Maputo: The Latest Architecture and News

Amancio d'Alpoim Miranda Guedes, known as Pancho Guedes was an architect, painter, sculptor, and educator that is revered as one of the earliest post-modernist architects in Africa. Throughout his career, he has contributed to more than 500 building designs which were often characterized as eclectic, bringing together Lusophone African influence with his unique surrealist and experimental artistic style. It is said that having worked mainly in Mozambique, Angola, South Africa, and Portugal, Pancho Guedes was less well known than he ought to have been in the rest of the world, as he is a leading figure in modern African architecture.

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After centuries of Portuguese colonization and recent conquest of independence, Mozambique has undergone a difficult period with new challenges, such as the combat against poverty, the infrastructure deficit, and uncontrolled urban expansion. On the architecture field, it is possible to notice the impact of these challenges on the evolution of the Mozambican projects. Some examples are: the prediction of the need to expand the building in the future, the adoption of climate control passive measures and the utilization of vernacular constructive techniques adapted to the local context (as a way to minimize energy consumption in the different phases of building construction and its respective costs).

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In an effort to create affordable housing in Maputo, Mozambique, Casas Melhoradas is an applied research project aimed at eliminating city slums. Organized by the Institute of Architecture, Urbanism & Landscape, at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation, in collaboration with the Mozambican NGO Estamos, the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (FAPF) and the Danish branch of Architects Without Borders (AUG), the project is part of research initiative on urban development in the Global South.

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