Cape Verde
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.
Cape Verde is marked by a landscape typically found in archipelagos of volcanic origin, with the accentuated relief complemented by a dry tropical climate. Discovered between 1460 and 1462 by Antonio da Noli, Diogo Gomes and Diogo Afonso, these initially uninhabited North Atlantic islands were soon colonised by the Portuguese. For centuries they served to support maritime voyages; various settlements were established on the ten islands, the oldest of which is nowadays an esteemed cluster of ruins (Cidade Velha de Santiago). The cities of Sao Filipe and Praia respectively developed in the 16th and 18th centuries, while others are rooted in the 19th century (Mindelo, Ponta do Sol). Almost all the islands have a main or more important urban centre, along with smaller towns and villages. With few exceptions, the most significant have traditional Portuguese urban (or proto-urban) features: coastal location, an 'organic' street grid on the slopes, linking the customs house and fort, church and town hall, in an ensemble that also includes modest residential areas.
The islands' architectural heritage is generally of great conceptual, typological and formal simplicity. In most cases it is traditional in nature, with recourse to poor though expressive materials - masonry, stucco, wood, tile and metal sheeting. Besides buildings from the first centuries of settlement, few of which survive (mainly churches and fortifications), there is a significant group of 19th century constructions associated mostly to amenities and housing, along with various examples of modernist, Estado Novo and modern architecture from the 20th century in the main cities of Praia and Mindelo
The islands’ main heritage group
The islands' heritage attests to the various successive historic settlement cycles and to changes affecting the economy, political developments, social life and culture. This is primarily evident in the major or most historically important cities: the ruins of Ribeira Grande de Santiago (Cidade Velha) manifest urban themes from the earliest settlement period, when it was used as a stopover port and for the slave traffic, with buildings in the Manueline and Classic-Baroque styles (Church of Our Lady of the Rosary, Cathedral) and a bastioned military construction from the 17th century (Saint Philip's Fort); Praia's administrative and modernising function is characterised by the central sites as engendered by the 18th century reform process, prolonged in the 19th century (barracks, governor's palace, town hall square and parish church, hospital and market); finally, Mindelo, the 'Porto Grande' of the coal docks serving the new British steam-driven transportation clearly expresses its main construction period (second half of the 19th century and early 20th century), as attested by various public buildings (El-Rei Fort customs house, government palace, town hall and first high school).
Also important are the main towns on the less populated islands and the secondary towns on the largest island (Assomada, Tarrafal), with a heritage of military and religious infrastructure, small-scale housing and a simple architectural expression indicative of their slow and modest growth in the more isolated and peripheral islands, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries.
In chronological and typological terms, the following main architectural heritage groups for the islands can be listed: monumental heritage from the 16th to 18th centuries, especially significant on the island with the oldest cities (Santiago, with Ribeira Grande or Cidade Velha, listed by unesco as part of the World Heritage in 2009, along with Praia), although military examples also exist on other islands (Saint Joseph's Fort on Maio); a diverse heritage from the 19th century with new urban amenities manifesting the process of modernisation such as customs houses, hospitals (Praia and Mindelo) and high schools (Mindelo and Ribeira Brava, as well as some (rare) isolated industrial heritage (salt works at Pedra de Lume on Sal Island) and military (Duke of Braganza Fort on the small island in front of Sal-Rei on Boavista) and religious (Sanctuary of Our Lady of Succour on Fogo Island) constructions; 20th century heritage, with fewer examples, including Art Deco modernism (Cinema Eden Park in Mindelo), Estado Novo architecture (the Praia high school and the new high school of Mindelo) and clearly modern architecture (Mindelo Naval Command); popular or vernacular architecture, in small settlements and on other islands, with the group of houses in Sao Felipe (Fogo) or the Cohen House in Ponta do Sol (Santo Antao) and to a certain degree the religious architecture found in small towns, with unsophisticated constructions that simplified erudite themes in a standardised manner, particularly throughout the 19th century (churches in the main urban centres on each island).
Special emphasis should be given to themes that became significant on the islands, such as the urbanisation processes, mainly in the 19th and 20th centuries, from liberalism to Salazarism, as well as the policy governing heritage, which in the last decades of the colonial period included several campaigns to restore monuments.
The role of urbanism and urban plans in the 19th and 20th centurie
After a long period associated with economic cycles deriving from the slave trade and centring on the few seaports (mainly in Santiago and Fogo) that served the routes to Africa (and trans-oceanic voyages), the mid-nineteenth century witnessed the start of a development boom linked to steam navigation, particularly associated with maritime transport and trade of British origin. This led to the creation of new urban development processes, notably including the establishment of what is now the islands' second most important city (Mindelo) and development of the more peripheral windward (Barlavento) islands better suited to the new maritime routes not dependent on sail navigation
Indeed, after the period of discovery and the growth of the first settlements, the idea of endowing the islands with a system of harbours serving the Atlantic routes signalled the start of a new development stage marked by the economic prosperity of the 19th century. This led to the consolidation and especially the concentration of public investment in the cities of Praia and Mindelo. The first half of the 20th century, on the contrary, was characterised by a crisis period associated with the decline of port activity, a lack of natural resources and exceptional drought conditions. Only in the late 1960s was Cape Verde able use a new national development strategy to benefit its exceptional geographical condition, using urban plans as the main instrument for territorial and above all urban intervention.
The 19th century was initially marked by the Congress of Vienna, which outlawed the slave trade in 1815, and the declaration of Brazilian independence in 1822, serving as the backdrop for the second stage of urban development. Portugal reinvented Cape Verde's coastal cities to support the new intercontinental routes, eventually catering to steamships and their supply needs. The islands' transformation led governor Antonio de Lencastre to undertake Praia's first expansion in 1808. Its city status was confirmed in 1858 and resulted in urban planning practices manifested from the second half of the 19th century on, with new rules that also encompassed new building standards.
Efforts to settle Sao Vicente Island had repeatedly failed from the 18th century. Transatlantic traffic and the exceptional natural conditions of Porto Grande were nevertheless key factors behind the Portuguese administration's decision, via the Minister for the Navy and Colonies, the viscount of Sa da Bandeira, to establish Mindelo by royal decree dated from the 11th June 1838. It was subsequently raised to the status of town in 1858 and city in 1879. Port activity in Mindelo thrived in the 19th century, though it lost its dominant position in transatlantic navigation after 1885, eclipsed by competitors in the Canary Islands and on the African mainland.
The port crisis was followed by an agricultural crisis in the early 20th century. Farmers left the fields to seek job opportunities in the cities. In Praia, populated areas around Plateau were densely occupied by improvised constructions; Mindelo was likewise pressured by rural exodus and suffered from declining port activity that increased unemployment, with a growing number of unorganised areas. Although the population was increasing, there was no policy to support the growth of cities during this period. In the early 20th century work nevertheless began on studies for the General Improvement Plan of Mindelo. This document became a priority in 1927; its development process is unknown, although it influenced the city's expansion until the mid-twentieth century.
No instruments to guide actions in most settlements existed until the 1930s, when on the initiative of governor Amadeu Gomes de Figueiredo, Cape Verde's administration adopted the General Urbanisation Plan as promoted in Portugal from 1934, and published Directive no. 1844 of 1938, imposing the use of urban development plans in all settlements with more than 50 houses. But the effort required of municipalities nevertheless failed to notably affect urban planning. This was due to a lack of cartographic surveys and mainly the shortage of competent experts to help implement the plans locally. The period up to the 1940s thus only saw isolated development of the Urbanisation Plan for the Vila of Santa Maria in the strategic context and prosperity deriving from the airport on Sal Island, and the Urbanisation Plan for the Vila of Ribeira Brava, an initiative to consolidate the town in the interior of Sao Nicolau Island, both produced in 1947. But the early 1950s witnessed the initiative to conceive a strategic plan for the province. The Works Plan for Cape Verde development, though it never moved beyond the programmatic phase, helped shape an integrated view of the territory, systematised from the 1960s on when the first urban planning instruments were produced.
Planning studies for Mindelo were only resumed in 1957 by the architect Joao Antonio de Aguiar. But the unsuitable nature of the projects submitted for the urban development plan was severely criticised due to the use of solutions rooted in garden-city models, with large garden areas indicated for sites where water resources were scarce. This situation affected continuation of the work, which was then reworked by the architect Jose Luis Amorim and finished in 1960. In the mid-twentieth century, the Portuguese State, through its political and economic development strategy, began implementing plans to foster investment in Cape Verde, reviving the idea of building a platform to serve the Atlantic routes. To accomplish this, urban plans conceived under the urban planning services of the Ministry of Overseas Affairs became a vital instrument and the basis for specific action lines. The main goal was to modernise the islands' interfaces with other countries by using master plans to reorganise the two major port cities, Praia and Mindelo. Another aim was to consolidate settlement in the islands by urban interventions that would support the development of local economic activities such as fishing or salt extraction. Lastly, as beach- related tourism became popular in Europe, Cape Verde saw an opportunity for economic growth based on its landscape and weather.
This led to the simultaneous development of guiding plans for the cities of Praia and Mindelo, respectively organised in two distinct phases in the early and late 1960s. In other population centres on the islands, urban plans aimed to ensure that sites were suitable for consolidating settlement and economic activities.
Small coastal towns played a key role in local dynamics in the islands. An example is the town of Porto Novo, whose plan by Maria Emilia Caria was drawn up in 1965, making this old port on Santo Antao Island an interface with Sao Vicente, serving both passenger and cargo traffic and mainly supplying the city and port of Mindelo. In Sao Pedro on Sao Vicente Island, the 1960 plan by Pedro Gregorio Lopes proposed transforming the small fishing village with buildings designed with new conditions for health, hygiene and living space in mind. The Urbanisation Plan for the Vila of Ribeira Grande (on Santo Antao), drawn up seven years later by Maria Emilia Caria, promoted the urban cohesion of a centre which initially occupied three distinct areas marked by banana plantations. In areas suitable for agriculture in the islands' interior, the plans proposed actions to consolidate population centres, such as the one for the town of Assomada in 1960, by Jose Luis Amorim. By affirming the formal nature of the spaces, an urban image was conveyed, contrasting with the scattered settlements in other parts of Santiago Island. The rise of the tourism phenomenon in Europe also boosted actions to transform existing centres in Cape Verde, with buildings adjusted to the new tourism reality, as predicted in 1970 by the study for the Urbanisation Plan for the Vila of Santa Maria on Sal Island. The major tourism-related projects also led to the foundation of new places, as indicated in the 1961 Urbanisation Plan for Baia das Gatas, predicated on access to the port of Mindelo and Sao Pedro Airport to establish a beach-oriented urban development in a unique landscape. The last, albeit important, period of colonial city development in Cape Verde thus took place in the second half of the 20th century and was marked by the work of architects who drew up urban designs and development plans with various approaches according to the respective contexts. In small towns there was a tendency to establish street layouts using traditional city composition elements. But in maj or cities the need to restructure led to more radical approaches that jeopardised the principles of urban continuity and readability, transforming the image of the Portuguese-founded city due to influence from the urban movements in Europe after World War I.
The restoration of monuments - religious and military architecture
In this regard it is especially important to highlight the restoration measures undertaken by the Portuguese government during the late occupation period, mainly through action by the architect Luis Benavente (1902-1993), the director of national monuments for the Ministry of Public Works, serving in the Portuguese Overseas Territories between 1962 and 1972. The continuity and practical results achieved by this activity during successive restoration campaigns enabled a comprehensive systemisation of knowledge regarding the built heritage, and helped determine a consistent Portuguese state policy for preserving that heritage in Cape Verde during the last phase of the colonial period in the 20th century. This policy encompassed the major monuments of religious and military architecture in the islands, mainly concentrated on Santiago Island. An example is the intervention at Saint Philip's Fort, in various religious buildings in Cidade Velha, and a number of small isolated projects scattered across rural areas of Santiago Island, as can be seen in the respective entries. Luis Benavente also left studies and notes concerning several ruins and religious buildings on Santiago Island, particularly near the cities of Praia and Ribeira Grande, justifying works that were never completed but may serve as a basis for future research. Also worth mentioning on Santiago Island, besides the buildings described in the entries on Praia and Ribeira Grande and beyond their surrounding areas, are the chapels of Our Lady of Grace in Chao de Tanque, with its quadrangular - plan portico/porch in a style prevalent in Portugal's Estremadura region and the pinnacled nave with a curious hemispherical vaulted ceiling over the altar; of Our Lady of Hope in Ribeira da Praia on the northwest coast; of Saint Michael and of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, in valleys near the northeast coast; and the two chapels of Ponta Verde and Our Lady of Succour on the shore nearby.
Regarding military architecture in Cape Verde, Luis Benavente addressed much of his attention to restoring the ruins of Saint Philip's Fort. Benavente viewed the restoration of each building as a part of a whole, backing and preparing the proposal for a comprehensive classification and inventory of (religious and military) heritage in line with the principles set out in the 1964 Venice Charter, of which he was one of the signatories.
As we shall see in the entries on the built heritage in Cape Verde, one characteristic is that in most cases only one town on each island is referred to, apart from the several population centres on Santiago, the biggest island, and Sal, which includes a number of settlements of similar size but no town that particularly stands out. This “main urban centre - island” relationship characterizes this island group, distinguishing it from other African sub-regions. Virtually all the built heritage in the islands is consequently located in those main urban centres; isolated buildings with effective heritage value are thus quite rare.