The Fiat Tagliero Building is a Futurist-style service station in Asmara, Eritrea. It was completed in 1938 and designed by the Italian engineer Giuseppe Pettazzi. [1]
The Fiat Tagliero Building is a Futurist-style service station in Asmara, Eritrea. It was completed in 1938 and designed by the Italian engineer Giuseppe Pettazzi. [1]
The Fiat Tagliero is noted as one of the foremost Art Deco buildings of Italian Asmara.[ citation needed ]
Conceived as a simple petrol station owned by dr. Tagliero (the Fiat concessionary in Asmara), the building was designed by Engr. Pettazzi as a futuristic structure that resembled an aeroplane [2] incorporating a central tower with office space, cashiers desk and shop — and supporting a pair of huge 15m cantilevered, reinforced concrete wings.
During construction, local authorities required each wing to be supported by pillars, and original plans, found in 2001, depicted the supports. [1] Pettazzi maintained the supports were unnecessary and reportedly settled the argument by threatening to kill the contractor if the supports were not removed. [1]
In the end the supports were removed and the wings held. [1]
During WW2 the Fiat Tagliero was partially hit by British bombing, but survived without huge damage: the wings proved to be very well built and did not collapse.
When Italian architect Giuseppe Pettazzi inaugurated Eritrea’s plane-shaped Fiat Tagliero service station in 1938, he stunned onlookers by pulling out a gun. There, the story behind Africa’s finest piece of Futurist architecture goes hazy. In one version, Pettazzi stood defiantly on one of his 18m concrete “wings”—used as decorative shades for cars entering the garage—and threatened to kill himself should the structure collapse as wooden supports were pulled away. In another, the excitable architect held the gun to the head of a disbelieving builder, who had hesitated to pull away the struts for fear the long slabs would tumble down. Either way, the wings stayed up, nobody was shot, and Pettazzi’s design skills were vindicated. Seven decades on, this extraordinary piece of Italian art deco, which resembles a plane at take-off, is still standing in Asmara, the central capital of this former Italian colony. The Fiat Tagliero, named for the car firm and the old gas station’s owner, is one of 400 buildings that make the remote Eritrean capital one of the world’s most fascinating centres for Art Deco and other architectural styles.
— Andrew Cauthorne [3]
The building, used until recently as a Shell service station, remains structurally sound and has not been damaged during numerous conflicts affecting the Horn of Africa during the second half of the twentieth century. Restored in 2003, the service station is "Category I" listed in Eritrea, meaning no part of the building may be altered: it is one of the most important Art Deco buildings that gave to the city of Asmara the UNESCO approval to be a World Heritage Site in July 2017. [4]
Media related to Fiat Tagliero Building, Asmara at Wikimedia Commons
Eritrea is an ancient name, associated in the past with its Greek form Erythraia, Ἐρυθραία, and its derived Latin form Erythræa. This name relates to that of the Red Sea, then called the Erythræan Sea, from the Greek for "red", ἐρυθρός, erythros. But earlier Eritrea was called Mdre Bahri. The Italians created the colony of Eritrea in the 19th century around Asmara and named it with its current name. After World War II, Eritrea annexed to Ethiopia. Following the communist Ethiopian government's defeat in 1991 by the coalition created by armed groups notably the EPLF, Eritrea declared its independence. Eritrea officially celebrated its 1st anniversary of independence on May 24,1993.
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The Cinema Impero is an Art Deco-style cinema in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. It was built in 1937 by the colonial authorities in Italian Eritrea.
Giuseppe Pettazzi was an Italian Art Deco and Futurist civil engineer of the 1930s.
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Asmara Brewery is a brewery in Eritrea, founded in 1938. The brewery was nationalized by the Derg during the Eritrean War of Independence. The brewery operates a football team, which plays in the Eritrean Premier League. The factory has over 600 employees.
Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the south, Sudan in the west, and Djibouti in the southeast. The northeastern and eastern parts of Eritrea have an extensive coastline along the Red Sea. The nation has a total area of approximately 117,600 km2 (45,406 sq mi), and includes the Dahlak Archipelago and several of the Hanish Islands.
Italian Eritreans are Eritrean-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Eritrea during the Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in Eritrea.
Italian Eritrea was a colony of the Kingdom of Italy in the territory of present-day Eritrea. The first Italian establishment in the area was the purchase of Assab by the Rubattino Shipping Company in 1869, which came under government control in 1882. Occupation of Massawa in 1885 and the subsequent expansion of territory would gradually engulf the region and in 1889 the Ethiopian Empire recognized the Italian possession in the Treaty of Wuchale. In 1890 the Colony of Eritrea was officially founded.
Ras Woldemichael Solomon served as the Ras (Duke) of Hamasien during the 19th century. Raesi Woldemichael was born in Hazega village in Hamassien. He is the eldest son of Abeto Solomon Zerai of Hazega and Woizero Eleni. He was the last hereditary ruler to be in power in Mereb Melash.
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Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, first rose to prominence in medieval and post-medieval times. Though it had 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 has remained mostly unchanged in structural design, likely influenced by its position as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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