The sewerage works and the construction of the first avenues in Lourenço Marques, Mozambique

Abstract

This paper focuses on some aspects of the implementation of the “Enlargement Project of the City of Lourenço Marques” (Port. Projecto de Ampliação da Cidade de Lourenço Marques), 

in Mozambique, carried out from 1887 onwards and set in the context of the village’s transition to city (1887) and capital of the colony (1898). Above all, the research allowed us to draw conclusions on the technical difficulties and lack of material and human resources encountered by the Public Works Administration of Lourenço Marques during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, in contrast to the ambition of the city's enlargement project. This research was based on reports made by the Public Works Office of Mozambique to the Portuguese Ministry of the Navy and Overseas Territories and correspondence of the directors of the Public Works Administration of Lourenço Marques written during the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century, as well as cartography and iconographic collections of this period found in the Overseas Territories Historical Archives (Port. Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino — AHU) in Lisbon, in the Historical Archives of Mozambique (Port. Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique — AHM), in the Society of Geography of Lisbon —SGL, and in the Centre for Research and Development of Habitat (Port. Centro de Estudos e Desenvolvimento do Habitat — CEDH), of the Faculty of Architecture and Physical Planning (Port. Faculdade de Arquitetura e Planeamento Físico — FAPF) of the Eduardo Mondlane University (Port. Universidade Eduardo Mondlane — EMU).