Asmara: Africa's Art Deco city

Built almost entirely by Italian architects during the colonial era, Asmara preserves the largest concentration of Art Deco and rationalist buildings in Africa.

The center, celebrated for its Italian Art Deco architecture, can be comfortably visited on foot.

The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary, in Lombard Romanesque style, dominates the main avenue of the city with its bell tower visible from afar.

A few steps away, the Fiat Tagliero Service Station, a modernist masterpiece shaped like an aeroplane with protruding wings without visible supports, remains the most photographed architectural symbol of the city.

Walking along Harnet Avenue, the main street of the centre, you pass Italian-style cafés still frequented according to the colonial customs of the early twentieth century.

As evening approaches, the Impero Cinema, an Art Déco cinema hall from the thirties perfectly preserved, recalls the golden age of Italian rationalist architecture in Africa.

Asmara was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2017 precisely for its extraordinary concentration of Italian Modernist architecture from the 1930s, which survived almost intact thanks to the country's long international isolation.

The Fiat Tagliero Station, built in 1938, was approved by colonial authorities only after the architect threatened inspectors with a pistol, according to an anecdote still passed down by local guides today, in order to demonstrate the structural stability of the wings without pillars.