Signs of power: Fascist urban iconographies in Ethiopia (1930s–1940s)

The aim of the present paper is to compare two different patterns of urban iconographies in Ethiopia during 1930s: the one of the Amhara – the traditionally Ethiopian dominant ethnicgroup – and the one of the Italian fascism. The paper gives an historical account of the structure of the Amhara settlements, focusing on the ways the power of their politico-military chiefs, being they the Negus or the Ras, shaped the spatial order of these settlements. When the Italians conquered military Ethiopia in 1936, they started re-shaping this spatial order, erasing the signs of the previous power and imposing their new iconographic apparatus. This was mainly done through urban planning which was devised to `write' the Fascist concepts of progress, order, hierarchy, and racial segregation on the territory. Owing to the short duration of the occupation, the poor material conditions of the colony and the lack of financial resources, such town-planning projects turned out to be just a political rhetoric exercise.