Asmara's Secret: A Gift From Mussolini

The Kingdom of Italy created Eritrea at the end of the nineteenth century, using the classical name for the Red Sea ("erythra"). The colony of Italian Eritrea was established in 1890 (and lasted officially until 1947). Between 1936 and 1941, Italy's Fascist rulers transformed Eritrea into one of the most industrialized modern colonies in all of Africa.

Asmara has been described as a "surreal, out-of-body tourist experience" (The New York Times, 3/19/06, 10/8/08), leading one to ask "Where am I ?" Africa ? The Mediterranean ? The Middle East ? South Beach (minus the miniskirts and Ferraris) ? Asmara became an Art Deco laboratory during the 1930s for designs too avant garde for Italy. Rationalism, Novecento, neo-Classicism, neo-Baroque, and monumentalism are represented. The crown jewel is the Fiat Tagliero gas station designed in 1938 by Giuseppe Pettazzi to look like an airplane. One can imagine the locals living La Dolce Vita many decades ago.