Paper short abstract:

No matter where we look from, Luanda is a city undergoing profound transformations. From above one sees it expanding, parceling and splitting up. From below it rises, moves and hides. This paper is an exploration of its emerging forms of metropolitan modernity.

Paper long abstract:

It is striking. No matter where we look from, Luanda is a city undergoing profound transformations. From above one sees it expanding, parceling and splitting up. From below it rises, moves and hides. Articulating multiple scales of analysis, this paper is an exploration of its emerging forms of metropolitan modernity.

Fueled by a steep rise in oil revenues, a new type of urbanity seems to be taking over the capital of Angola. Its material configurations are difficult to miss. Closed condominiums have sprouted throughout the city. New centralities emerged out of thin air. Some have moved away from the center. Others moved behind walls. Many have resettled in new housing developments built by state. Many more have continued to build their own houses. Perhaps less evident are the immaterial forms of such urbanity, or the emerging qualities of metropolitan existence in contemporary Luanda. Inseparable from the amalgamation of surfaces and built forms is a transformation of urban imaginaries that seems to incorporate a language of condominiums and order, experiences of distancing, displacement and violence, as well as a quotidian of unrepentant commercialism and consumption.

This paper is highly speculative. Drawing on an extensive period of field research on urban planning, real estate investments and the experience of contemporary Luanda, it explores transformations across its territorial and social spheres in order to think more generally about the metropolitan form.