenamento’. What prevailed, however, would be the residential programs and models.
4 The Estado Novo has generally been described as one of the last colonial dictatorships in post-1945 Europe. It began after the military dictatorship in 1928 (constitution published in Diário do Governo on 22 February 1933) and ended with the revolution of 25 April 1974, which established a democratic regime, ended the war, and began the process of decolonization of African countries.
5 Casas do Povo were local bodies created during the Estado Novo with the aim of organizing the work of the agricultural sector (Decree-Law No. 23 051 of 23 September 1933). These and their counterpart Casas de Pescadores were also founded in Portuguese colonial territories, and their respective headquarters built.
6 The Guinea Engineering Battalion was created in July 1964 and operated for 10 years, almost until the country’s declaration of independence. Resettlements were part of its duties, which included responsibilities in the layout and construction of transport infrastructure, hospital and health units, schools, well drilling, electrification, among others. In the ‘history’ of this military unit, one can read: ‘Population’s reordering is understood as the deliberate alteration of the pre-existing population pattern in a specific territory’. História da Unidade—Batalhão de Engenharia da Guiné n. 447, 1964–1979 [unpublished]. Arquivo Histórico Militar, 2/4/124/15.
7 The people ‘were used to living in a tabanca, and they had a decent house; not in all places, because from ethnic group to ethnic group it was very different, (…) in some [tabancas] the houses had to be burned down for the people to move to the new ones. Audio interview with Simões Santos by author and Francesca Vita, Cartaxo, 02/05/2019 [unpublished].
8 Field trip to Guinea-Bissau between the 2nd and the 5th of November 2021. The team was composed by Ana Vaz Milheiro (PI) Filipa Fiúza (Co-PI) and Francesca Vita (Researcher). Project ArchWar—Control and violence through housing and architecture during the colonial wars. The Portuguese case (Guinea-Bissau, Angola and Mozambique)… (http://doi.org/10.54499/PTDC/ART-DAQ/0592/2020). The author had previously taken field trips in 2011, 2015, and 2019.
9 The architect was working for the Urbanism Service of the Directorate-General of Public Works in Communications since 1965.
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Ana Vaz Milheiro
Ana Vaz Milheiro, Associate Professor, Faculty of Architecture (ULisboa). Integrated researcher, DINÂMIA’CET-Iscte. Former IIAS fellow (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2019-20). PhD in Architecture (São Paulo University). PI of six funded research projects on architecture and urbanism in former Portuguese colonial Africa. Chair of ArchLabour project “Architecture, Colonialism and Labour” (ERC Advanced 2023).