Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, first rose to prominence in medieval and post-medieval times. Though it had been long overshadowed by nearby Debarwa, the residence of the Bahr Negash or the governor of the coastal province, it still existed as a major settlement for over half a millennium and enjoyed some importance as it stood on the trade route to Massawa. During the 20th century it was a staging ground for Italian initiatives in East Africa, collateral of Britain's colonial politics, and the subject of the expansion of Ethiopia until 1993, when the sovereign state of Eritrea was established. Despite the passage of over seventy years, the city (apart from a large group of buildings of avant-garde design) has remained mostly unchanged in structural design, likely influenced by its position as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Asmara — developed similarly to a European city — is today, an Eritrean city. Although the city's planners, architects, and engineers were largely European, members of the indigenous population were used as construction workers. People who live in Asmara still strongly identify with their city's legacy.Körting, Jan & Neysan Zölzer (2012), Heritage and Daily Life in the Historic Urban Core of Asmara (Original: Erbe und Alltag im historischen Stadtkern Asmaras). Dissertation. Technische Universität Berlin.
Etymology The name Asmara derives from "Arbate Asmara", the name given to a village on the site of today's Asmara. The name means "the women have united the four villages" and relates to a foundational story in which women forced the men of four villages to consolidate their villages into one.
Pre-colonial to 1922
Pre-colonial Asmara
The area around present-day Asmara was an ideal place to build a settlement, due to its fertile soil, mild climate because of its location on a plateau, and high rainfall for the region. Remains of prehistoric peoples have been found near Asmara. From the nearby rule of the ancient Aksum Empire; to Islam's spread into the Horn of Africa from the region; to ruins of small villages found around present-day Asmara.Curtis and Schmidt describe archeological findings from the agro-pastoral settlements, which arose between the 8th and 4th centuries BC. It is possible that Asmara was already an important trade center even before the Axum Empire. (Cf. Curtis, Schmidt. Urban Precursors in the Horn: Early 1st Millennium BC Communities in Eritrea, p. 849.)
According to oral traditions, there were once four villages on the Asmara plains. Attacks by wild animals and raids by other indigenous groups prompted the women of the neighboring villages to come together to discuss solutions that would help to ensure the protection of their families, properties, and belongings. The women decided that they would not serve lunch to the men of their villages until they agreed to consolidate the four villages into one. The men fulfilled the women's wishes and built one united village, which they named Arbate Asmara.Yosief, The Story of Asmära [sic.] Cited in: Melchers: Asmara – Afrikas heimliche Hauptstadt der Moderne, p. 10.
Asmara was first mentioned in a Latin itinerary during the reign of Emperor Dawit I (1382–1411). A century later an Ethiopian monk, Brother Zogi, spoke of Asmara in 1519, describing it as a "great city".
The missionary Remedius Prutky passed through Asmara in 1751, and described in his memoirs that a church built there by Jesuit priests 130 years ago was still intact.
During the middle of the 19th century, Asmara was a small village of just 150 inhabitants. Because of its proximity to the coast, Asmara suffered in the early 1870s from the incursions of the Egyptians. E. A. De Cosson found Asmara in 1873, "almost deserted" as "being so near the frontier, they had been exposed to the ravages of the Egyptian soldiers." The Ethiopian Emperor Yohannes IV, concerned by the Egyptian raids in the area, appointed his British advisor John Kirkham to govern the area in 1875. The following year, Asmara was sacked by the pro-Egyptian warlord Woldemichael Solomon, who raided the area until the Egyptian defeat at Gura.
After the decline of Egyptian influence in the region, Yohannes appointed Ras Alula to be governor of the region in 1877. Alula declared Asmara the capital of the province, and within just a few years had increased the population of the small village to more than 5,000 inhabitants. A buoyant weekly market drew traders and builders from all over the surrounding region. Political and military conflicts between the local warlords of the Hamasien plateau compelled Alula to station 12,000 soldiers in Asmara, so that the small city soon took on the appearance of a military camp. During the 1870s, there were at least two battles between Alula and these warlords, both of which essentially destroyed the city. Asmara's weekly market, however, continued to take place. Emperor Yohannes IV called Alula and his troops to support him in his fight against the Mahdists.
Italian occupation Italian troops took advantage of Alula's absence, the power vacuum left as a result of Emperor Yohannes’ death, and the havoc wreaked by three years of famine to take control of the city on August 3, 1889.Tesfagiorgis. Eritrea – Africa in Focus, p. 34. They built their fort on a hill in the village of Beit Mekae, forcing the inhabitants of this village to resettle nearby. At the time of General Baldisera’s arrival, the small town had 3000 inhabitants and consisted of traditional mud huts, Agdos and Hidmos. Above all, the military fort at Beit Mekae was a strategic point when it came to controlling the local population; it also served as a military strongpoint from which local uprisings, which were largely directed against the government’s power of eminent domain, could be suppressed.Gebremedhin. Asmara – Africa's Secret Modernist City, p. 5. Eritrea officially became an Italian colony in 1890 and Massawa – already the seat of the colonial administration since 1885 – was declared the capital. At this time, because of the danger of insurrection in the highlands, Asmara was not considered to become the capital of the new colony. Furthermore, Bizzon explains, Asmara was not developed enough to serve as the capital: "Politically, militarily, and even logistically, the distance between Massawa and Asmara is greater than the distance between Italy and Massawa."Bizzoni: L’Eritrea – nel passato e nel presente. Quoted in: Denison et al.: Asmara – Africa's Secret Modernist City, p. 24. The lack of an infrastructural link to Massawa prevented Asmara from developing quickly.
Despite this, Asmara rose to significance in accordance with the Italian plan for colonization. The interest in the occupation of Eritrea lay, on the one hand, in the settlement of Italian citizens, and on the other, in Eritrea as a military base from which expansion could take place.Almedom. Re-reading the Short and Long-Rigged History of Eritrea 1941–1952: Back to the Future?, p. 108. The Ethiopian Empire was one of the last uncolonized regions of Africa, and the vision of a strong, modern Italian nation after the successes of the Risorgimento, would require the acquisition of colonies if the country was to become a European superpower, and to affirm the autonomy of the young kingdom.Fuller. Italy's Colonial Futures: Colonial Inertia and Postcolonial Capital in Asmara, p. 2. Colonial politics brought about the government's claim to eminent domain as well as the realization of many noteworthy infrastructure projects. As a result of the takeover of Asmara by foreign militaries, and because of the employment opportunities in infrastructure projects throughout Eritrea, the population of Asmara itself shrunk from 1500 to 800 inhabitants during the first five years of the Italian occupation, ( but since then has always increased, especially when the Italian Eritrean capital was moved there from Massawa. However, it remained an important market town on the Hamasien Plateau. The construction of the Massawa-Asmara-Railroad as well as a funicular railroad built along the same stretch that could transport heavy loads, allowed the Italians to use Asmara as a new base in the highlands.
Declared as a capital
With the arrival in 1897, of the first governor, Ferdinando Martini, and after advances in the invasion of the highlands, Asmara was declared the capital of the colony of Eritrea. Asmara offered a strategic military position in the highlands opposite Massawa, fortifications at the residences of Alula and Baldissera, and an increase in the quality and quantity of transportation connections in the region. The possibility that the city could become a cultural-historical hub did not play any role in the decision to make Asmara into the capital. Only a few modern buildings like the Commissariato, a small jail, the troop commanders' villa, a club for Italian officers, and several houses and roads were built before 1900.Tesfagiorgis. Eritrea – Africa in Focus, p. 41.
These buildings surrounded the old post office building in the city neighborhood known as Mai Bela, remembered for its narrow streets and short blocks, and were symbols of the beginnings of modern Asmara. In 1900, a fire destroyed large parts of neighborhoods inhabited mostly by indigenous people, which would have given colonial city planners the chance to reorganize these areas in accordance with European criteria had they taken the opportunity. Early urban development as well as the construction of two fortresses in addition to Fort Baldisera took place along the East-West line, which later became the city's central avenue, today called Harnet Avenue.
City plan The first city plan for Asmara was introduced under Martini in 1902. At the center of the plan was a grid system, even though the topography of the city was not ideal for such a road system, as the following report describes:I say the 'flat ground' of the city, but instead it is anything else but flat. Light undulations, little hills, mounds, bumps, dips and little valleys in the ground bring a truly picturesque variety to the buildings and to the streets, which therefore never appear similar to one another. They offer suitable areas and remarkable positions in which to make public buildings prominent. In short, it is a ground so made that it would be the torment of a builder from Turin, the horror of an engineer from America, but would be dreamt of by an architect who is truly artistic, a lover of the picturesque, and an enemy of uniformity."The visitor was R. Paoli. A translation of a selection from his travel logs can be found in Denison et al.: Asmara – Africa's Secret Modernist City, p. 33.Nevertheless, Italian planners chose to implement a grid system for Asmara's roads. It would be a symbol of how the "civilized" brought order to the organically developed neighborhoods of the natives,The fact that the local districts would emerge "organically" was less of an urban strategy than a neglect of the Eritreans by the Italian colonial administration (See Asmara — Africa's Secret Modernist City, p. 33.) and would, in this way, highlight the so-called superiority of the colonizers.