Designed by the Italian architect Arturo Mezzedimi, Addis Ababa’s Africa Hall quickly became recognised as one of the defining achievements of African modernism on its completion in 1961. In 1963, it hosted the founding meeting of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the precursor to today’s African Union. Africa was then emerging from centuries of colonial rule, and many of the OAU’s founders – including Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt – had led their nations to independence.
“Only a few years ago,” the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie said at the time, “meetings to consider African problems were held outside Africa, and the fate of its peoples were decided by non-Africans. Today … the peoples of Africa can, at long last, deliberate on their own problems and future.”
