Adding to the plethora of building styles in Luanda is the mysterious Palacio de Ferro (Iron Palace) at Cidade Baixa. The bright yellow iron building is a landmark of the city—is included in every list of touristic attraction—yet it is also wholly foreigner to Luanda. Such oxymoron exemplifies the problem of identity in African architecture. While there are no known documents on the building, the story goes that the building was created by French engineer Gustave Eiffel or one of his students for a World’s Fair, and after the end of the fair, it was supposed to go to Madagascar. Instead, the ship carrying the building was had to dock in Angola due to dangerous currents in the Skeleton Coast. The precious cargo was then intercepted by Angolan colonial officials, remaining in Luanda. Emanuel Caboco, of Angola's National Institute of Cultural Heritage, believes that the French cast-iron structure was made in the 1890s.
The Palácio de Ferro had many lives. It served as an art space until Angola’s independence. Throughout the civil war, the building fell in disrepair, being then occupied by homeless Angolan’s. In the second half of the 2000s, the Angolan diamond company Ediama sponsor the restoration of the palace, a project done by Odebretch—a Brazilian construction company known for its recent involvement in various corruptions scandals all over the Americas. While it was said that the palace would become the diamond museum, since 2017 it hosts the Sindika Dokolo’s art collection.In a 2014 project by Portuguese studio Paulo da Gama & Arquitectos Associados, a bulging and sparkling glass structure would surround the palace and function as the museum itself. The flamboyant project is particularly interesting as it creates a stark contrast between the past and the future, almost as with the past represented by the palace was being devoured by an amorphous creature of sleek surfaces.
The Palácio de Ferro, however, not always represented the past. When it was built, it was a symbol of cutting-edge technology as it was a pre-fabricated sculpture made of metal. Cast iron architecture was indeed modern architecture in the mid to late nineteenth century as exemplified by iconic buildings like the Crystal Palace (1850) by Joseph Paxton in London or the Eiffel Tower (1889) by Gustave Eiffel in Paris. The buildings share more than just employing the same materials: they were (or they might have been) created for a World’s Fair. These exhibitions often showcased the latest developments of each nation, thus attesting for these cast iron buildings status as symbols of the modern. “Exhibitions substantiated a new relation between nation-states and modernity in which progress could be designed, produced and assured. They projected the state, goods, and culture into an imagined and manageable future, both reassuring and irresistible,” notes Martin Lawn.
Undeniably a symbol of modernity when it arrived in Luanda, the Palácio de Ferro nonetheless represented a future that was not Angolan, but French. Angolans proudly refer to the palace as being by Gustave Eiffel as if part of its worthiness had to do with its foreignness. Regardless of its disputed authorship, it is a French creation. As noted by one of the restorers: "it was extremely rewarding to work on this project to help restore a piece of Angola which suffered so much during the civil war. This building will be a point of social reference for the future."