Guinea-Bissau | Gulf of Guinea | São Tomé and Príncipe
This text was originally written by the coordinator of the respective volume for the print edition as an introduction to the geographic area in question; the possibility of updating it was left to each author’s discretion. It should be interpreted together with the general introductory text from the respective volume.
THIS GROUP OF ENTRIES ENCOMPASSES the data on the architectural and urban heritage of Guinea-Bissau, the ensemble composed of the traces of Portuguese presence in the Gulf of Guinea and on the west coast of Africa, as well as the remains on the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe. The heritage of Portuguese influence located in this geohistorical area is marked by its essentially coastal context. In effect, the Portuguese settlements that were established there from the second half of the 15th century were mainly aimed at military and commercial functions, more specifically for the control of the slave trade and the transit of raw materials. These encompassed regions formerly known as the Gold Coast, the Ivory Coast and the Slave Coast, stretching from Arguin to Gorée or from São Jorge da Mina (Saint George of the Mine), present day Elmina, to Saint John the Baptist of Ouidah.
In this region, the coastal facilities usually played a military role. These are scattered traces, mostly in ruins, isolated, in local, non-Lusophone contexts, within a framework very similar to that of the traces of Portuguese origin in East Africa and Ethiopia (> chapter for this region, p. 593). The most outstanding work, in terms of monumentality, the so-called Fort of the Mine, was profoundly changed during the centuries of domination by other colonial powers, absorbing or incorporating in some way both the original 15 th century models and the Manueline style of Portuguese construction.
The territory of Guinea-Bissau corresponds to a small geographical persistence, simultaneously continental and archipelagic, that lasted until the 1970s, under Portuguese colonial rule. It includes three coastal settlements or cities, whose roles and heydays correspond to three particular historical periods in the region - Cacheu (17th-18th centuries), Bolama (19th century) and Bissau (20th century) - besides other small inland towns, such as Bafatá and Gabú-Nova Lamego, which are more closely connected to local communities and cultures within the Islamic domain.
The historical succession of urban and proto-urban places established in the regional area that eventually corresponded to the contemporary Portuguese Guinea, named GuineaBissau after its independence, enabled the systematization of the types of buildings that derived from the colonization process. These buildings still persist as the main local architectonic heritage. These are works resulting from: the first stage of precarious or occasional settlement and urbanization, between the 17th and 18th centuries, including military and religious constructions (successively rebuilt in the following centuries), such as the forts of Cacheu and of São José de Amura, that in Bissau, and the church of Cacheu; the architecture developed in the second half of the 19th century and first quarter of the 20th century, corresponding to a broader and more extended urbanization plan, according to planned design, with the construction of amenities created by the colonial administration (Governor's Palace and Town Council, Bolama); the construction of a system of modern urban amenities in the city of Bissau, as the new colonial capital, following models of neo-traditional architecture (the so-called architecture of the Estado Novo), such as the Palace of the Government, the Ethnographic Museum or the Cathedral; the works of transition from traditional to modern architecture (such as the Hospital, the Commercial Association, the High School, and the Customs House), as well as some clearly modern works (the Port Administration building); a “minor '' architecture of a more accultural nature or towards a vernacular style dating from the latest stage of colonization in towns in the hinterland, such as the mosques and little churches (namely that of Gabú, or the building of the Civil Administration of Bafatá) and the simple houses built according to the techniques of local tradition (the house of Amílcar Cabral in Bafatá).
The architecture of the archipelago of São Tomé and Príncipe emerged from a planned and long-lasting presence and settlement, with the establishment of two typically Portuguese coastal cities, in addition to a series of small sub-regional towns (> photo of Madalena, 2001) and of a cluster of agro-industrial facilities, the roças, connected to the intensive cocoa and coffee cultivation in the transition from the 19th to the 20th century. These cities, towns and roças have a strong and original value as a whole in terms of built heritage. A small number of modern examples of built heritage was also constructed on these islands, namely in the city of São Tomé, which grew significantly in the 20th century. But, as a whole, the oldest historical buildings, built for amenities, residential and commercial purposes, are those that form great part of the most valuable heritage.
Regarding the arrangement of the main types of built heritage on the archipelago, we can therefore consider: the works of a religious and military nature dating from the first stage of colonization, built in the city and vicinity of São Tomé and Santo António from the 16th to the 18thcenturies; the 19th and early 20th century buildings, built in the same cities and in several minor towns of São Tomé, corresponding to urban-oriented and modernizing amenities, besides the varied two-storey houses for both residential and trading purposes which marked most of its urban fabric; and, although sparse, the 20th century architectural legacy, successively modernist, neo-traditional and modern, from the 1930sto the 1960s, concentrated in the city of São Tomé, such as the former cine-theatre, the high school and the telecommunications building, in addition to the planned quarter of single-family houses (former Salazar Quarter, now 3 de Fevereiro).
A special theme that we consider important to mention in this introduction is the process and effort of the urban replanning of Guinea-Bissau in the 1960s-1970s. The cluster of roças on São Tomé and Príncipe also deserve special attention, with an entry devoted to it, high-lighting its originality and importance as built heritage.
Urbanism in Guinea-Bissau from the mid-twentieth century to 1968-197
The cities of Guinea grew, although slowly, over the course of the 20th century: the then colony, later “overseas province', had 350,000 inhabitants in 1940, and 544,000 in 1960. There are some known results of the urbanistic and territorial planning by the government seated in Lisbon: for example, the Projecto de uma aldeia para Indígenas (project for a village for indigenous people) in Bafatá, which included the construction of a market and a mosque. Bissau also deserved the centralizing attention of the Lisbon government, with an urbanization plan executed in the mid-twentieth century that directed the sprawl of the capital from the reticular plan of the early 20th century (1919).
Of more interest, due to the strategic dimension it assumed, was the attempt at territorial planning in the final years of colonial rule, during the governorship of general António de Spínola. During the last five years of Portuguese colonial occupation, with part of the territory already occupied by pro-independence powers and an unstable military situation (as a result of the use of land-air missiles, which began to decimate the Portuguese air force), the issues ofland management and replanning assumed an important role. There was an effort to establish new centres for the population of the territory, in addition to the prediction of the expansion of the existing centres in order to settle, urbanize and control the natives. This late and unsuccessful policy translated into the published work Ordenamento rural e urbano na ‘Guiné Portuguesa’ (Rural and urban land management of Portuguese Guinea) of 1973, which is of deep interest for the understanding of this last historical stage of the colony. The book features profuse cartographic documentation, in colour, with a list of towns in Guinea, including 61 urban and rural “Zoning Projects” “designed in the last four years” (with overall plans for each centre). Some cartographic examples of the mentioned work worthy of mention are: Canjande, Cacheu (the plan of which includes the old area of the town),
Teixeira Pinto, Bissau, with the varied areas of the city (hospital, high school, etc), Nhacra (featuring a modern zoning), Farim (with a plan of an old area), Contuboel, Geba, Bambadinca and Bubaque (all with plans of pre-existing areas, the last-named located on the islands). Most of the settlements and plans adopted the grid system and structure, which was effectively more suitable to the strategies and short periods of action. The construction of an airstrip had been planned for many places in order to ensure easy access to the places the safety of which it was necessary to guarantee.
The above-mentioned work is nowadays an essential document in the study of the construction of several of the urban and proto-urban cores spread across the territory of Guinea-Bissau, not so much for the plans it features (possibly not executed), but mostly because it includes a thorough and systematized cartographic depiction of the existing urban areas, with historical identified constructions, enabling the elaboration of specific and comparative historical analysis on the corresponding urban and architectural styles.
A final reference must be made to the difficult present day conditions of urban and territorial life in Guinea-Bissau. The military, political and social instability, the deep poverty in the country and the overall disarray of the structures of collective support create a highly unfavourable background for the preservation of its architectural heritage.
Methodological aspects
What was mentioned regarding the archipelago of Cape Verde can also be applied to the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe: in effect, each of these islands includes a single relevant city in terms of its architectural heritage, which required the elaboration of a specific introduction for each of those islands, followed by the particular introduction for the urban core. But, contrary to the Cape Verdean islands, the equatorial archipelago has a large number of examples outside the urban sphere scattered across both territories. This pertains to the roças, of an agro-industrial nature. The specificity of the phenomenon accounts for a particular collective entry.