Description
Between 1951 and 1953, Pancho Guedes (1925–2015) designed his first collective housing building in Maputo (formerly known as Lourenço Marques), which he named Prometheus due to the scale he managed to achieve with a mere five-storey block. This designation originates from Greek mythology, where Prometheus is a Titan, a deity descended from the larger-than-life and resilient Gods.
This building belongs to the group that Pancho Guedes refers to as “Stiloguedes”, “a bizarre and fantastic family of buildings with spikes and fangs, with beams tearing into the spaces around them, invented as if some parts are about to slip off and crashing down, with convulsive walls and armoured lights” (Pedro Guedes, 2009, p. 79), based on the drawings and paintings of Pablo Picasso around 1928, for sculptures he never realised.
Prometheus is located very close to the sea at the corner of major roads that play a fundamental role in the city‘s dynamics: Mao Tse Tung Avenue and Julius Nyerere Avenue, running parallel to Marginal Avenue. It is located within a well-established urban grid with orthogonal geometry, in the vicinity of the Church of Santo António da Polana (1959–1962), the Polana Hotel (1922), the Polana High School (1970–1973) and the Parque building, also designed by Pancho Guedes.
The building consists of four residential floors and a fifth, set back floor, elevated on columns, resulting in a total volume equivalent to six storeys. The entrance is from the northeast via Mao Tse Tung Avenue. Initially, the ground floor was open and intended for parking but was enclosed and transformed into a bank branch in the 1960s. The vertical circulation within the building is located on the southwest-oriented rear façade and consists of two stairwells and a lift. This arrangement is reflected in the façade through small openings.
Like all the buildings that are part of “Stiloguedes”, the internal organisation of the building is simple and functional. Connected to the vertical circulation, there is a collective distribution corridor for each of the three apartments per floor. The four residential floors are identical, each comprising one T1 (one bedroom) and two T2 (one bedroom plus living room) apartments, for a total of twelve small-size apartments. The T1 apartments have an area of 32.81 square metres, and the T2 apartments have 56.08 square metres, all with fronts facing Mao Tse Tung Avenue. The T2 apartments are located at the ends of the building, while the T1 apartments are in the centre. The top floor is set back and serves as a utility area, housing small storage rooms, studios and a laundry area.
All the apartments feature a similar functional layout with an entrance hall that provides access to the various rooms in the unit. Simplified, they can be described as a square with a compartment in each corner. The functional organisation of the apartment rooms allows the living rooms, the main bedroom and the balconies located along the northeast-oriented main façade to obtain several hours of sunlight, while the less frequently used rooms, i.e. the kitchen and the bathroom facilities, are oriented to the southwest, receiving less direct sunlight. In the T2 apartments, there is a smaller bedroom with a southwest orientation for which Pancho Guedes designed openings on both lateral façades of the building to increase sunlight exposure.
The predominant construction material is concrete. Structurally, the chosen solution is the column-beam system, although the columns are far from ordinary. They appear as planes that resemble figures with multiple outstretched arms, extending in height, as can be observed on the lateral façade. This system repeats itself seven times along the block according to the structural modulation. The building is balanced on a central row of these unusual columns, from which beams extend like branches on a tree, supporting generously sized balconies, emphasising the distinctive balance of the building.
Like in other works by Pancho Guedes, it‘s possible to find sculptural elements that he himself imagined and created. In the case of Prometheus, the column-beam system at each end of the building is crowned with ornaments shaped like pointed fingers, as if they formed the head of a strange creature with outstretched arms. According to Pancho Guedes, the Prometheus building presents itself in the city as a peculiar apartment block. The architect employs modern devices, such as elevating the building on pilotis, to accentuate the expressionism and adjectivisation of forms, inaugurating a truly unique work. In the original design, Pancho Guedes had envisioned another building with similar characteristics to be placed next to Prometheus, named the “Woman of Prometheus”, but in its place, a ten-storey residential block was constructed.
In recent years, Prometheus has undergone significant alterations: the ground floor has been occupied by shops, the gables have lost their expressiveness and the top floor, which was originally set back, has been expanded and converted into additional housing.
References
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Main façade, oriented towards the northeast.
The balconies on the northeast façade served as horizontal shading devices, but many have since been enclosed.
The column-beam system is expressed at each end of the building with ornaments shaped like pointed fingers.
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.