Description
The Veterinary Faculty of Huambo (formerly Nova Lisboa) was the most ambitious university complex developed in Angola in the late 1960s. It was a major undertaking, built on the country’s central plateau, with the aim of promoting not only the regionalisation of university studies, but also the agricultural development of Angola’s interior. The faculty was located on 1,200 hectares of land next to the Angolan Institute of Veterinary Research (IIVA), which had been there since 1927.
The University of Luanda awarded the project to Vasco Vieira da Costa (1911–1982) in 1968, and the complex was built in stages between 1969 and 1975. During this period, only a small part of the original plan was realised, with the construction of three buildings: the Outpatient Clinic (1969), the Sports Field (1970) and the Veterinary Academic Hospital (1971–1974). The Veterinary Academic Hospital was one of the last works in Vasco Vieira da Costa’s career and undoubtedly the most significant building designed during the period of his partnership (1970–1973) with José Quintão (1940–2021).
Vieira da Costa and Quintão’s architectural project followed a very ambitious programme, resulting in a building of around 7,000 square metres that includes classrooms, laboratories, operating theatres and animal accommodation. Spanning 170 metres, the building of exposed brick and concrete consists of four distinct volumes arranged in an H-shaped plan. A central courtyard marks the main entrance to the building and organises the circulation of the hospital, linking the classrooms to the north, the operating theatres to the south and the animal shelters to the west. A brick volume suspended on exposed concrete columns covers the passage from the courtyard to the animal areas and serves as accommodation for the vets on duty.
When reading the descriptions of Vieira da Costa‘s projects, it becomes clear that his main objective in all of them was to achieve indoor comfort without the need for artificial cooling. It was a process of using analytical design methods and scientific knowledge of the climatic parameters, solar map and wind rose of each location to provide what he considered to be desirable indoor qualities. The architectural projects he developed with Quintão were no exception. But the climate of Huambo was very different from the hot and humid climate of Luanda, where he developed most of his projects. Instead, Huambo had a subtropical plateau climate, with heavy rainfall throughout the year and a wide range of daily temperatures.
The architects created a massive, compact building in Huambo, in contrast to the lightweight structures of Luanda. Huambo’s temperate climate favoured passive environmental solutions, limiting the use of air-cooling systems to operating theatres. Between October and April, Huambo experiences daily rainfall, which is usually heavy, sudden and accompanied by thunderstorms. Due to the long rainy season, the architects designed several sheltered outdoor spaces, using inverted beams with spans of 4 metres to cover all the external passages next to the building. By exposing the structure of the building and highlighting the concrete elements against the large brick surfaces, they have succeeded in creating a continuous relationship between the interior and exterior spaces. The large horizontal slabs, the transparency of the concrete grid and the use of unclad materials contribute to the integration of the building into the natural environment.
By 1975, the campus was far from complete, but the construction of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine was interrupted by the outbreak of the civil war that followed the country‘s independence. In the following decades, the central region was the main battleground of the Angolan civil war (1975–2002), and the city of Huambo was heavily attacked during the “55-day war” in 1993. At the time, the Academic Veterinary Hospital served as a shelter for the population during the air raids, and the campus was later converted into a military headquarters, alternately for the two warring political parties, the MPLA and UNITA. Peace was restored in 2002, but the Veterinary Hospital is still used as a military barracks and around thirty soldiers live in the ruins to protect the building from vandalism. The state-run José Eduardo dos Santos University is now responsible for the complex, and the Ministry of Education is dedicated to the renovation of its facilities.
References
Costa, V.V. and Quintão, J. (1970). “UL Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária, Nova Lisboa. Memória descritiva”, October 1970, Vieira da Costa Archive, Luanda.
Quintã, M. (2009). Arquitectura e Clima, Geografia de um Lugar: Luanda e a Obra de Vasco Vieira da Costa. Porto: Iperforma/Soapro.
Quintã, M. (2013). “A Resisting Modern Monument: Huambo Veterinary Academic Hospital”. Docomomo Journal, 48, pp. 34–39. https://doi.org/10.52200/48.A.7SGHV2ZU
Quintã, M. (2013). “Veterinary Academic Hospital in Huambo: Old African Brutalism”. In: A. Tostões (ed.), Modern Architecture in Africa: Angola and Mozambique. Lisbon: ICIST/Técnico-University of Lisbon, pp. 212–221.
Interviews by Margarida Quintã with José Quintão, Porto, 18 June 2013 and 15 May 2018.
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
Santos, M. (1970). História do Ensino em Angola. Luanda: Serviços de Educação.
General view
Accommodation block for the vets
Roof with pens for smaller animals
Covered external passages provide protection from the elements.
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.