Grande Hotel Beira

Grande Hotel da Beira
	; State of the Grande Hotel Beira, exterior view of Block B (2012)
Data
place	Ponta Gêa, Beira (Mozambique)
architect	José Luís Porto (1946?); Francisco de Castro (1953)
Client	Companhia de Moçambique
Construction year	circa 1952
Coordinates	19 ° 50 '50 " S , 34 ° 50' 26" E Coordinates: 19 ° 50 '50 " S , 34 ° 50' 26" E

The Grande Hotel Beira is a former hotel in Beira , Mozambique . The former “pride of Africa” developed into a ruin in which between 2000 and 3000 destitute people, including around 1000 children, have sought shelter.

The building on Avenida Mateus Sansão Muthemba is composed of several blocks, the floor plan is roughly L. The hotel was around 12,000 square meters in size, had 110 rooms, suites with a view of the Indian Ocean , a ballroom and a swimming pool Olympic proportions. In the synopsis of the film Grande Hotel by Lotte Stoops from 2010, the building is referred to as testimony to the megalomania of the colonial regime, which was doomed from the outset.

Grande Hotel Beira, Mozambique around 1955

history

The first plans were drawn up in the 1940s by the architect José Luís Porto ; 1953 Francisco de Castro took over the further development. The building was inaugurated on June 17, 1955. From 1963 to 1975 the hotel, which was officially closed at the time, was still used for special occasions such as larger celebrations. The swimming pool was still in use at the time and was used as a training facility for professional swimmers, for example.

The hotel, on the other hand, was closed after a few years of operation as a result of the struggle for independence. His basement became a prison for political prisoners, the police and army settled on the third floor. In 1981 the local population took over the complex; especially newcomers who could not have afforded normal rents in Beira were among the occupiers of the hotel. In the building, which has neither water nor electricity, a kind of separate village was created. The swimming pool filled with rainwater, which is used for washing and fishing. An earthquake caused part of the hotel to collapse in the 2000s. At that time, a resident died who jumped out of the window in a panic. The structure is considered to be in danger of collapsing; its demolition is being discussed. In 2011, between 2,000 and 3,500 people are said to have lived in the remains of the hotel.

Documentation

The photographer Héctor Mediavilla documented the decay of the hotel with photos. As early as 2006, work was done on a documentary about the house with its 350 rooms; In 2007, two former employees of the hotel spoke about the past of the hotel in the film Night Guests by Licinio Azevedo . In 2011 Deutschlandfunk broadcast a feature about the hotel.

The Bild newspaper in 2012 published a report from the horror hotel in which detailed the conditions were described in the dilapidated buildings, "Through the empty elevator shaft claps drop to the floor. Most residents simply throw it out of the window: On the terrace on the first floor, where the rich and beautiful once sat with cocktails, the garbage is piling up meters high. ”And:“ Someone has started to tear the wooden beams from the ceiling. Load-bearing beams? [...] Nobody knows when the hotel will collapse and all the misery will be buried under itself. "