Dekemhare

Dekemhare was built as the industrial twin of Asmara, the place where Italian East Africa was supposed to make things. Textile mills, a glassworks, a brewery and canning plants went up along a main street of rationalist facades, and wine and vermouth were produced in cellars nearby. The fighting of the late nineteen seventies wrecked much of it and the plants were never rebuilt, so what remains is a modernist town half abandoned, with grand shopfronts and empty sheds behind them. For anyone interested in the architecture it is the sharpest counterpoint to the capital, and it takes about ninety minutes.