“NEW LOOK” FOR ADDIS ABABA

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27400, 13 July 1954, Page 6

“NEW LOOK” FOR ADDIS ABABA

Haile Selassie Orders Rebuilding (From a Reuter Correspondent) ADDIS ABABA. International experts are playing an important part in supervising a “facelifting” operation which will give this proud capital, standing on a 9000 ft high plateau, an entirely new look. Emperor Menelik II founded the present capital and named it Addis Ababa (which means new flower) and it is one of his successors, Emperor Haile Selassie I, who is the inspiration behind the move to beautify the city and make it worthy of his empire. A twoyear improvement plan which is now being carried out is due to be completed in time for the twenty-fifth anniversary of Haile Selassie’s coronation on November 3, 1955. The greater part of the plan is the work of Sir Patrick Abercrombie, the British town planning expert. Engineers and technicians, among them White Russians, Italians, Greeks, Jugoslavs and Germans, who are suoervising the work, which is now well in hand, meet periodically to discuss progress in the transformation of the capital, wmeh is in the midst of fragrant eucalyptus trees. The work of widening roads has so far necessitated the pulling down of more than 1000 small residential and business premises and a number of larger buildings. Many of the new avenues and roads will be planted with trees and be overlooked by handsome buildings. Some idea of the extent of the demands of the two-year plan can be gathered from the road programme. This provides for 85 roads totalling more than 75 miles in length, and varying in width from 18 to 50 yards. The building programme is an ambitious one. Nearly completed, after a year’s work, is a six-storey building of the Ethiopian Electric Light and Power Company in the heart of the city overlooking the Haile Selassie I Star Square. The capital’s biggest hotel, to be named the Palace Hotel, is also under construction. One of its features will be the provision of hot mineral water from a spa near Addis Ababa. Other prominent buildings on which work is under way are to house the Ministry of Justice, the Supreme Imperial Court, the High Court, and the lower courts. Work is also due to start soon on the new Imperial Palace, the Municipal Building, the capital’s first university, a big native hospital, and a stadium. Other buildings to be completed in the near future include one to house the Young Men’s Christian Association, and a small hospital, funds for which have been raised by the Indian community, and it will be called the “Ghandi Memorial Hospital.” But the work of modernisation of the capital will not stop with the completion of the two-year plan. A longrange city planning scheme will ensure that no new building can be built unless it conforms to a pattern already decided on. There is no intention to repeat the mistake of the past, when buildings were constructed without any regard to co-ordination. The new Addis Ababa, after its extensive “face-lifting” operation, will be a credit to Haile Selassie and the people over whom he rules.