Salazar High School (present day Josina Machel)

Maputo [Lourenço Marques], Maputo, Mozambique

Equipment and Infrastructures

The National Salazar Lyceum (currently Josina Machel Secondary School) was the first major school to be built in the capital of Mozambique, between 1945 and 1952. The project, 1939, was developed in Lisbon, Portugal, by the architect José Costa e Silva (1911 - ), an official of the Technical and Secondary Education Construction Board (JCETS).

The monumentality expression is evident in the scale and on the compositional symmetry rigor of the building, having been considered in the 50s, "the largest and most imposing building for secondary education, not only of the Portuguese Overseas Provinces, as the entire national territory. And [it was] to believe that [was] of the world's largest "(General Overseas Bulletin, No. 345, Vol. XXIX, 1954, p. 16).

To understand the evocative power of the regime symbolized in the Lyceum, especially proclaimed on the patron who gave the designation - António de Oliveira Salazar - and its intended idea of progress, read the enthusiastic description of its foundational moment from a journal: "When eight years ago we saw the foundations of the building which now stands majestic almost over the bay, we thought that some great thing was to appear worthy of a city that deserves. Wide entrance, large patio in the middle of which, the statue of the patron of the Salazar Lyceum, in his solemn garb of professor, gives the environment majesty equal to its entire Nation Man figure. All around the playgrounds with playing fields made and equipped to perfection.  Marble staircases - "national marbles, expressly coming from the mother country to enrich the most beautiful, largest and best secondary school of the Portuguese Empire". (Liceu Salazar de Lourenço Marques. Lisboa: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1954, p. 8. ) - corridors, bells, telephones, watches. A maze is it going to be familiar to teachers and students. Breathes a cleaning air; enters a lot light; it seems to be on the street. And the rooms follow to each other, bright, airy [...]. Extensive covered area, building extensive volumes, ballrooms, game rooms, gyms, living rooms, library, Olympic swimming pool, rich marble baths, air conditioning system, water filtration, film screenings, theater scenarios, dressing rooms, handiwork machinery, all of modern that can be found – safe guarantee that the Government thinks in their youth education, in the future of its children of its citizens.”             (" Inauguração do Liceu Salazar”. Boletim Geral do Ultramar, nº 329, vol. XXVIII, 1952, p. 148-150).

The monumentality as an essential Estado Novo propaganda tool is clearly present throughout its 9201 m2 of covered area distributed by its plot area of 29,000 m2, organized on a strict axial symmetry, still connected to the Beaux-Arts system. However, this work marks a turning point that cannot be ignored in the school construction history in the African colonies. The comparison with the project that the same author elaborates three years before (1936) for the National High School of Luanda (or Salvador Correia National Lyceum, now School Mutu Ya Kevela) obviates the distinction.

In Luanda project, the architect argues that the demand for an architecture to respond simultaneously to national values evocation and the climate requirements to adapt to the Luanda climate was solved based on solutions within the references offered by Alentejo architecture and inspired by the convent buildings, allowing to frame this building in the attitude advocated in the metropolis during the "hard 40’s" where the " monumentalist accent [...]approached a historicist and picturesque vocabulary of classicism narrative [...] defended as national" (Ana Tostões - "“Arquitectura Moderna Portuguesa: os Três Modos” in Ana Tostões (coord.) – Arquitectura Moderna Portuguesa 1920-1970. Lisboa: IPPAR, 2004, p. 118). "The convenience of giving the building a character that evokes the mother country meant that it has been deliberately put aside the modern architectural standards." (José Costa e Silva – Projecto do Liceu Nacional Salvador Correia: Memória Descritiva e Justificativa, p. 2).

In Salazar National Lyceum, this conservative discourse is completely abolished to make way for "epochal technical construction in all its exuberance." (José Costa e Silva – Projecto do Liceu Nacional Salvador Correia: Memória Descritiva e Justificativa, p. 20).

Reinforced concrete took its technical and aesthetic potential, contributing to a completely new result, the school buildings of the colony, by the scale and the constructive rationality, reduced almost exclusively to the essentiality of its structural elements. The use of new building materials combined with the complicity of the speech will become obvious to identify this type of construction with modernity.More than that, it finally defines the beginning of a discourse that directly articulates architectural design to the imposed climate local conditions: the modern architecture school in Mozambique, turning to the outside, will, from this moment, design spaces, and in particular classrooms, in single compartments between opposite facades in direct contact with the outside. There will be large openings, allowing a permanent natural ventilation and entry of a bilateral illumination. It will be permanently protected by huge covered outdoor circulation galleries to ensure access, constant shading and rain protection. The lifted construction, 1m from the ground, to fight moisture and the design of the cover, now flat, coupled with the necessary slope for water drainage, in concrete and with an intermediate air-box fully ventilated, are also particularities, visible in this school, exemplifying the adaptation of the building to the tropical climate.

The compromise between a regime appreciated monumentality and the innovation of an architectural language based on the Modern Movement principles is reflected in the contradictory feelings that nourish at that time for that "imposing mass of cement and iron" (Liceu Salazar de Lourenço Marques. Lisboa: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1954, p. 7) :

"Seeing these hundreds of children, I evoke a thirteen years ago afternoon, during the visit of the late President of Portuguese Republic, Marechal Óscar de Fragoso Carmona. In a gym parade that then took place, His Excellency, pointing to the children who took part in it - half, perhaps in number, of those who are in this room - said to His Excellency Minister of the Colonies at the time: "Our greater responsibility and our safe guarantee!". Today, in compliance with the dictates of this responsibility, is inaugurated this house, as said by Your Excellency - continued Mr. Governor-General, addressing Mr. Luís Moreira de Almeida - will be arguable in many ways, starting with the architectural, but it is undeniable to be a great facility for the Salazar Lyceum. (“Ainda a Inauguração do Liceu Salazar”. Boletim Geral do Ultramar, nº 329, vol. XXVIII, 1952, p. 108-109).

Zara Ferreira

(Referência FCT: PTDC/AUR-AQI/103229/2008)