Grande Hotel Beira [2018]
60 images Created 28 Feb 2019
GRANDE HOTEL BEIRA. MOZAMBIQUE.
The Grande Hotel Beira was a luxury hotel in Beira, Mozambique. It was opened in 1954 and operated until 1974, when it was closed due to lack of guests. The building was used as a military base in the Mozambican Civil War, and it is currently home to over 3500 squatters.
Since 1992, Mozambique has enjoyed peace and stability. The seaport of Beira is redeveloped and booming due to the transit of minerals to Asia. The Grande Hotel has deteriorated, however. With only 116 hotel rooms, it now provides shelter for a fluctuating population, with large families inhabiting a single room. They do not pay any rent and cannot claim a right of ownership. There is little formal maintenance of the collective space, resulting in accumulating garbage, leaking rain water, open elevator shafts and inaccessible stairs. The Olympic swimming pool, now polluted, is used for bathing by inhabitants who cannot afford to buy water at the privately owned water pump opposite the Grande Hotel. According to the local Red Cross, there is a high risk of cholera, diarrhoea, HIV/AIDS, malaria and scabies in the Grande Hotel. The water, sewer and electricity infrastructures have been removed and sold in order to obtain money for food and water. The parquet floor is used as fuel for cooking.
Most inhabitants find work only in the informal economic sector; they are, as implied by their nickname of 'whato muno' (not from here), excluded from the formal socio-economic life of Beira. As the city's formal economy grows, this puts pressure on the informal economy. It has become harder for Grande Hotel inhabitants to meet basic needs. The nickname 'whato muno' is used in Beira as a derogatory term for the inhabitants of the Grande Hotel. The hotel is considered to be a place where robbers live and where the police do not have any authority. There was at one time an advanced three-layered chief structure which kept order, but this no longer exists. The local municipal secretary of the neighbourhood (who also lives in the Grande Hotel) is now seen as the unofficial chief, but without the power that a chief would normally have in a Mozambique community.
These days, there are only two common rules of the Grande Hotel: Respect one another.
The Grande Hotel Beira was a luxury hotel in Beira, Mozambique. It was opened in 1954 and operated until 1974, when it was closed due to lack of guests. The building was used as a military base in the Mozambican Civil War, and it is currently home to over 3500 squatters.
Since 1992, Mozambique has enjoyed peace and stability. The seaport of Beira is redeveloped and booming due to the transit of minerals to Asia. The Grande Hotel has deteriorated, however. With only 116 hotel rooms, it now provides shelter for a fluctuating population, with large families inhabiting a single room. They do not pay any rent and cannot claim a right of ownership. There is little formal maintenance of the collective space, resulting in accumulating garbage, leaking rain water, open elevator shafts and inaccessible stairs. The Olympic swimming pool, now polluted, is used for bathing by inhabitants who cannot afford to buy water at the privately owned water pump opposite the Grande Hotel. According to the local Red Cross, there is a high risk of cholera, diarrhoea, HIV/AIDS, malaria and scabies in the Grande Hotel. The water, sewer and electricity infrastructures have been removed and sold in order to obtain money for food and water. The parquet floor is used as fuel for cooking.
Most inhabitants find work only in the informal economic sector; they are, as implied by their nickname of 'whato muno' (not from here), excluded from the formal socio-economic life of Beira. As the city's formal economy grows, this puts pressure on the informal economy. It has become harder for Grande Hotel inhabitants to meet basic needs. The nickname 'whato muno' is used in Beira as a derogatory term for the inhabitants of the Grande Hotel. The hotel is considered to be a place where robbers live and where the police do not have any authority. There was at one time an advanced three-layered chief structure which kept order, but this no longer exists. The local municipal secretary of the neighbourhood (who also lives in the Grande Hotel) is now seen as the unofficial chief, but without the power that a chief would normally have in a Mozambique community.
These days, there are only two common rules of the Grande Hotel: Respect one another.
