Lat: -15.195663826595000, Long: 12.144958082540000

Namibe [Moçâmedes]

Namibe, Angola

Historical Background and Urbanism

Once called Angra do Negro, and later Moçâmedes, the city of Namibe was founded in the 19th century. Acording to Amaral, it was established “on a wide safe bay, with a good depth, a south rocky coast, higher and longer than the north coast, lower and sandier, where the Bero enters” (Amaral, 1962, p. 29). The first attempt at creation of a settlement in the region dates back to 1786 when the baron of Namibe requested the Ministry of Maritime and Overseas Affairs the recruitment of couples of colonists for the settlement. On the 31st August 1841, a settlement and fort were established on the bay. There was an initial survey of the area by P. Alexandrino and J. Francisco Garcia in 1839, which was followed the same year by a trading post by António Guimarães Júnior and the establishment of a fishery in 1843, brought by the Algarve-born Fernando Cardoso. It had a population of 160 inhabitants (colonists, expatriates and army privates) as early as 1849, when it received an influx of settlers composed of 166 inhabitants from Pernambuco – apparently consisting of Portuguese refugees from this region of Brazil, headed by Bernardino Freire de Figueiredo Abreu e Castro, a native of Beira who, based on reports that he requested from Lisbon about Angola, arrived here with men and families in August 1849. Following the population growth, the centre was elevated to town status in 1851 and, fostered by governor Fernando Costa Leal in the 1860s, it was elevated to city status in 1907 when the railway arrived. The intensification of Portuguese colonization – with settlers mostly of Algarve origin – took place from 1850, being combined, in some periods, with the settlement of Boers and the above-mentioned arrival of immigrants from Pernambuco. The construction of the railway begun in 1905 and was inaugurated in 1908, an infrastructure that enabled the enhancement of communications with the interior of the territory. However it only reached Namibe in 1923, initiating a period of development of the two cities, a result of the exchanges between themselves and the outside.
A city composed of sandy fields (the beaches of Miragens, Bonfim and Fortaleza), located between the desert, the sea and traditional vegetable gardens, Namibe had from the start a clear urban character that, apart from the initial establishment of institutions along the bay (fort, palace, church, hospital), had always been based on a strict grid (pioneering in Portuguese Africa) that extended from the southwest to the northeast. The fabric of the initial grid layout, as far as we know, started in the Fort Saint Ferdinand, with a seven-block stretch to the northeast and along three blocks inland. The first urban settlement probably took place once the fortress was built in 1840, at the top of the Ponta Negra, overlooking the bay. This was possibly followed by the construction of the main public buildings in the vacinity, picturesquely and naively aligned along the beach. North of this cluster were the custom house, the bridge/pier, the market and the town hall. The streets in the city expressed naturally the construction techniques, the residential architecture and the southern European lifestyle, profoundly connected to provincial ruralism as shown by local vegetable gardens. These, along with the fishing industry, played a paramount role in Namibe: at the seaport Saco do Giraúl, on the tip of the bay, there was several fishing companies with their own pavillions and each one equipped with a bridge/pier. The ores from Cassinga and Jamba, transported via railway, would leave from this port. On the site of the archives was established the first canning industry in the region, the Africana Factory, with a series of pavilions arranged in a row. Between 1853 and 1854, the first plan of Namibe was outlined. The first urban fabric was defined by three main roadways running parallel to the sea and another three less important ones perpendicular to the sea. From there the town grew according to this defined structure. Around 1890 there was already an initial section of the wide Avenue Principal (Main Avenue) by the beach. The initial stage of Namibe suggests certain randomness in the way the houses were built. Nonetheless, considering its importance in the consolidation of the territory towards the south, this construction soon adopted a more planned and organized character. When he stayed there in 1930- 1940, Henrique Galvão described the city as follows: “it is located between the beach and the desert, at the end of a beautiful bay and under the views of the classical fortress of occupation [...] by the sea shore, it has a municipal garden designed like any other of our provincial gardens; along the garden there are three rows of houses [...] the city is neither unhealthy nor dusty: the weather is pleasant, the people are white and civilised [...] when strolling through the streets of Namibe, in the evening, perceiving neither the desert nor the sea, one can hardly remember that one is in Africa”. Namibe had a population that had come from Algarve, who had built a piece of the Algarve in Namibe, according to the account by the architect Luís Amaral – a visible aspect, for example, in the local construction of houses with bright and showy colours. Prior to the plan elaborated at the Gabinete de Urbanização Colonial (Colonial Urbanization Office) by the architect João António Aguiar in 1952, the city was structured according to a grid, in blocks with buildings set on its perimeter in a hierarchized structure of streets and squares bordered by a coastal avenue. The connection to the sea was mainly established through the economic activities that took place there, from the warehouses linked to fishing to the railway terminus and the railway pontoon for loading and unloading cargo at the port.
The case of Moçâmedes is very interesting because it combined two characteristics: being a coastal city and thus open to the sea, and also the fact of being influenced by the railway. This last feature did not interfere in the general urban layout because the railway ran parallel to the coastline and was located near it. This profile and aim would be changed with the addition of a leisure component also connected to the sea and tourism. The plan proposal also foresaw an expansion, based on a very formal design composed of closed and open blocks of collective and single-family dwelling. The green open areas played the role of a unifying element defining a symbiosis between the model of the garden city and the traditional city. This proposal extended along the whole area of the bay of Moçâmedes, creating a wide coastal avenue 900 metres long and 32 metres wide. A new plan for the expansion of the city, the Plano Geral de Urbanização de Moçâmedes (General Plan for the Urbanization of Moçâmedes), was drawn up as late as 1954. It was notable for the construction of the commercial port and the main public facilities in the city. During late 1960s the Moçâmedes tourism potential was exposed. Its strategic development was the keynote of the Plano Regulador de Moçâmedes (Regulation Plan) in 1968 and the Plano Parcelar da Zona Marginal (Partial Plan of the Coastal Area) in 1969. With Angola’s independence a large part of the aims of these plans was not put into practice, with only the partial construction of two small residential quarters. In 1967-1968 the mineral port of Sacomar, on the northern tip of the bay, started to operate; it was aimed at the transshipment of the ores extracted from the iron mines that had in the meantime been created in Cassinga. It was the country’s third terminal. This activity enabled the city to prosper until the early 1980s, the time when the mines and port were closed. In the post-independence period the city of Namibe was one of the least affected by political instability and armed conflict, its urban core remaining relatively well preserved. From an initial period spanning its establishment to the early 20th century, it is important to highlight the clusters of buildings around the Saint Ferdinand Fort (the present day navy command centre in Angola) at the top of Ponta Negra, overlooking the bay. This includes the fortress itself built between 1840 and 1883 (established by directive on the 31st August 1841), the church, the government palace (all being included in the list of classified heritage by dispatch no. 44, of the 8th July 1992) and the courthouse. It is also worth mentioning the construction of the Fort Saint Rita which must have been destroyed in the meantime and whose location is presently unknown. Monuments and Statuary It is worth highlighting the monument to the “Effort of Colonization”, a work of great sobriety consisting of an obelisk on a prismatic plinth upon which are engraved and written references to the heroes of the colonizing process. Its present state is unknown.

Religious Architecture

Military Architecture

Saint Ferdinand Fort

Equipment and Infrastructures