Screen dreams: Angola’s modernist cinemas and the fading of a utopian vision for Africa

In response to the independence movements sweeping Africa from the 1950s onwards, says Hurst, “the Portuguese regime made plans to reorganise their colonial cities, with the integration of all sectors of society as the principal factor. So building cinemas meant the construction of public spaces for the mingling of the heterogenous communities.” An agglomeration of Tropical and Brazilian Modernisms with European styles inherited from the likes of Le Corbusier was imported into the Angolan urban environment. “The introduction of light and air, the creation of shadows and natural ventilation of the buildings were some of the typical references,” Hurst says. “The evolution of Angolan architecture from the ‘30s to the ‘70s followed the logic from closed to open spaces.”

This opening up of space was, though, a symbolic gesture. Whilst the cinemas were designed as public spaces, in reality this was a colonial architecture intended to recall political upheaval elsewhere, as well as the Soviet Union’s Cold War role as cheerleader for African independence. Hurst says: “Angolan modernism was born under the colonial umbrella. In the rest of the continent – Ghana, Kenya, Ivory Coast – modernism was largely an African decision. That makes a very big difference. Maybe not in terms of logic or the material used, but in design and philosophy.”

“The architects came from Portugal. There were no schools in Angola. It was the schools of Lisbon and Porto that built Angola until independence in 1975.”