Paper published in the November 2004 edition of the Journal of Architectural Conservation,
Donhead Publishing, Donhead St Mary, Dorset, United Kingdom
Asmara: Conservation and Development in a
Historic City
DENNIS RODWELL
Abstract
Eritrea is one the world’s youngest and poorest countries. Cultural heritage programmes are at the
forefront of its affirmation of national identity and central to its perception of sustainable
development.
Asmara, planned by the Italians as their colonial capital for the region, has been described as
‘Africa’s Secret Modernist City’. The city centre is host to an exceptional range of late nineteenth- to
early twentieth-century architectural styles, including a number of iconic buildings from the 1930s. It
has remained largely untouched since the 1940s.
This paper outlines the national context. It aims to summarize the key urban and building
conservation issues facing the historic centre of Asmara, and how these are being addressed both
within themselves and in the context of the integrated strategic plan for the expanding city. The plan’s
overall approach is one that seeks to achieve a balance between the demands of conservation and
development, supporting traditional small-scale mixed uses and the human culture that goes with
them in the historic core, whilst encouraging the siting of large-scale new developments in locations
that complement rather than conflict with the established urban fabric and architectural heritage.
Although the geographical and historical context is very specific, the approach that is being pursued
in Asmara is one that offers lessons for the sound practice of urban conservation elsewhere in the
developing and developed world.
Eritrea
Modern Eritrea officially declared its independence from Ethiopia in 1993 and is Africa’s
youngest nation. It is situated towards the north-east of the continent in the Horn of Africa. It is
bordered to its north and west by Sudan, to the south by Ethiopia, to the south-east by Djibouti,
and to the east by the Red Sea. The Red Sea coastline is over 1,000 km long, and across it lie
Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Eritrea owes its geographical footprint as well as its name to Italy, the last of the European powers to
join the ‘Scramble for Africa’ in the nineteenth century. By purchase and conquest the Italians
established Eritrea as a colony in the 1890s. They chose an ancient name for it, Eritrea being derived
from the Greek word for ‘red’.
In 1935, under Mussolini, Eritrea served as the springboard for the Italian invasion and conquest of
Ethiopia. From 1941 to 1950, following defeat by Allied forces, Eritrea fell under British Military
Administration. Thereafter, this former colony was first federated with and then annexed by Ethiopia,
during which period its ethnic languages and distinctive culture were in varying degrees suppressed
and economic activity stagnated. Eritrea’s formal independence in 1993 – the first in its history –
followed a 30-year armed liberation movement between two closely related peoples in what is one of
the poorest parts of the world, the subject of recurring drought and famine. Border conflict with
Ethiopia reignited in 1998 and has yet to be fully resolved.1
Eritrea’s estimated population of between three and a half and four million inhabits a land area that is
slightly larger than that of England. This population comprises nine ethnic groups and is equally
divided between Christians – of whom the majority are Orthodox – and Muslims. Eritrea has been
home to people of diverse living patterns, traditions, and religions for thousands of years. The main
ethnic languages are Tigrinya, Arabic, and Tigre; English is widely used as a language of national and
local government and Italian is also spoken in the cities. The country’s economy is very largely one
of subsistence agriculture, some of it worked by nomadic tribes, and only 25 per cent of the
population live in urban areas. The average annual income is $100, and the country is the subject of a
number of international aid and capacity-building programmes.
Cultural Assets Rehabilitation Project (CARP)
National identity and sustainable development
Concern for the preservation of Eritrea’s cultural heritage in its many forms, tangible and
intangible, was a major preoccupation before independence and this has accelerated since.
Cultural heritage is seen both as an essential component of affirming and promoting national
identity and as a cornerstone of sustainable development. As such, conservation is being
harnessed to economic development initiatives, including cultural tourism.
The Cultural Assets Rehabilitation Project (CARP) was formally established in 1997, with
governmental and popular support. The World Bank is its major partner. CARP’s mandate is to
identify, preserve, and promote awareness of the diversity of Eritrea’s cultural heritage, and it is
engaged in a number of parallel programmes across the country. CARP’s projects include
archaeological sites, record management and museum development, and the recording of oral history
and traditions. The built environment is one of CARP’s key programmes, and projects include the
historic Red Sea port of Massawa and Asmara itself.2 CARP is also involved with the Massawa-
Asmara railway.
Massawa
Massawa is Eritrea’s oldest urban settlement. Its earliest surviving structures date from the
period of Turkish domination in the sixteenth century. By the nineteenth century, Massawa had
become an important cosmopolitan sea port, with strong trading links to Europe, the Middle
East, and India.
Massawa was occupied by the Italian expeditionary force in 1885, and was the Italians’ first capital in
Eritrea. By the 1930s, it had become the largest port on the East African coast.
The older city is built on two coral islands, Massawa and Taulud, which were then connected to each
other and joined to the mainland by causeways. The island of Massawa, with its deep natural harbour,
organic street pattern, key public buildings and markets, and predominantly Arabic atmosphere, is the
historic heart of the city (Frontispiece). Partly destroyed by fire in 1888, and again by earthquake in
1921, much of the fabric of the city reflects successive waves of reconstruction, mostly on the historic
plots and employing traditional architectural styles and features. For centuries, the prevailing building
material was coral stone. Much of the post-1921 earthquake reconstruction was carried out using
reinforced concrete.
Frontispiece The historic Red Sea port of Massawa is largely in ruins. The facade of the partially-
collapsed Aba Hamdun House showing the projecting timber balcony at its first floor. (Dennis
Rodwell)
Massawa was the focus of intense fighting during the 30-year war of independence, especially in
1977 and 1990, and parts of the old city were reduced to rubble. Today, major areas of historic
Massawa resemble a shanty town, with refugees squatting in the ruins of former merchants’ houses,
many of which have lost their roofs and appear to be in a state of imminent collapse. There is a
shortage of fresh water and an absence of modern sanitation. The climate is humid, and the salt-laden
air has played havoc with the exposed reinforcement of war-damaged early twentieth-century
structures.
The historic city of Massawa is a major conservation challenge to the national authorities and the
international community, and has been the subject of repeated study by UNESCO. CARP is seeking
to address this challenge through awareness-building and direct support to pilot schemes of
restoration.3
The Massawa-Asmara railway
Commenced from Massawa in 1887 and completed to the colonial capital in 1911, the
Massawa-Asmara railway is a major feat of engineering and offers one of the most spectacular
mountain railway journeys in the world (Figure 1). It covers the ascent from sea level to the
highland plateau in 117 km, a distance of only some 70 km as the crow flies. Nicknamed the
serpente d’acciaio (steel snake) by the Italians, its 950-millimetre narrow-gauge track weaves
its way around, across, and through the contours, twisting, turning, and frequently doubling
back on itself. In parts, the gradient reaches 35 per cent, with uncompensated curves as low as
70 metres in radius. The railway was closed in 1976 and then partially dismantled, but the
numerous bridges and tunnels have survived unscathed, as has the Asmara station complex with
its early twentieth-century foundry, workshops, and collection of steam and diesel locomotives.
Figure 1 The Massawa-Asmara railway passes through spectacular mountain scenery as it ascends
from sea level to 2,400 metres. A major feat of engineering, it has been reopened following two
decades of disuse. (Dennis Rodwell)
The railway was refurbished using salvaged sleepers, track, and rolling stock. Reopening the railway
was pursued by the newly independent Eritrea as an important symbol of national pride. Currently it
operates only in the summer months, for tourists and as a working museum.
The original line was extended westwards, reaching Keren in 1922 and Agordat in 1928. Plans have
been prepared to reopen the full length of the line, at which point its potential for year-round freight
traffic from the hinterland to the coast may be realized. CARP is promoting a draft submission for the
line to be included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.4
Asmara
The Italians moved their colonial capital from Massawa to Asmara, atop the Eritrean Highlands,
in 1899. At an altitude of 2,400 metres, it is Africa’s highest capital city. At certain times of the
year it is, quite literally, a city above the clouds. It enjoys a balmy and constant year-round
climate.
The area has been settled since the eighth century, when four distinct villages were established. In the
fourteenth century they merged to become ‘Arbate Asmara’, which approximately stands for ‘the four
united’. The construction of European building types – as opposed to the modest, stone-walled and
either flat- or conical-roofed vernacular dwellings – dates from 1889, the year in which the Italians
first occupied the area.
From the 1890s onwards a succession of city plans allowed for increasingly ambitious expansion.
These plans also promoted a racial segregation that became progressively more rigid with the onset of
the Fascist era in the 1920s.
The principal areas of the city were planned – as colonial settlements frequently are – to an
orthogonal grid, adjusted to suit historic caravan routes and natural features. The later and more
developed city plans show spacious European quarters in the southern part, a denser mixed quarter
centred on the area of the main markets and mosque to the north, and an industrial quarter in the
north-east corner. Organically developed indigenous quarters were kept outside this planned city.
Asmara was envisaged primarily for an emigrant working-class population from the homeland, which
provided the skilled labour force to consolidate the sub-Saharan colony. The new European quarters
were laid out to the model of a garden city, with wide tree-lined boulevards and residential streets –
planted with a limited range of species including palms and jacarandas – and low-density housing set
behind hedges dense with bougainvillea. Asmara provided an urban ideal far from the cramped and
unhealthy conditions of nineteenth-century cities in Europe. In mainland Italy, the 1930s’ town of
Sabaudia, built on the reclaimed Pontine Marshes 80 km south of Rome, is analogous.
Until the early 1930s the architecture of the new city displayed an eclectic range of historical styles,
to which architectural historians have attached many labels (Figure 2): Classical, Romanesque,
Medieval, Moorish, Islamic, Renaissance, Lombardian, Venetian, Neo-Gothic, Neo-Baroque, Neo-
Classical, Alpine, Colonial, Italian vernacular, indigenous vernacular, and early twentieth-century
Novecento.
Figure 2 The Catholic cathedral was completed in 1923 in the Lombardian style. It is sited
centrally in Asmara’s principal thoroughfare, Harnet Avenue, the setting every evening for
the leisurely promenade known as the passeggiata – one of the legacies from the Italian era.
(Dennis Rodwell)
In conformity with the regularly updated city plan, the greatest period of construction in Asmara
occurred in the six short years between 1935 and 1941, the period of Italy’s conquest of Ethiopia. The
building boom transformed the predominant historicism of the city’s early architecture into ‘Africa’s
Secret Modernist City’, an urban environment that is unique in Africa and has few parallels anywhere
in the world. The legacy of neglected, but largely untouched, Modernist, Rationalist, and Futurist
buildings is recognized as one of the great architectural survivors of the twentieth century (Figure 3).5
Figure 3 Only slightly more than 100 years old, colonial Asmara is not, of course, a historic
city in the European sense. Asmara offered a blank canvas that permitted uninhibited
architectural expression. One of the Futurist icons of the city is the Fiat Tagliero service
station, built in 1938; architect, Giuseppi Pettazzi. Designed to emulate an aeroplane, its 16-
metre long cantilevered wings celebrate modern transport and travel. A public-private
restoration scheme is currently nearing completion. (Dennis Rodwell)
As it is the capital city of a young nation, there are many pressures to encourage development. At the
same time, there is a strong sense of the unique identity of Asmara and of the historical role played by
Eritrean labour in its construction and evolution.
Pending the preparation and agreement of over-arching planning guidelines, the municipal authorities
imposed an embargo in 1999 on virtually all development and change within the four-square-
kilometre historic core, which had remained virtually untouched since 1941. The area of the historic
core was defined by CARP, who researched and identified some 400 historically important buildings
within it. CARP has also collated archival material on a total of over 800 buildings across a wider
area of the city.6
It is not, however, just the built heritage whose importance is recognized. Since 1941, Eritreans have
adopted the city as their own, adapting themselves to it and vice versa.
Asmara is not a typical African city. The people are naturally gentle, disarmingly relaxed, and
unreservedly friendly. A people and a city of dignity and civility, Asmara’s streets are safe, by day
and by night.
The legacy of Italian customs is manifest, especially in what were the European quarters. The café
culture, complete with cappuccino, macchiato, and expresso coffee. Italian cuisine – with pastas,
pizzas, and pastry shops. The two-hour lunch break. The passeggiata, the leisurely evening stroll up
and down Harnet Avenue, where Asmarinos go to look, be seen, and meet their friends. The
cherished and ubiquitous Fiat Cinquecento. Aspects of the city’s life are pure Mediterranean
transposed on to African soil.
But this is only one aspect of Asmara’s rich and varied living culture, of the fusion of twentieth-
century Europe, Italian Modernism, and a disparate indigenous culture.
The area of the main markets, with their countless stalls selling every imaginable item of food,
clothing, craft goods, and with an all-pervading scent of spices, express a mélange of Eastern and
African influences (Figure 4).
Figure 4 The elongated market square, with its arcaded stalls along each side and shared
covered spaces between. The main market area is very extensive and covers several dozen
small-scale city blocks. (Dennis Rodwell)
The industrial area of the Italian’s planned city, Medeber, is yet another aspect of Asmara’s rich
hybridity (Figure 5). Here, hundreds of self-employed stallholders apply incredible ingenuity
and resourcefulness to recycling every imaginable material: rubber tyres into rope and sandals,
oil cans into cookers. It is the artisan workshop of the city, without which the basic needs of a
large proportion of its citizens would not be met.7
And finally, there are the indigenous quarters that have evolved organically, beyond the main
markets and Medeber to the north.
Fusing the needs of architectural conservation with those of continuity of this varied living
culture, not for reasons of sentimentality but as an essential part of the social and economic
functioning of the city, is the united objective of the various governmental, non-governmental,
and international partners who are working together in Asmara. CARP has been leading this
process, seeking to harness the complex individual elements into a single programme of
sustainable development.
Figure 5 Medeber, the small-scale industrial area to the north-east of the city centre,
strategically placed between the railway station and the market square, is enclosed within the
old caravanserai. Medeber accommodates hundreds of artisan stalls. Most of the recycling
work that is carried out in this area is done by hand without the use of modern machinery .
(Dennis Rodwell)
Key issues and the proposals to address them
Strategic plan for the city as a whole
Under the colonial administration, Asmara’s Italian population expanded from 3,500 to 55,000
between 1934 and 1940. In 1941, following the defeat of the Italians in the Horn of Africa, the
British counted 60,000 Italians and 100,000 Eritreans in the city.
Today, the population of the city is estimated to be over 450,000. Taking into account natural
population growth, projected migration from rural into urban areas, the return of ex-patriates from
abroad, the pre-eminence of Asmara in the urban hierarchy of the country, and other factors, the
population of Asmara is expected to double in size – approaching one million – by the year 2015 and
to experience continuing growth thereafter.
As the capital city, strategically located at the hub of international and national transport networks,
Asmara will be the focus for increasingly heavy demands for floor space for large-scale commercial
activities (offices, shops, and hotels) and the expanding administrations of the national government
and municipal authority.
Conventionally, in many Western countries, these pressures have been focused in the historic hearts
of cities, with serious destructive consequences to their built environment, social balance, craft and
artisan industries, and evolutionary development. Urban development in these countries has been
forced and revolutionary. It has then required costly programmes of renaissance and regeneration in
order to try to redress the imbalances that have been caused.
Successive international consultants, the Municipality of Asmara, and CARP are agreed that the best
interests of the capital’s historic centre will be served if it is allowed to evolve in tune with its
tangible (built) and intangible (human) heritage, rather than be subjected to destructive pressures for
major redevelopment. Asmara is seen to require an approach that supports innovative and
complementary developments elsewhere in the wider city to enable it to meet the new and expanding
needs without compromizing the historic core.
A strategic plan is being prepared that seeks to diffuse pressures for large-scale commercial
development to a limited number of sites well away from and out of sight of the city centre. One such
site is at Sembel, close to the airport, the Expo exhibition centre, the Intercontinental Hotel, an
established village, and a newly completed European-style development of apartment housing
complete with associated community facilities. The principle is analogous to that of an ‘urban
village’.
Skyline and townscape
Historic Asmara is located at the centre of a small depression in the high plateau, surrounded by
a ring of hills.
Traditionally, its skyline was dominated by the symbols of the ethnic and religious diversity of its
population (Figure 6). Most notable within or immediately adjacent to the historic perimeter are the
campanile of the Catholic cathedral; the minaret and domes of the Grand Mosque; the squares towers
of the Orthodox cathedral; and the spire of the Protestant church. These and others are the landmarks
that orientate the local population as well as visitors, and which give visible expression to the cultural
heritage and diversity of the city.
Figure 6 The skyline of historic Asmara is dominated by the towers and spires of its churches
and the minarets of its mosques. (Dennis Rodwell)
This skyline was transgressed on a few conspicuous occasions between the early 1970s and early
1990s – for example, the Ambassador Hotel close to the Catholic cathedral, and the Nacfa building
opposite the Fiat Tagliero service station. The embargo on new development that was imposed in
1999 has prevented further high-rise construction in the historic centre for the time being,
notwithstanding pressure from private investors to demolish and rebuild on existing and vacant plots.
Under the Italian colonial administration, development in the city was strictly controlled.8 A
maximum height of 16 m (stipulated as four storeys) was permitted for buildings in the commercial
heart. Generally, a two-storey maximum height was imposed, with limited discretion for three
storeys.
A block-by-block study of the historic area has been carried out and guidelines drafted that, generally,
propose to restate the original planners’ intentions.9 The existing townscape of the historic core is less
densely built up than the Italians envisaged, and the effect of these guidelines will be to encourage the
more efficient use of buildings and land, and to support an extensive number and range of
development opportunities without destroying the city’s overall image and scale. An extension of
height controls across a wide surrounding or ‘buffer’ zone is also proposed.
Land and building uses
Although historic Asmara was divided into European and mixed quarters, it was never zoned by
use except in the designation of the industrial quarter. Throughout the central area there is a
complex mixture of uses horizontally – by plot – and vertically – by floor. Even in the areas of
one- and two-storey residential villas, small factories, workshops, and shops exist cheek-by-
jowl with the housing, all easily accessible by foot. Asmara is very much a lived-in and liveable
city, with many different layers of social and economic interaction, most of it unplanned and
informal. The streets are alive with human activity. Asmara has been described as representing
an ideal that urban planners all over the developed world are trying to re-introduce into cities.10
The guidelines that are proposed for the historic centre do not seek to sanitize it or to rationalize the
complex socio-economic relationships by imposing any system of zoning by use, except that certain
activities have been classified as incompatible: by type – heavy industry; by scale – large offices,
retail stores, and hotels. There are well over a thousand small businesses in the historic area that
provide employment for several thousand of its residents. Retaining them in their present locations is
seen as essential both to their survival and to the diversity and vitality of the heart of the capital.
Implementing this aspect of the guidelines will require refined planning tools that can support mixed
housing and small-scale offices, retail, guest houses, and workshops.
Medeber, for example, is the subject of an in-depth socio-economic and physical planning study that
has recently been completed on behalf of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. This proposes a
sensitive 10-year phased programme that is aimed at: rationalizing the use of the land and buildings;
providing opportunities for technical training and career advancement; improving the general
environment – measures include partial pedestrianization and the provision of landscaped open
spaces. This study is to be commended both in itself and for a methodological approach that has
potential beneficial extension to other sensitive parts of the city.
Traffic and transport
Studies have recently been carried out by consultants and academics from the Netherlands and
Sweden aimed at resolving perceived problems in the historic centre, including noise and air
pollution, through traffic, escalating car ownership, and lack of parking spaces and parking
controls. Detailed proposals aimed at curtailing through traffic and the use of private vehicles,
and prioritizing public transport, cyclists, and pedestrians, have been drafted and are now being
coordinated with the urban planning guidelines.11
Housing
Housing in the historic perimeter ranges from exclusive villas – several now used as embassies
and ambassadorial residences – through modest single-family houses and apartment blocks, to
cramped courtyard housing in the low-rise market area.
The population of the four-square-kilometre (400 hectare) historic area is estimated to be 35,000.
Space standards and basic facilities vary enormously. It is clear that the Italian planners anticipated a
population of around 50,000 within the same overall area. Maintaining and wherever possible
increasing the present number of inhabitants is seen as essential to the city’s sustainable development.
The opportunities for development that have been identified in the townscape studies would enable
the planners’ intention to be realised. They would also enable space standards and living conditions to
be improved at the affordable end of the market.12
Public open space
Colonial Asmara was conceived as a green city, but it has lost much of its public open space,
street planting, and other greenery in recent decades. There is also a severe shortage of defined
public open space in the form of parks and play areas.
It is a characteristic of Asmara that streets in residential areas are part of the public open space.
They are the places where adults meet and children play, both regularly and informally:
children under the constant and watchful guard of parents, neighbours, and passers-by. Asmara
is an Eritrean city, not a leafy middle-class suburb in Western Europe where such activities
would be frowned upon and discouraged. The principal conflict – whether actual or potential –
is with motorized vehicles.
Generally, it is proposed that opportunities should be taken throughout the city centre to enhance tree
planting in the public domain: in the main boulevards, and in streets in the residential and markets
areas. Additionally, extensive use of traffic-calming measures, along the lines of ‘home zones’ and
coupled with additional hedge planting, is proposed, thereby securing large parts of the public domain
as safe and colourful community space.
Additionally, tentative use of public art has already been employed in the historic area, in the use of
blank walls for depictive painting and roundabouts for sculpture evocative of the war of liberation. It
is proposed that the use of public art should be extended throughout the historic core, including
interactive types such as sculptures for children to climb and benches for adults to sit on. A public-art
policy will serve to extend the city’s cultural heritage and provide a shop window for the nation’s
creative artists.
Historic buildings
Within an urban planning framework that goes a long way to protecting them from potentially
destructive development pressures and changes of use, and that secures their physical, social,
and economic environment, the conservation of historic buildings is much easier. Change for
change’s sake, or to derive financial advantage, is no longer the driving force, and the resource
value of historic buildings becomes as important as their architectural or historic interest. The
defining concepts of the Burra Charter – of place, cultural significance, fabric, conservation,
and preservation – become easier to apply.13
The identification of buildings and complexes of architectural and historical importance within
the historic core and adjacent areas of the city is largely complete. This is especially the case
with architect-designed buildings. More work has still to be done to include the vernacular
heritage and buildings that make an important contribution to the townscape. As is often the
case elsewhere, buildings have not been fully researched archaeologically or in their interiors.
Conservation guidelines have been proposed that place a clear presumption in favour of the
retention of significance and on the strict management of change.
A particular concern relates to original interior fittings and furnishings – mirrors, light fittings, bar
counters, stools, tables and chairs – which many of the publicly used buildings such as cafés, theatres,
and hotels retain in situ (Figure 7).
Figure 7 The Selam Hotel of 1937, architect Rinaldo Borgnino, is vaunted as the finest
example of 1930s Rationalist architecture in the whole of Eritrea. It remains in its original
design state, inside and out, including its fittings and furnishings. (Dennis Rodwell)
There is a steep learning curve to be climbed in relation to sound building-conservation practice in
Asmara. The municipal authorities and CARP are committed to addressing this.
The design of new buildings
The 1938 Building Regulations set out a number of precepts concerning building height,
distance of setback from street frontages, and certain details, but did not attempt to restrict
architectural style.14 In a city that displays remarkable stylistic variety within a very limited time
span, restrictive design guidance appears inappropriate. Rather, it is proposed that design
continuity should be encouraged and monitored. The vehicle for this is the Committee for the
Historic Perimeter of Asmara (COHIPA), which advises the Municipality on urban and
conservation issues.
Conclusion
The holistic cultural vision and determination to co-ordinate social, economic, and
environmental issues into a single programme of sustainable development in Asmara is
manifest from the enthusiasm and energy of the responsible partners in the city. It is a
programme that incorporates all of the key elements of sound practice that are essential to the
implementation of a co-ordinated approach.15
In Asmara, much has still to be done. Eritrea is a new country, lacking in many of the legal and
administrative structures with which others are familiar and which they take for granted. But others,
with all of these ostensible advantages, have often squandered their urban heritage of buildings and
living cultures. Asmara is taking heed of the lessons of misspent wealth and is working hard to avoid
making the same mistakes. Asmara had no wealth to misspend on self-destruction, and the place and
its citizens are the lasting beneficiaries. Cities elsewhere in the developing and developed world
would do well to take heed of the careful, evolutionary approach that is being adopted in Asmara.
Biography
Dennis Rodwell MA, DipArch(Cantab), DipFrench(Open), RIBA, FRIAS, FSA Scot, FRSA, IHBC
Dennis Rodwell is based in south-east Scotland. He practices as a consultant architect-planner, working
internationally in the field of cultural heritage, and focusing on the promotion and achievement of best practice
in the management of historic cities and conservation of historic buildings. The author of numerous articles and
papers concerning heritage matters, including comparative studies of conservation policy and practice in
Western Europe, he has undertaken a number of missions in Central and Eastern Europe on behalf of the
UNESCO World Heritage Centre, the UNESCO Division of Cultural Heritage, and the German Agency for
Technical Cooperation (GTZ), and in the Horn of Africa on behalf of the World Bank. His role in Asmara, in
co-ordination with the Cultural Assets Rehabilitation Project and the Municipality, is to propose the overarching
planning and conservation guidelines for the historic centre and its buildings. Previously in practice in
Edinburgh as a consultant architect specializing in the restoration of historic buildings and the rehabilitation of
housing, mostly in historic city areas, he served as conservation officer and urban designer to the city of Derby,
England, from 1999 to 2003. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author.
Notes
1 A useful summary of the complex and often turbulent history of Eritrea and its relations with Ethiopia is to be found in:
Denison, E. and Paice, E., The Bradt Travel Guide to Eritrea, Bradt Travel Guides, Chalfont St Peter, England (third
edition, 2002).
2 Further information about CARP may be found on its website: http://www.qrsi.net/.
3 Two reports were prepared in the 1990s by consultants to UNESCO: Siravo, F., Preservation and Presentation of the
Cultural Heritage - Asmara and Massawa, Technical Report RP/1994-1995/IIA.III, Serial No. FMR/CLT/CH/95/107,
UNESCO, Paris (1995); Pulver, A. and Goujon, A., A Preliminary Conservation and Development Scheme for Old
Massawa, Technical Report FLT/534/ERI/70, Serial No. FMR/CLT/CH/98/219 (FIT), UNESCO, Paris (1998). These
have been taken up by CARP in: Denison, E., Ren, G.Y. and Bereket, S., Massawa: Preliminary Technical Report,
CARP, Asmara (April 2003).
4 Selam, D. and Russom, R., The Modern Built Heritage of the Eritrea Railways, National Museum of Eritrea in co-
ordination with CARP, Asmara (March 2004).
5 The urban planning and architecture of colonial Asmara are comprehensively presented in: Denison, E., Ren, G.Y. and
Gebremedhin, N., Asmara: Africa’s Secret Modernist City, Merrell, London and New York (2003); Gebremedhin, N.,
Denison, E., Abraham, M. and Ren, G.Y., Asmara: A Guide to the Built Environment, CARP, Asmara (2003); Oriolo,
L. (Ed.), Asmara Style, Scuola Italiana, Asmara (1998). The key features of the city have been made readily accessible
to a wide audience in the city through: Municipality of Asmara and CARP, ‘Asmara City Map & Historic Perimeter’,
Asmara (2003).
6 Denison, E. and Ren, G.Y., Asmara Architecture Archives: Final Report, CARP, Asmara (August 2002).
7 The relationship between Asmara’s built environment and Asmarino cultural life is explored in Denison, E. and Ren,
G.Y., ‘The Evolutionary Development of Asmara – Colony to Hybridity’, paper presented to the International
Association for the Study of Traditional Environments (IASTE) biannual conference, Hong Kong, December 2002.
8 For example, in the last of the colonial ‘regulations’: Municipality of Asmara, Building Regulations, Asmara (1938)
(Regolamento Edilizio, English translation by Rita Mazzocchi-Dawkins, November 1998). Although called regulations,
they equate more closely to a design code.
9 Rodwell, D., Over-arching Urban Planning and Building Conservation Guidelines for the Historic Perimeter of
Asmara, Eritrea, Mission Report, CARP, Asmara (March 2004).
10 Tzeggai, G., ‘Asmara, a Future that Works’ in: Oriolo, L. (Ed.), Asmara Style, Scuola Italiana, Asmara (1998).
11 Van Grinsven, J., Report on Mission 30233 M ER to the Cultural Assets Rehabilitation Project, 17 February to 2
March 2004, CARP, Asmara (March 2004); Caesar, K. and Rosengren, K., An Analysis of the Situation for Cyclists in
Asmara with Emphasis on Safety Aspects, master’s thesis, Department of Technology and Society, Lund University,
Sweden (January 2003); Lund team, Bicycle Traffic Structure Plan for Asmara: Detailed drawings for a Golden Lane,
Lund, Sweden (February 2003); Lund team, Standards and Guidelines for bicycle planning: Planning for a bicycle-
friendly town, Lund, Sweden (February 2003).
12 Rodwell, op. cit. (March 2004).
13 Australia ICOMOS, The Burra Charter (The Australia Charter for Places of Cultural Significance), Australia
ICOMOS (revision, November 1999).
14 Municipality of Asmara, op. cit. (1938).
15 Rodwell, D., ‘The World Heritage Convention and the Exemplary Management of Complex Heritage Sites’, Journal of
Architectural Conservation, Vol 8, No 3, November 2002, pp. 40–60; Rodwell, D., ‘Sustainability and the Holistic
Approach to the Conservation of Historic Cities’, Journal of Architectural Conservation, Vol 9, No 1, March 2003, pp.
58–73; Rodwell D., ‘Approaches to Urban Conservation in Central and Eastern Europe’, Journal of Architectural
Conservation, Vol 9, No 2, July 2003, pp. 22–40.