By Andrew Cawthorne
ASMARA (Reuters) - When Italian architect Giuseppe Pettazziinaugurated Eritrea's plane-shaped "Fiat Tagliero" servicestation in 1938, he stunned onlookers by pulling out a gun.
There, the story behind Africa's finest piece of Futuristarchitecture goes hazy.
In one version, Pettazzi stood defiantly on one of his18-metre (59 ft) concrete "wings" -- used as decorative shadesfor cars entering the garage -- and threatened to kill himselfshould the structure collapse as wooden supports were pulledaway.
In another, the excitable architect held the gun to thehead of a disbelieving builder, who had hesitated to pull awaythe struts for fear the long slabs would tumble down.
Either way, the wings stayed up, nobody was shot, andPettazzi's design skills were vindicated.
Seven decades on, this extraordinary piece of Italian ArtDeco, which resembles a plane at takeoff, is still standing inAsmara, the central capital of this former Italian colony.
The "Fiat Tagliero", named for the car firm and the old gasstation's owner, is one of 400 buildings that make the remoteEritrean capital one of the world's most fascinating centresfor Art Deco and other architectural styles.
One of a tiny number of books on the subject -- "Africa'sSecret Modernist City" by three Asmara-based writers -- callsAsmara "the Miami of Africa" in reference to the U.S. city'sfame for Art Deco, a design in the Modernism trend known forstylish geometric shapes, bold curves and soft colours.
"The Italians felt they would be here for hundreds ofyears, so they built and built, and left us this remarkablelegacy," said Samson Haile Theophilos, who has written aboutEritrean architecture, as he purred lovingly over the Fiatbuilding.
"But I want to stress the workers, skilled and unskilled,were all Eritrean, so we consider this architecture ours."
Asmara's Art Deco boom came during 1935-41, the last sixyears of Italian colonial rule of the vast Horn of Africaregion then known as Abyssinia.
ITALY'S "URBAN UTOPIA"
Unrestrained by European norms, and confident they werelaying foundations for the continued expansion of their Africancolony, Italian architects turned Asmara into an experiment.
A 1937 garage looks like the bottom of a ship with portholewindows. The distinctive "Bar Zilli" imitates a 1930s radio setwith windows like tuning knobs. Office blocks are modelled onspace rockets.
"Desperate to build quickly, the colonial government of thetime allowed radical architectural experimentation that wouldnot have found favour in the more conservative Europeanenvironment," says "Africa's Secret Modernist City".
"Asmara therefore became the world's prime building groundfor architectural innovation during the Modern Movement ... ablank canvas on which its Italian colonizers were able todesign and build their own urban utopia in east Africa," addsthe 2003 publication.
But Fascist leader Benito Mussolini's grand plans for anAfrican empire with Asmara as capital crumbled with World WarTwo.
British forces overran the Italians, who were allied withGermany's Adolf Hitler at the time, in Eritrea. Asmara'sarchitectural experiment came to an end.
Remarkably, in the intervening decades of near-constantturbulence for Eritrea, the buildings have remained untouched.
Neither the 30-year war for independence from Ethiopia nora devastating 1998-2000 border war between the neighbours,brought major fighting to Asmara, a city of some 500,000 on ahigh plateau.
Compared to Miami by some, Asmara could also be likened toanother city whose architectural style has stood relativelystill since a seminal moment in its history: Havana after the1959 Cuban revolution.
Like Havana, a few high-rise structures built afterindependence have tarnished Asmara's Art Deco aesthetic. Thegovernment has said it would like Asmara to be declared a worldheritage site.
"F" FOR FASCIST
While Art Deco is perhaps the most eye-catching, two other"made in Italy" styles make Asmara a true architecturaltreasure trove: Neo-Classical designs brought by Rome-inspiredarchitects from the 1890s, and the Monumental style thatdovetailed with fascist ideas.
"Monumental buildings were meant to dwarf you when you goin and emphasize the power of the occupant," said Samson. "Youcould almost imagine 'Il Duce' (Mussolini) striding out."
Lying on the main Harnet (Liberation) Avenue, the formerFascist Party headquarters -- now Eritrea's education ministry- has a soaring main tower, jagged roofline and imposingentrance.
If an onlooker was in any doubt about the structure'spurpose, a twist of the head to the left would reveal that thisMonumental building was shaped - on its side - as the letter F.
Not surprisingly, Asmara residents are ambivalent towardstheir architectural heritage.
On the one hand, they are proud of their forefathers'workmanship, enjoy strolling around a city considered by manythe most beautiful in Africa, and know the architecture couldbe a major tourist draw in the future.
But the buildings also remind the residents of Africa'syoungest nation of their colonial subjugation.
"I remember well all this building around 1935 when so manyItalians were coming and they were preparing to invadeEthiopia," said 101-year-old Eritrean Zeray Kidanemariam, whosaid he worked as a porter for Italians for decades.
"But they did it for themselves. We were forced to live inpoor areas. To them we were just niggers, nobodies."
(Editing by Jack Kimball and Clar Ni Chonghaile)
(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say onthe top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/ )
