Reshaping of paradise: Wilhelm Solf's city renewed in Apia Samoa

Abstract

During its rule the German Colonial administration in Samoa introduced significant changes to the urban fabric of Apia, its capital. One particular photograph of Apia's beachfront, dated “c. 1914”, brings to mind that this beachfront might be showing a German or Swiss lakeside town. The park-like, cleared strip of land parallel to the shoreline, the clock tower and the buildings that make up the street frontage: viewed through the black-and white obscurity of the photograph, all these elements create a striking resemblance to small European lakeside towns in the early 20th century. Paradoxically, just the Samoans in the picture seem to be out of place. This paper investigates the activities of town redevelopment in Apia, predominantly under the German administration (1900-14). It looks at the plans and motivations and compares them with contemporary European methods of city renewal, under aspects like artistic principles in town planning in accordance with romantic ideas about the aspect of towns, the clearing of hygienically problematic areas, and hygiene used as a pretext for getting rid of unwanted parts of the population to avoid a mixing of different parts of the population. Also, the paper aims at evaluating the urban development against German notions of Samoa as “Paradise” and as to be protected from any foreign influence.