Dutch courage: a new Dutch embassy in Maputo treads lightly in a city being rebuilt after civil war

Architectural Review, The, Nov, 2004 by Connie Van Cleef

With its prosperous trading heritage and vibrant Portuguese colonial architecture, Maputo, on the southern tip of Mozambique, was once a cosmopolitan port city on a par with Cape Town or Rio. Yet since the Portuguese left in 1975. Mozambique has endured a protracted civil war that lasted well into the '90s, transforming its capital into a crumbling and impoverished slum. There are also an estimated one million landmines still infesting the countryside. Things are improving slowly as Mozambique rebuilds, but the effects of such a horror will take generations to overcome.

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In Maputo itself, the restoration of normal international relations has precipitated a modest programme of embassy building. Earlier this year a new Dutch embassy opened its doors, designed by the Dutch partnership of Felix Claus and Kees Kaan, whose rigorous, rational architecture is a soothing antidote to the current excesses of their fellow countrymen. New embassies are often an opportunity for bombastic expressions of national identity, but this new building treads lightly and thoughtfully in response to the particular context of Maputo. According to project architect Kees Kaan, there are only 11 countries in the world that are poorer than Mozambique, and just 12 that are richer than the Netherlands, so this conjunction of extremes required tactful handling.

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Utterly sober and undemonstrative, in a way that has become a signature of Claus and Kaan's architecture, the new embassy occupies a site on the edge of Maputo's city centre. The building and its garden compound are partially enclosed by a timber fence which provides the necessary security but is also visually permeable. The two-storey chancery building is a rough L-shape with the two legs of the L wrapped around a courtyard garden. This is protected from the street by the tall timber screen (as high as the building), its slim vertical slats softening and diffusing the other wise stark concrete perimeter. Hard landscaped except for an array of flamboyants (a local tropical tree with luxurious orange blossom), the courtyard marks the gradual transition between public and private realms.

The short wing of the L is little more than a veranda and guard post which oversees comings and goings. Staff vehicles enter at the rear of the building by means of a ramp that leads down to a subterranean car park. The deep veranda (another transitional zone) extends around the entire building on the courtyard side, providing shade for the glass and timber facade.

Within the main block internal organization is simple and logical. A double-height foyer marks the entrance and hinge point between the two wings. The foyer is a cool, luminous space capped by a canvas-shaded opening that offers protection from the sun but allows air to waft through. Behind the foyer, the chancery is divided into three parallel zones: a broad band of cellular offices single banked off a spinal corridor; interstitial meeting, archive, ancillary and storage spaces; and finally, a narrow concourse that runs along the north edge of the building. This is also the main means of vertical circulation, with dark timber staircases threading through the tall concourse, illuminated by vertical slots of glazing cut at regular intervals into the north facade (this is the southern hemisphere so the sun shines in the north). Light dapples through the slots, casting rippling shadows around the concourse and adding a sensual caress to the ascetic palette of concrete, timber and glass. This a deliberately low-key, functional building (the ambassador's office on the first floor is distinguished merely by being slightly larger than those of her staff) and though the architecture has an unprecedented degree of formal refinement, its effect lies largely in the creative use of local materials and labour.

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Mozambican construction technology is understandably unsophisticated by European standards, but, paradoxically, the plentiful supply of artisans made it possible to achieve labour intensive effects, such as the smooth finish of the concrete walls, the extensive woodwork and the evenly spaced pebbles in the garden courtyard. As a result, the new building has a rough perfection, which endows the simple forms of its architecture with a resonance and vitality.

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