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Designed by the Italian architect Arturo Mezzedimi, Addis Ababa’s Africa Hall quickly became recognised as one of the defining achievements of African modernism on its completion in 1961. In 1963, it hosted the founding meeting of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the precursor to today’s African Union. Africa was then emerging from centuries of colonial rule, and many of the OAU’s founders – including Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt – had led their nations to independence.
“Only a few years ago,” the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie said at the time, “meetings to consider African problems were held outside Africa, and the fate of its peoples were decided by non-Africans. Today … the peoples of Africa can, at long last, deliberate on their own problems and future.”
Mezzedimi’s design emanated a spirit of optimism, embodying functional clarity and spatial openness, sitting in a garden landscape with expansive views over Addis Ababa. Organised around a horseshoe-shaped plenary hall crowned by a vast rotunda, its interior incorporated Carrara marble, Ethiopian stone and Mezzedimi’s elegant, custom-designed furniture. Artworks included a 40-metre mural illustrating the richness of African flora, by Italian painter Nenne Sanguineti Poggi, and a stunning triptych of monumental stained glass windows by Ethiopian artist Afewerk Tekle.
This foundational site of modern African political history was commissioned by Selassie, then eager to implement an ambitious unifying vision for the continent and his country. Ethiopia remains the only African country never fully colonised by a European power. Along with Addis Ababa’s city hall, also designed by Mezzedimi – who completed more than 100 buildings across the Horn of Africa – it was one of two statement projects intended to demonstrate, in Selassie’s words, “that it is possible to construct grand buildings here too [in Ethiopia]”.
Over the decades, however, like many structures of its era, Africa Hall fell into decline and disrepair. After a £42m, decade-long programme of restoration, completed in 2024, the rejuvenated building is once again emblematic of pan-African progress, renewed as an important venue for diplomacy and cultural exchange.
Africa Hall is still making history. The restoration project has just been awarded the World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism prize, the most prestigious accolade in the often underappreciated field of conserving modernist heritage. It’s the first time a building in Africa has been honoured since the biennial prize was inaugurated in 2008 – previous winners include a concrete villa in Argentina, a French school dedicated to Karl Marx and the restoration of Preston bus station (designed in 1968 by Building Design Partnership, working with the Danish engineer Ove Arup).
“Modern architecture captures some of the most ambitious ideas of the 20th century, but its innovations also render these buildings vulnerable to the passage of time,” said Bénédicte de Montlaur, president and CEO of the World Monuments Fund. “The prize was created to call attention to these challenges and highlight exemplary preservation efforts around the world.”
The architectural team from Brisbane-based Architectus Conrad Gargett conducted exhaustive research into all aspects of Mezzedimi’s original design. The entire facade was reglazed to improve the building’s energy efficiency and structural integrity, while the surrounding landscape was replanted with native African flora, and its splendid terraced fountains cleaned and refreshed.
Mosaic tiles on the exterior had to be removed to address structural degradation, so 13 million new ones were fabricated, replicating the mosaics’ textured profile and colour schemes. More than 500 pieces of Mezzedimi’s distinctive furniture were restored and reinstated. The project also addressed seismic resilience, as earthquakes and volcanic activity are common in Ethiopia, and introduced new technology in ways that respect the building’s modernist character.
At the heart of Africa Hall is Afewerk Tekle’s 1961 work, Total Liberation of Africa – a sumptuous stained glass triptych depicting scenes from the continent’s history. Rich in colour and allusion, it became a photogenic backdrop for visiting dignitaries to Ethiopia, including Britain’s late Queen Elizabeth II in 1965. Tekle had previously studied at London’s Slade School of Art, and travelled around Europe for two years, learning how to design and construct stained glass windows.
The stained glass pieces were originally fabricated by the French artisan studio Atelier Thomas Vitraux; Emmanuel Thomas, the grandson of the original maker, was enlisted to help restore the panels. The thread of artistic connection from Africa Hall is further strengthened by Ethiopian American contemporary artist Julie Mehretu, who has drawn on Tekle’s work for her own monumental stained glass project at the Obama Presidential Centre, due to open later this year in Chicago.
“Africa Hall stands as one of the most important expressions of modern architecture on the continent, a building that brought together international ideas and local identity at a pivotal moment in the region’s history of decolonisation,” said Barry Bergdoll, the American architectural historian and curator who chaired the prize jury.
“[Its] restoration has allowed the clarity of Mezzedimi’s design to speak again, revealing the ambition, craftsmanship and symbolic power that have made the building a landmark of modernism and a continuing stage for African diplomacy.”
