Saímos agora de Maputo e vamos a Magude para acompanhar Pancho Guedes. Como já nos devemos ter apercebido Pancho Guedes (P.G.) devia ser "o arquitecto" da elite de L.M. A sua arquitectura não é só o que podemos ver nas fotos mas a atenção que dedicava ao detalhe. Podemos apreciar isso por exemplo nestas descrições concretas do seu trabalho que P.G. faz de:
Casa Salm: "It steps downhill and grows out on both sides towards the sea to form an outdoor area which screens its owners from neighbours. Each window gives a different impression of the sea view and the distant islands and multiplies the same passing ship again and again in its casement frames of different sizes. The garden is littered with walls where the house appears to have been and then hesitated or changed its mind. The swimming pool is like another of the rooms inside the house but built into the earth instead and filled with water. Salm House is a house of quite a few optical illusions".
Casa Almiro do Vale: "....The house is faced in brown stone in two textures - a mosaic of small stones for the pillars, rubble stonework for the walling inside, the space is subdivided by walls and wooden screens of square patterns of many sizes. Some of the screens are open, some are glazed. One between the lounge and the dining room is faced with four hundred mirrors six by six centimeters reflecting both ways".
Os seus clientes típicos eram grandes firmas, médicos famosos, juizes e empresários. As residências com poucas excepções eram na Polana e Sommerschield com vista para o mar. No entanto P.G. tinha também preocupação social e, como agora se diz, já em 1964 preocupação de "sustentabilidade".
Casa Salm: "It steps downhill and grows out on both sides towards the sea to form an outdoor area which screens its owners from neighbours. Each window gives a different impression of the sea view and the distant islands and multiplies the same passing ship again and again in its casement frames of different sizes. The garden is littered with walls where the house appears to have been and then hesitated or changed its mind. The swimming pool is like another of the rooms inside the house but built into the earth instead and filled with water. Salm House is a house of quite a few optical illusions".
Casa Almiro do Vale: "....The house is faced in brown stone in two textures - a mosaic of small stones for the pillars, rubble stonework for the walling inside, the space is subdivided by walls and wooden screens of square patterns of many sizes. Some of the screens are open, some are glazed. One between the lounge and the dining room is faced with four hundred mirrors six by six centimeters reflecting both ways".
Os seus clientes típicos eram grandes firmas, médicos famosos, juizes e empresários. As residências com poucas excepções eram na Polana e Sommerschield com vista para o mar. No entanto P.G. tinha também preocupação social e, como agora se diz, já em 1964 preocupação de "sustentabilidade".
Como P.G. explica em detalhe no texto em baixo, por visão sua esta escola da Missão Suíça (actualmente Igreja Presbiteriana da Moçambique) em Antioquia ou Antioka, concelho de Magude, foi construida quase só por trabalhadores e população local e usando materiais fácilmente disponíveis.
Pode-se imaginar o que isto exigiu a PG: em vez de um mestre de obras experimentado teve um responsável com pouca qualificação embora interessado, em vez dos melhores trolhas e pedreiros teve de dar instruções detalhadas a amadores; em vez de usar os melhores fornecedores da cidade teve de andar a procurar árvores para cortar; em vez de se preocupar com os detalhes das casas ricas teve que planear e gerir o projecto de maneira a que não estava habituado. Tudo isto como ele diz foi esforço a preço de saldo e fez vários destes trabalhos.
Pode-se imaginar o que isto exigiu a PG: em vez de um mestre de obras experimentado teve um responsável com pouca qualificação embora interessado, em vez dos melhores trolhas e pedreiros teve de dar instruções detalhadas a amadores; em vez de usar os melhores fornecedores da cidade teve de andar a procurar árvores para cortar; em vez de se preocupar com os detalhes das casas ricas teve que planear e gerir o projecto de maneira a que não estava habituado. Tudo isto como ele diz foi esforço a preço de saldo e fez vários destes trabalhos.
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| Escola primária da Missão Suíça em Antioquia ou Antioka, Magude |
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| Desenho |
Mensagem do HoM sobre a Missão Suíça
http://www.guedes.info/contfram.htm
SOME BARGAINS IN A TROPICAL BUSH STYLE
For quite some time I had done small bits of work for the Swiss Mission. It was mostly advising on repairs and patching up leaking roofs, sometimes putting a painting job out to tender, sometimes improving an old and worn mission building to make it more useful and comfortable. I had also done a dirt cheap communal kitchen and eating porch at Ricatia, the Mission Station that Henri Junod, the famous missionary and anthropologist had founded towards the end of the 19th century before the Portuguese had fought their last native war and had begun to settle in the interior.
One night the missionaries came to see me about a new primary school at the old Mission Station of Antioka on the banks of the Incomati River just below Maguda. They already had an approved plan done by an engineer; it was a reproduction of the current Public Works model primary school. It was expensive and finicky and they did not like it. They were also worried about the sudden intrusion of a contractor and all his men into a rural community. Theoretically missionaries work towards the elimination of missionaries The idea of a mission is that it be taken over by the missioned sooner or later.
I had worked with (Sr,) Muchlanga at Riciata Station, building the communal kitchen and eating porch out of blocks, sticks and grass, and was convinced that they could build the school better and for less money than any contractor. Muchlanga could hardly read and write but he had some understanding of drawings and dimensions even if I sometimes had to draw special sections with the rows of blocks drawn in and numbered so that he could count them and stop at the sills and door heads and at the gutter and gable steps. He built impeccably - he had learnt to do so from a Swiss missionary who was a builder. I told the missionaries that Muchlanga could do it, that the time had come for them to let go and they agreed to try it out.
The engineer's plan was thrown out and I designed a new one. Getting the approval from the many Government Departments for the little school plan was an adventure in slow motion. It was finally achieved by the unexpected power of a Swiss wristwatch (eh pah, mas também havia disso com os funcionários colonialistas? Sabia que é tão culpado o corrompido como o corromptor. Os missionários souberam disso? E Deus? Ó Arq Pancho Guedes ....).
I was having a Luddite period when we started to build so no machines came near the school. Instead all the work was done by hand to give an opportunity for as many people as possible to have work near their families and homes and to have a hand in the building of their own children's school.
We cleared the fields of the stones with which we cast the foundations. In the dry season we brought sand up from the river bed. We made the wall blocks from pit and river sand and cement. We cut down some trees for the windows and doors and they were made at another nearby mission which had a carpentry workshop of sorts.I spent much time on the site marking it out, checking it and building the roof trusses. The school took some time to build but we finished it well and painted it a very deep ochre.
It cost 600$00 a square metre including the light fittings, the furniture, a huge underground rain water cistern and the boat to ferry the children back and forth from Macuvulane on the other side of the river. It came out at that price thanks to George André (será o Sr. Muchlanga mencionado em cima?) whom I would swear I have occasionally glimpsed with a halo around his head.
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