design for the Development Planof Addis Abeba, Ethiopia

Addis Abeba (Ethiopia)

Enrico del Debbio, Giuseppe Vaccaro, engineers Cesare Valle e Ignazio Gui­di

Competitions, projects, proposals

Charged with producing the preliminary master plan of Addis Ababa, shortly after its conquest, the architects Gio Ponti, Giuseppe Vaccaro and Enrico Del Debbio, together with the engineers Cesare Valle and Ignazio Guidi, saw this native town as a spontaneous garden city, to be developed as such: The whole city is a thick wood of tall eucalyptuses, with green glades; the new city as well.. Their plan was dictated by the courses of two streams embanked and lined with trees, which naturally divided the areas set aside for the natives and Italians. Their road system was laid out in such a way as not to disturb the existing, spontaneous one.They even suggested the use of lightweight local materials and techniques, in low buildings. There were only two strongly Italian features: a Torre Littoria Tower of Fascism and a large bridge a single 120 meter span over the valley of the Gamele stream. This non-stately plan came to nothing.