ABSTRACT
This chapter considers both the colonial architect's delamination of private spaces in the home and city along with the inhabitant's subsequent furnishing of these interiors. It traces the physical development of the colonial interior by turning to literary and philosophical sources. The chapter focuses on how technologies advanced while popular constructions of Italian colonial women between 1890 and 1941 emulated interiors that were both colonial and modern. It examines the promotion, design and construction of houses during the fascist period in Italian East Africa. Turning to three specific Italian colonial houses built between 1910 and 1938 in Asmara, the chapter considers such examples as: innovative projects that outwardly manifest signs of machinic overtones; and a by-product of the colonial drive for rapid urbanization. The chapter registers machinic Italian bodies in sharp contrast with the predicament of many Eritrean women under the auspices of madamato or sanctioned concubinage, were circumscribed by the presence and disappearance of Italian women in the home.
