Description

The Pyramidal Kindergarten, currently known as Nyoxani – Educação, Arte e Recreação – and formerly called Verney College, is located in the Sommershield neighbourhood, a wealthy suburb of Lourenço Marques defined by houses for the local middle and upper classes, with mostly spacious lots, garden areas and pools.

Designed in 1958 by Pancho Guedes (1925–2015) and inaugurated in 1961, the Pyramidal Kindergarten was the first project in the so-called “Americo-Egyptian style” (Donat, 1964) Miguel Santiago argued that this style relates “two very distant worlds, Egyptian architecture, and the architecture of Louis Kahn. Egypt is represented by the pyramids or pyramidal sections; Kahn is represented by order and unity.” (Santiago, 2007, p. 132, translation by the author) Admiration for Kahn’s work is visible in the evident analogy between the kindergarten and the Trenton Bath House (1959), whose “archaicness has a lot to do with what Pancho Guedes perceived as his naiveté. Like Romanesque architecture, Kahn’s more monumental buildings strive to create deceptively simple spaces which are nonetheless impregnated with a profound gravity, similar to the child-like solemnity of Rousseau’s paintings.” (Ostler, 2007, p. 29). On the other hand, the reference to Egypt establishes the continuity of pure pyramid shapes with modernity, celebrated in Kahn’s work and echoed in Guedes’ jokes: “We can’t afford just to have pyramids these days, so we make them on the roof – we are not as lucky as the Egyptians.”(Guedes, 2007, p. 25)

With a scale that is sympathetic to its users, the kindergarten relates to the surroundings, the site and the street in a serene, integrated and diversified way. Forming an enclosure defined by the walls and surrounding vegetation, the building is revealed through the intermittent views between the trees and in spaces that invite people to enter. These moments correspond to the two entrances to the kindergarten, strategically placed at each end of the rectangular lot, following the hierarchy present throughout the project. The main entrance is defined by the space between the two main volumes of the building: the former chapel (nowadays used as a gymnasium), topped by the most striking Kahnian pyramidal section in the whole project, and the long two-storey building that intersects it, housing the rest of the programme. Besides providing an arrival space, it is also an articulation space and, as such, a passage; however, it is covered and open, serving as an area for lingering. Since it is a kindergarten, the stay quickly turns into play, and we immediately realise that this is the only moment in the project where served space and serving space come together in the same place. The secondary entrance leaves no room for uncertainty: marked by a pyramidal roof supported by four “slender legs“, it is located along the main interior circulation gallery.

On the ground floor, the functional programme is distributed along the northwest-facing gallery, ensuring immediate access to the classrooms, interrupted only by sets of sanitary facilities. On the upper floor, the served spaces are surrounded by two galleries running the full length, giving rise to the volumetric projection visible on the southeast façade. In the initial design, this floor was primarily intended for dormitory spaces, with some complementary services, such as social areas, laundry, kitchen and a dining room. However, due to the incomplete execution of the overall project, these spaces were gradually occupied by the users according to their needs.

Externally, the dialectic between the private and collective play areas is notable: the private play area, functioning as an extension of the classroom, gives way to another space that connects with the open and public playground. This succession of spaces, from the classroom, through the small play areas, to the large public space, is accomplished through a hierarchy of outdoor spaces defined by low walls, creating increasing spatial diversity.

The border defined by this set of spaces is further marked by three volumes distinguished by their form. With a 4 × 4 metre footprint, they assert themselves as square prisms topped by the pyramidal roofs. As storage spaces, they delineate the outdoor space, encouraging children to become aware of the most elementary forms in playful terms.

From the outside, the building appears as a volume enclosed by filters or walls with tectonic intensity. On the inside, spaces are shaped by intentionally directed light, whether it is the long corridor that provides access to the classrooms, featuring a grille carved into the sections of the small pyramids that filters diffused light, or the directed and concentrated light source that moves with the sun throughout the day in the old chapel space. This project recalls architecture‘s early archetypes: in the first case, the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara dating to the Renaissance; in the second, the oculus opening to the zenith in the Pantheon in Rome. The exterior, on the other hand, allows us to understand that the timelessness of these references results from a plasticity composed of the most basic elements of geometry – the cube, the parallelepiped and the pyramid – and for that reason, the most eternal ones.

References

Colomina, B., Galan, I., Kotsioris, E. and Meister, A.M. (2022). Radical Pedagogies. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.

Donat, J. (1964). “The American Egyptian Style“, World Architecture One, London: Studio Books, pp. 94–95.

Ferreira, Z. and Tostões, A. (2013). “The Pyramidal Kindergarten. The Cradle of the ‘American-Egyptian’“. In: A. Tostões (ed.), Modern Architecture in Africa: Angola and Mozambique. Lisbon: ICIST/Técnico-University of Lisbon, pp. 328–335.

Guedes, P. (2007). “Things Are Not What They Seem To Be – the Auto-biofarsical Hour“. Manifestos, Papers, Lectures, Publications, Lisbon: Ordem dos Arquitetos.

Guedes, P. (2009). Pancho Guedes. Vitruvius Mozambicanus. Lisbon: Fundação de Arte Moderna e Contemporânea – Colecção Berardo.

Kultermann, U. (1963). New Architecture in Africa. New York: Universe Books.

Morais, J. (2001). Maputo. Património da Estrutura e da Forma Urbana. Topologia do lugar. Lisbon: Livros Horizonte.

Ostler, T. (2007). “The Allusive Pancho Guedes“. S AM, no. 3, Basel: Christoph Merian Verlag.

Pomar, A. (ed.) (2010). As Áfricas de Pancho Guedes. Colecção de Dori e Amâncio Guedes. Lisbon: Câmara Municipal de Lisboa.

Santiago, M. (2007). Pancho Guedes, Metamorfoses Espaciais, Lisbon: Caleidoscópio.

Tostões, A. (2016). “Primary School and Pre-Primary School for 1st grade – Nyoxani – Education, Arts and Recreation (former Pyramidal Kindergarten)”. Heritage of Portuguese Influence. HPIP. https://hpip.org/en/heritage/details/2257

Tostões, A. (2019). La fantasía debe ser devuelta a la arquitectura. Ra. Revista De Arquitectura, 19, pp. 19–24. https://doi.org/10.15581/014.19.19-24

Tostões, A. (2019). “Rebels with a Cause. Aldo van Eyck and Pancho Guedes, How to Find a Meaning for the Act of Built”. In: Revisiting Post-Ciam Generation. Debates, Proposals and Intellectual Framework. Porto: CEAA/ESAP-CESAP, pp. 39–52. http://hdl.handle.net/10400.26/28357

Tostões, A. (2021). “Pyramidal Kindergarten“. In: P. Meuser and A. Dalbai (eds.), Architectural Guide. Sub-Saharan Africa (Vol. 7: Southern Africa: Between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans). Berlin: DOM Publishers, p. 63.

Tostões, A. (2022) “Trenton Bath House and Day Camp Pavilions“. In: A. Tostões, Modern Heritage. Reuse, Renovation, Restoration. Basel: Birkhäuser and Docomomo International, pp. 208–217.

Vanin, F. (2013). Maputo, cidade aberta: investigação sobre uma capital africana. Porto: Fundação Serra Henriques.

---

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.