Lat: -12.351630999975000, Long: 13.546293999758000

Lobito [Lubito, Olupitu]

Benguela, Angola

Historical Background and Urbanism

The name Lobito appears to derive from the umbundo Olupito Vava which means “water passage” later simplified to Lupita and finally rendered into Portuguese. Or, in an alternative reading, the name might have derived from umbundo (in the sense of exit, of “gateway into the sea”), Olu + Pitu, then Olupitu, then Lubito, nowadays, wrongly but commonly, written Lobito.
The establishment and development of the city took place in the transition from the 19th to the 20th century: there was an initial attempt at establishment, beginning with the construction of a fort in 1842 which protected the core of ancient Lobito, decided on by the Portuguese Queen Maria II; this failed as an attempt to build an urban centre, as it is documented in the following quote from 1848: “the Convent of Mount Carmel [in Luanda] was ordered to be demolished by governor Bressane Leite stating that it was in ruins and so that the timber and masonry used for its erection could be reused for the long desired foundation of the Lobito establishment, north of Benguela, which was not carried out but on which a large amount of money was spent by the Public Treasury”. Lobito, as an urban centre, was founded at the turn of the 20th century to the north of Benguela along a coastal stretch of sand dunes, extending along a narrow sandspit measuring 300x4,800 metres. It extended from the port whose first phase was built in the first decades of the 20th century. The potential of the place as a seaport led to its consolidation as a substitute for Benguela. The project for the new port by captain of engineering Sebastião Nunes da Mata dates from 1907. Its construction was started by contractors Pauling & Co. in 1922 in its first stage (until 1928), and enlarged in 1957. The port was complemented and boosted by the terminal of the Benguela Railway. In effect, the core of modern Lobito resulted from the area granted by the government to the powerful Benguela Railway Company in 1904 in which its headquarters, hospital, telegraph/post station, houses for engineers and employees and a hotel were established. The settlement became a city in 1912, and had a town hall from 1913 onwards.
Although with a layout adapted to the rugged coastal outline, the urban fabric of Lobito still belonged to the grid model characteristic of the late 19th century and was divided into two areas: the sand bar with a linear structure, extending in a southwest/northeast direction; and the area of the sector further south where the grid could be extended and which eventually encompassed the railway terminal with the city centre and the main facilities. There is a known 1929 plan. In the 1910s-1920s, the buildings extended along the narrow sandspit and were mostly made from timber and iron. The Avenue Dr. Francisco Vieira Machado was home to the various public buildings such as the governor’s palace which was surrounded by balcony-like structures and with a turret capped by a spire. Lobito had urban potential and experienced rapid growth in the 1940s-1950s as referred by Henrique Galvão: “On the sandspit that limits the port – so low and thin that one cannot understand how the sea does not come over it – the nicest part of the town was built: Summer houses by the sea shore [...] all lined in a merry and colorful line, gracefuly embellished by the sea and the waters of the port”. More recently, the account of Ondina Braga mentions the arrival “by train, its important port, the hotel on the beach: breakfast with your feet on the sand, passion fruit juice...” (Galvão, s/d, vol. II, p. 568).
In fact, Lobito developed from nothing in 1910 to approximately 50,000 inhabitants in 1960. It then became the second Angolan city in importance, while Benguela was relegated to a secondary role (but was somehow connected to this development due to its proximity). The Plano Geral de Urbanização (General Urbanization Plan) prepared by Ministry of the Colonies, was designed during the 1950s. It foresaw the extension of urban constructions to the vicinity of the bay. The Plano Hidrográfico do Porto do Lobito (Hydrographic Plan for the Lobito Port) by the Hydrographic Mission of Angola, in 1950 shows a model for a linear city extending in a southwest/northeast direction. The port was then at risk due to the silting up process (the stretch of sandbank on the northern tip advanced around ten metres a year towards the shore). Therefore, in 1964, a system of breakwaters arising from a study by the Portuguese National Laboratory of Civil Engineering along the Atlantic coastline altered the movement of sand brought in by the Catumbela River preventing its silting up and safeguarding the entrance to the port (according to the account by the photographer “Quitos”, Francisco Jorge Esperança Júnior). The Unidade Residencial para os trabalhadores do Caminho de Ferro de Benguela e trabalhadores do Porto do Lobito (Residential Unit for the workers of the Benguela Railway and workers of the Lobito Port) corresponds to a sectorial plan from the 1950s which provided for a neighbourhood unit defining a quarter for 6,000 inhabitants (and showing the vital economic basis of the city connected to the railway and the port). The Benguela Railway Company, controlled by English and Belgian capital, built a “city within the city” throughout the first half of the 20th century: quarters with hospitals, recreational clubs, houses for the different levels of its employees both in Lobito and Huambo.
During the 1950s-1960s, the modern urban landscape of Lobito was consolidated, marked by the tree-lined urban central area (the Portas do Mar, or Square Oliveira Salazar). This defined an area surrounded by the colonnades of the Town Hall to the west with the Bar Tamariz, along modern lines, near the lagoon (to the east), the Restaurant Luso (by the Public Works Contractor Lúcio Fernandes) and the Post Office, Telegraphs and Telephones building along modern lines with a central grill on the corner in the Estado Novo style (by the “amateur” architect Mimoso Moreira, in 1941). South of this urban area, an avenue joined the railway terminal to the headquarters of the Benguela Railway (with roofed concrete verandas by the architect Júlio Afonso, an employee of the company). Opposite was the headquarters of the Commercial Association (now MPLA headquarters) and the Hotel Terminus to the west (also an initiative of the Benguela Railway, attributed to architect Rodrigues Lima and to engineer Gonçalo Cabral). This ensemble of buildings was connected to a large garden. There is also information about a first non-built plan for a hotel for the Benguela Railway by Guilherme Rebelo de Andrade dating from 1929. There is also mention of Hotel Presidente designed by Sousa Machado, an independent architect for the Benguela Railway (who designed small railway stations in the interior of Angola). North of these areas, located roughly in the middle of the sandspit, was the Square Luís de Camões with a statue (later destroyed) and a built ensemble along modernist lines. North of the long stretch of sand, the Infante Dom Henrique Roundabout with the Prince Henry the Navigator statue inaugurated by President Carmona on his 1938 visit to emphasize the image of the “most Portuguese city in Portugal” which was then intended to define Lobito.
The Lobito urbanization in the 1950s-1970s is perhaps the most beautiful result of Portuguese 20th century urbanism in Angola. In effect, throughout the urbanization and architectural formation of the city at this stage there was strong and coherent municipal action, important both for continuity and practical results. As an exceptional case within the colonial framework, in its connection between the personal activity of an expert and an established urban milieu, this is worthy of particular note. This action was headed by the architect Francisco Castro Rodrigues. He lived in the city between 1953 and 1988 as a municipal employee and played a vital role in the municipal, urbanistic, infrastructural, and architectural fields, becoming a “founder of the modern city” and its technical responsible with vision for the true values of public interest – an almost unique “actor” in the local context. As an expert from the Colonial Urbanization Office in Lisbon he was hired to work in the city through the Commercial Delegation of the Ministry of Overseas Affairs, being actively engaged in the historic ambitions of Lobito to abandon the idea of the original coastal, insalubrious city on a mangrove swamp to make it a city of modern dimensions. He had worked previously in the 1940s, on a general plan of the city (mentioned above) and resumed his survey in Lobito with knowledge of the place and without metropolitan constraints. From that plan, around 1955, the irregularities of the rail network close to the terminal were worked on to remove the level crossing in order to enable the road traffic flows that contributed to the expansion of the urban interior. Therefore, the urban system was understood as a whole, according to the new and increasing functions of the city. From this perspective, the municipal urban undertaking had the vision and practical possibility of controlling (at least partly) the size and quality of the city in terms of its planning and expansion, in its system of functional zoning, in the design of the city and buildings, its green areas and its architecture which were translated into middle-class facilities and “social” amenities. Municipal action thus gradually corrected the mistakes in the official plan of 1944 (designed in Portugal and taken by Craveiro Lopes on his presidential journey to offer to Lobito) through a series of measures over the course of time following a methodology along the plan-process lines which focussed on urban organization, planned expansion and high-quality architecture. This action developed in several places and on urban issues: proposing the correction of the route of the railway track (the terminal of the Benguela Railway) in order to place the goods traffic and loading area outside the growing residential and commercial areas, and, with a new branch to the east, to establish a direct connection between the Benguela Railway and the industrial port sector; supporting the consolidation of the sandspit to prevent the broaching of the city by the sea while expanding the port on the interior bay by building a series of breakwaters; building the new airport away from the area of urban sprawl to the south towards Benguela, thus serving both cities at the same time; planning new areas for urban expansion over the former mangroves in Compão (for new facilities), in Caponde (for new residential quarters), to the south of Caponde (for a nature reserve and urban park) and in the hills (for popular quarters, such as Alto Liro and Bela Vista). The last stage of city planning in the colonial period (1960s-1970s), shows the existing tensions between the main economic and political powers in the country and those carrying out the work. The study of a new plan for Lobito (elaborated between 1959 and 1966) corresponded to a new global vision of the city using zoning and the concepts of modern urbanism according to the Athens Charter. The main goal was the shift of the rail network from the centre to the periphery out to the east in order that it should serve the new and flourishing industrial area – thus making room for a broad urban expansion in the areas left vacant – there being no other land available given the city’s location. An official committee was appointed by the Central Government (which included Castro Rodrigues, the Lisbon Town Hall members and architect Negrão representing the Benguela Railway) for the analysis of the new plan, but the Benguela Railway opposed the deep changes and proposed, as an option, a plan that was very similar to the “old” official plan (but with the inclusion of a new airport). The new study was held up for around four years until the appointment of the new governor (Santos e Castro) who entrusted Castro Rodrigues with making a final decision and thus enabling the resolution of the situation and resulting in the selection of the Plano Director da Cidade do Lobito (Urban Guiding Plan for the City of Lobito) for approval in 1971-1972. With the political support of the central government against the powerful Benguela Railway Company (which sought to avoid the costs of the new railway layout), the municipality considered the Guiding Plan concluded and approved in 1975 by the new Republic “because it had socialist roots”. The plan forsaw the city of Lobito with about 1,000,000 inhabitants by the year 2000 with a new airport and new railway access – all assumptions proven to be correct as stated on the occasion of the celebration of the city 80th anniversary, in 1992. In architectural terms the quality of the municipal works undertaken in Lobito mirrored and complemented urban intervention with constructions ranging from infrastructure to estates, facilities and housing.
In a brief chronology, it is worth mentioning the municipal measures that contributed the most to urban modernization: the road crossing over the railway near the central commercial quarter in 1963; the creation and treatment of public areas and their components (gardens, squares, and monuments); the ephemeral architecture of festivities and celebrations (public lighting and decorations on the city 50th anniversary in 1962-1963; the Angolan Industries Fair in 1966); the construction or conclusion of the main public buildings such as the Town Hall, the Municipal Market, the Cine-Esplanade Flamingo, the new Air Terminal and the High School (between 1962 and 1966); the municipal Quarter of Alto Liro for 7,500 houses in a self-construction regime to be executed over two years, designed for the “indigenous” people and based on the new colonial law (1970-1973), the town hall administration provided for the foundations and donated the remaining materials (cement from the factory at Lobito, bricks from Catumbela, roofing sheets from the Benguela factory). The experiment, successfully completed, was somehow a pioneer for the future SAAL – Serviço de Apoio Ambulatório Local (Local Department for Home Support) quarters, during the “revolutionary” years of 1974-1975 in Portugal. Monuments and Statuary It is worth mentioning the statue to Prince Henry the Navigator (on the roundabout at the northern edge of the sandspit) inaugurated by president Carmona in 1938; another to Luís de Camões (prior to 1965) and the two pillars of the Portas do Mar from around 1955; the obelisk “to those who fell in defence of their homeland”, a slender and elegant work planted in an open urban area on the sandbank, in exposed concrete, vertical and of an abstract design by Castro Rodrigues dating from 1963.

José Manuel Fernandes

Religious Architecture

Church of Our Lady of Arrábida

Equipment and Infrastructures

Housing