November 29, 2006
Addis Ababa: The new building site
Welcome to the changing face of Addis Ababa. Every time you turn around these days, a new building site springs up.
This is a view of the road between the Hilton Hotel and the United Nations compound (see the car park bottom right). Once a jumble of shacks and small businesses. In a few months it will be Addis' high rise downtown, packed with shiny new tower blocks. (Will there be enough business to fill them? Probably.)
The building with the curved glass roof in the right of the main group is the already-finished German House - home to GTZ. The skinny yellow one behind it will be the new UNICEF headquarters in a few months. Somewhere behind them is the skeleton of an Irish-funded four-star hotel. No idea what everything else is going to be - and the empty ground in the foreground is up for development as well.
No wonder there a national cement shortage.
The picture was taken from the new site of the Old Milk House at about 6pm - when the harsh light of an Addis afternoon turns into a photographer's dream.
Headline explanation: 'Addis Ababa' means 'New Flower'.
Posted by aheavens at November 29, 2006 4:58 PM
Comments
Any effort by the government to fix the side walks and put street signs on the corner ?
Posted by: tyrel at November 30, 2006 6:54 PM
How are LOGOPLC Condo's coming?
Posted by: JAPHET at December 11, 2006 2:31 AM
Cement shortage? No kidding: my boss is building a house and the price of a bag of cement has gone up x4 in the past year alone. There was an interesting article in 'The Reporter' a couple of weeks ago comparing the glass-and-steel construction methods in the west with the cement-and-cement (block) methods here.
Posted by: Marc at December 15, 2006 1:23 PM
i think addis ababa is changing this days keep it up
Posted by: thomas at March 1, 2007 11:27 AM
I like addis aebba.becuse african best city.and ethiopia capital.I was born in gonder ethiopia.I live is toronto canada. I love ethiopiay. becuse ethiopia is my best country country.
Posted by: michael at May 4, 2008 7:20 PM