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