1155 | 935 | Middle-Class Mass Housing beyond Europe: a contribution to the understanding of the peripheries of colonial cities from the CA18137 methodology

The paper presents the vertical housing solution for the European middle-class as a transcontinental model with ramifications and applications in non-Western territories during the second half of the 20th century, with a focus on colonised territories. Using the Portuguese case, the presentation interrogates how architects and other agents who worked simultaneously for private companies and the colonial state, during the liberation/colonial war waged in the African territories under Portuguese colonial rule (1961-74), used the models of the European Functional City designed from blocks and towers in the new extension neighbourhoods of African cities. It will be proved that this Functional City plan was approached from 2 main lens, beyond the ideas of racial and social segregation generally associated in current state-of-the-art: 1) a Western configuration brought to Africa in accordance with an urban model with direct repercussions on the residential unit; 2) the outline of Western-style neighbourhoods facilitated the political control of suburban areas inhabitant by the African population. The aim is to demonstrate that the vertical and massified model of functional profile residential neighbourhoods, spread in second post-war Europe, achieved new meanings in the colonised territories and served the strategies of territorial occupation, while spreading a Western way of life from an imposed “top-down” social and family relationship. After independence, these empty units were occupied by local populations, rapidly becoming hybrid models. It intends to launch comparative readings between neighbourhoods implemented in Portugal and Angolan and Mozambican cities to better illustrate the changes arising from their metropolitan or colonial locations. It will also be an opportunity to describe how the methodology underlying CA18137 dedicated to Middle Class Mass Housing in Europe can be reused in non-European contexts, analysing the unfolding of these residential models.

Ana Vaz Milheiro
Dinâmia’cet – isque University of Lisbon

ID Abstract: 935