Description

Lobito High School (formerly Liceu Almirante Lopes Alves) was designed by Francisco Castro Rodrigues (1920–2015) in Lobito between 1963 and 1970. The construction of a lyceum in Lobito – the most industrialised city in the province of Benguela – was part of the colonial government‘s policy of expanding Angola‘s existing school network at the beginning of the Angolan War of Independence (1961–1975). The lyceum was funded only a few months after the outbreak of war (4 February 1961) and operated in temporary facilities until 1966.

Meanwhile, in 1962, the education authorities drew up a preliminary programme for a mixed secondary school for 800 pupils. This programme included classrooms, laboratories, assembly rooms, a canteen, two gymnasiums and an auditorium. The project was then entrusted to Francisco Castro Rodrigues, a Portuguese architect who had lived in Lobito since 1954. At that time, he had already designed several public and private buildings, was highly respected and eventually became known as “the architect of Lobito”, having developed several urban plans and the city‘s most important buildings between 1954 and 1975.

Castro Rodrigues’ design, completed in 1963, called for the construction of eleven blocks connected by covered galleries that were to organise outdoor paths and provide shelter from the sun. In all, the school would have a gross floor area of 8,000 square metres on a site of 57,400 square metres. Construction began immediately, but in stages: first a large block of classrooms was built (1964–1966), then the administration block (1965–1967), a second block of classrooms (1969–1970) and finally a gymnasium (1970).

The classroom blocks consist of two long, three-storey parallel structures, slightly offset: the first, measuring 90 by 12 metres, for the second and third cycles, and the second, measuring 60 by 12 metres, for the first cycle of the secondary school. The volumes are partially raised from the ground on pilotis, creating fully ventilated, shaded play areas. In both blocks, on the two upper floors, there is a series of classrooms along the south-west façade facing the street, and an access gallery on the north-east side facing the schoolyard.

The south-west façade is made up of a fibrocement openwork conceived by the architect and the design team from the Lupral fibre-cement company in Benguela. This pattern combines a trapezoidal grid with tubular elements, prefabricated by the company. On one side, the classrooms are bounded by this porous wall. On the other side, large windows with glass louvres for air intake separate the classrooms from the access gallery.

The standard classrooms are 60 square metres in size and are designated to accommodate 30 students. In the first block, these classrooms have an additional 20 square metres of space adjacent to the south-west façade. This additional space consists of a balcony in order to distance the learning area from the façade and to protect the students from direct afternoon sun. This additional space was not built in the second block in order to optimise costs. The administration block is a two-storey rectangular volume that acts as the school’s entrance building, where teachers, students, parents and the community meet. Its front façade is composed of a grid of two-storey fibre-cement ventilation blocks. The double height entrance hall is thus a semi-open space, shaded and naturally ventilated. The gymnasium is made up of two juxtaposed volumes: a larger and taller one, which accommodates the sports hall, and a slimmer and lower unit, which houses the changing rooms, toilets and storage areas. The building is formed by a 3-metre-high brick wall surrounding a 7-metre-high concrete structure. A void between these two elements creates a 4-metre-high continuous window that brings natural light and cross-ventilation into the gymnasium. To the northeast, a set of five folding doors opens the space completely to the outside, promoting a direct relationship with the outdoor training areas.

Lobito’s hot, semi-arid climate was the catalyst for Castro Rodrigues’ open-air solution for the school. The architect believed that the only way to alleviate student discomfort and fatigue caused by the high humidity and temperatures was to ventilate the interiors naturally with constant crosscurrents of air. Castro Rodrigues, an advocate of the open-air school movement, believed that a “school without walls” was conducive for the physical and moral development of young people in a new educational environment: “With the greatest possible contact with nature, the spirit of youth is raised to all that is beautiful, true and superior. The blue sky, the clouds, the play of the trees in the landscape, the flowers, the passing train, even the passing car, are stimuli and support for the elevation of the spirit. The child also learns by appreciating the events and aspects of life that surround him” (Francisco Castro Rodrigues, 1963, p. 1).

Today, the building is still used as a secondary school and is now called “Escola Secundária do Primeiro Ciclo Comandante Valódia“. For many decades the school was left in its original state with very little maintenance, until the Ministry of Education funded the renovation of the buildings in 2014. This resulted in several significant changes, such as the replacement of the original windows, the installation of a new roofing system and the enlargement of structural elements. The refurbishment project also included the removal of the façade ventilation blocks, but this was opposed by both the school community and the municipality as it would have significantly altered the appearance of the building. In this case, despite the lack of heritage protection for the complex, community mobilisation has informally contributed to the preservation of this important building, which has a place in the collective memory of Lobito.

References
Almeida, A. (2012). Arquitectura em clima tropical. Viagem à obra de Francisco Castro Rodrigues em Angola [Master dissertation, Departamento de Arquitectura, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra]. UC Scientific Repository. http://hdl.handle.net/10316/21245

Bernardes, C. (1967). Um liceu ao ar livre. Província de Angola, 11 April, pp. 10-11.

Castro Rodrigues, F. (1963). Memória descritiva e justificativa do Liceu Almirante Lopes Alves -anteprojecto, January 1963.

Dionísio, E. (2009). Francisco Castro Rodrigues – Um Cesto de Cerejas – conversas, memórias, uma vida. Lisbon: Casa da Achada.

Fonte, M. M. (2006). Urbanismo e Arquitectura em Angola – de Norton de Matos à Revolução [Doctoral dissertation, Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade Técnica de Lisboa]. UTL Repository. http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/2027

Gomes, R. J. (1967). O problema do conforto térmico em climas tropicais e subtropicais. Lisbon: LNEC.

Magalhães, A. (2009). Moderno tropical: Arquitectura em Angola e Moçambique, 1948–1975. Lisbon: Tinta da China.

Olgyay, V. (1963). Design with Climate: Bioclimatic Approach to Architectural Regionalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Quintã, M. (2019). Modern Schools in Angola, 1961–1975. Design with Climate and Heritage [Doctoral dissertation, Técnico – University of Lisbon; École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne]. Infoscience EPLF scientic publications. https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/279416

Silveira, M. M. (1962). Climas de Angola. Luanda: Serviço Meteorológico de Angola.

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Originally published in: Uta Pottgiesser, Ana Tostões, Modernism in Africa. The Architecture of Angola, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Birkhäuser, 2024.