Crumbling modernisms: Luanda architectonic utopias after the boom

IF 1.3 Q2 ANTHROPOLOGY
Chloé Buire
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引用次数: 4

Abstract

In Luanda maybe more than elsewhere, controlling the city landscape is synonymous with controlling the polity at large. Despite a tremendous political change in Angola during the twentieth century, the paper traces how the modernist plans elaborated in the late colonial period (1945–1975) have influenced the planning imagination of Luanda until today. It argues that the construction boom that reshaped Luanda at the end of the war in 2002 can be interpreted as a modernist promise to break the middle class free from a hopeless urban fabric by promoting a specific urban aesthetic rather than facilitating social transformation. These continuities are, however, complex and fragile. What happens when the utopia of a city under control starts to lose power? Reflecting on two urban projects built around half a century apart, this paper explores how the kinesthetic experience of the city might constitute an unexpected form of ideological dissent able to disrupt modernism at large. The trajectory of Kilamba City, in particular, is the epitome of the oil-fed reconstruction frenzy of the late 2000s that brutally ended in 2014. Looking at how residents, planners and even state media relate to this project suggests that the unsustainability of a utopian suburban life eventually triggers new political subjectivities and directly challenges the modernist ideology that endured for so long.
摇摇欲坠的现代主义:繁荣后的罗安达建筑乌托邦
在罗安达,控制城市景观就等同于控制整个政治体系,这一点可能比其他地方更甚。尽管安哥拉在20世纪发生了巨大的政治变化,但本文追溯了殖民时期晚期(1945-1975)制定的现代主义规划如何影响罗安达的规划想象力,直到今天。它认为,2002年战争结束时重塑罗安达的建设热潮可以被解释为现代主义的承诺,即通过促进特定的城市美学而不是促进社会转型,将中产阶级从绝望的城市结构中解放出来。然而,这些连续性是复杂而脆弱的。当被控制的城市乌托邦开始失去动力时会发生什么?通过对两个相距约半个世纪的城市项目的反思,本文探讨了城市的动觉体验如何构成一种意想不到的意识形态异议形式,能够破坏现代主义。尤其是基兰巴市的发展轨迹,是本世纪头十年末由石油支撑的重建狂潮的缩影,这种狂潮在2014年残酷地结束了。看看居民、规划者甚至国家媒体是如何看待这个项目的,这表明乌托邦式郊区生活的不可持续性最终引发了新的政治主体性,并直接挑战了长期存在的现代主义意识形态。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Critical African Studies
Critical African Studies Arts and Humanities-Arts and Humanities (all)
CiteScore
3.00
自引率
0.00%
发文量
19
期刊介绍: Critical African Studies seeks to return Africanist scholarship to the heart of theoretical innovation within each of its constituent disciplines, including Anthropology, Political Science, Sociology, History, Law and Economics. We offer authors a more flexible publishing platform than other journals, allowing them greater space to develop empirical discussions alongside theoretical and conceptual engagements. We aim to publish scholarly articles that offer both innovative empirical contributions, grounded in original fieldwork, and also innovative theoretical engagements. This speaks to our broader intention to promote the deployment of thorough empirical work for the purposes of sophisticated theoretical innovation. We invite contributions that meet the aims of the journal, including special issue proposals that offer fresh empirical and theoretical insights into African Studies debates.
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