Welcome to Asmara, the capital and most populous city of Eritrea. It sits high in the Eritrean Highlands at 2,325 metres, making it the second-highest capital in Africa. According to local tradition, the city was founded when four villages united to live together in peace after long periods of conflict. Asmara rose to prominence in the twentieth century as the capital of Italian Eritrea, growing so fast and so modern that it was called Piccola Roma, Little Rome. In 2017 it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its remarkably well-preserved modernist architecture. Let's set off on a stroll through this open-air gallery.
Fiat Tagliero Building
Photo: sailko · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsIn front of you is a truly daring building, the Fiat Tagliero, a Futurist filling station completed in 1938. The Italian engineer Giuseppe Pettazzi designed it to look like an aeroplane, with a central tower and a pair of huge concrete wings, each reaching out 15 metres with no support. The local authorities insisted on pillars under the wings. Pettazzi reportedly settled the argument by threatening to kill the contractor if the supports were not removed. They were, and the wings held, even surviving British bombing during the Second World War.
Church of Our Lady of the Rosary
Photo: sailko · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsRising in the centre of the city is the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary, a large church in the Lombard Romanesque style, built in 1923 when Asmara was the capital of Italian Eritrea. Locals call it the Cathedral, yet curiously it never was one in the strict sense. It was the principal church of an apostolic vicariate, led by a titular bishop rather than a diocesan one. It is now a parish church, but in Asmara the old nickname has stuck.
Enda Mariam Cathedral
Photo: sailko · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsOn Arbate Asmara Street stands Enda Mariam Cathedral, an Eritrean Orthodox church. Its name is lovely: in Tigrinya, enda means the place of something, so Enda Mariam means the place of Mary. A simple wooden church stood here from the late nineteenth century. The building you see dates from 1938, when an unknown Italian architect added the upper parts of the two flanking towers and gave the façade its modernist look, turning an earlier design into the striking church before you.
Great Mosque of Asmara
Photo: David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia CommonsHere in the city centre is the Great Mosque of Asmara, also called the Mosque of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs. It is counted among the three most prominent buildings in the city, alongside the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary and Enda Mariam Cathedral. Designed by Guido Ferrazza, it was built in 1938 on the initiative of Benito Mussolini, intended to impress the city's Muslims, who make up about half of the local population.
Cinema Impero
Photo: sailko · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsStep up to the Cinema Impero, the Empire Cinema, built in 1937 and considered by experts one of the world's finest Art Deco buildings. It was the largest cinema built in Asmara in the final years of the Italian colony, and its name celebrated Mussolini's proclamation of an Italian Empire. Designed by the architect Mario Messina, the building has hardly been altered since. Take a seat inside: most of the equipment and seats are original, and it has escaped damage through the conflicts that have touched the Horn of Africa.
Asmara Synagogue
Photo: Reinhard Dietrich · CC0 · Wikimedia CommonsOur tour ends at the Asmara Synagogue, completed in 1906 and the only surviving remnant of the Jewish community in Eritrea. The congregation was founded that same year by Yemenite Jewish immigrants from Aden. Over time they were joined by Italian Jews and by refugees from Nazi Germany. Behind its walls you will find a main sanctuary, classrooms and a Jewish cemetery, quiet witnesses to a community that once made its home in this highland city.
Lomakuume
