By Walter Denmon

Only 26 African countries had achieved independence when, in February 1961, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie ascended a sloping staircase to inaugurate Africa Hall in Addis Ababa, which he gifted as the new headquarters for the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

A dominating presence in the heart of the Ethiopian capital, adorned with a sweeping 150-square-meter (1,614-square-foot) stained-glass window, the structure, designed by Italian architect Arturo Mezzedimi, had taken just 18 months to build. Fittingly then, it didn’t take long before the building became the site of a landmark event in the story of modern Africa.

Just over two years later, Selassie once again made the climb to welcome the founding members of the newly formed Organization of African Unity (OAU) to their home — a meeting place intended to foster cooperation, drive economic progress and eradicate colonialism across the continent.

Addressing representatives of the then-32 independent African states, Selassie declared that the continent was “at midcourse, in transition from the Africa of yesterday to the Africa of tomorrow.”

“We must act to shape and mold the future and leave our imprint on events as they slip past into history,” he continued.

More than 60 years later, Selassie’s message has come full-circle: Africa Hall has been shaped and molded anew.

Last October marked the completion of a decade-long renovation across the entirety of the 12,800 square-meter site, commissioned by the ECA in 2013 with a $57 million budget to revitalize the landmark as a world-class conference and cultural venue.

Australian design practice Architectus Conrad Gargett was entrusted with leading the re-design, giving project architect Simon Boundy a mission with dual themes — modernization and conservation.

“The two go hand-in-hand with projects like this,” Boundy told CNN, “Where you’ve got an aging asset, but if it doesn’t get used, it falls into disrepair.”

“It’s about bringing the building back to life, making it accessible to the public and celebrating the story of the building for future generations.”

Building balance

The conundrum for Boundy and his team was that those two aims threatened to undermine the historical significance of Africa Hall. In essence, how do you modernize a historical landmark without losing some of its soul?

As a heritage architect — regularly tasked with making sensitive changes to buildings of historical or cultural importance — Boundy is well-versed in answering that question.

The first step was understanding Africa Hall’s importance and history, which was aided by hiring local architects and engineers to work on the renovation. Among them was Mewded Wolde, who, a day before her university graduation in 2014, found herself on the roof of Africa Hall taking measurements.

Born and raised in Addis Ababa, Wolde says the building — which hosted OAU meetings until the organization was replaced by the African Union (AU) in 2002, which eventually moved into new headquarters in Addis Ababa — is a source of pride for herself and many others given its role in helping countries across the continent achieve independence from colonial rule.

“This building, still for the African Union, is a symbol,” Wolde told CNN.

“It’s an artwork in itself that symbolizes the struggle that we have gone through in the past 60, 70 years to get to African unity.”

Local knowledge helped Boundy navigate the “balancing act” of modernizing Africa Hall without devaluing its legacy. Roughly 13 million new tiles were fabricated and reinstalled to exactly match the original material, staying true to the brown, orange and off-white color palette of Mezzedimi’s modernist design.

The old layout of the Plenary Hall was deemed to lack seating space, so after consulting the building’s original architectural drawings, the team designed new furniture in the same style and added an extra ring of seating.

Hidden in each desk is a digital screen, a subtle addition that — along with the arrival of a 13-meter-wide (42-foot-wide) LED display — leaves Africa Hall well suited to meet the technological requirements of modern conference hosting, while preserving the original architecture.

“We don’t want to leave our mark on the building,” Boundy said. “We want to just bring the original design to life again and hopefully everything that we do is behind the scenes, concealed in the ceilings, and it’s not the feature.”

Some aspects, however, demanded more radical change, especially those concerning accessibility and safety. The building — “quite dilapidated” — was stripped back to its structural core and strengthened with carbon fiber and steel before being built up again, Boundy explained, to protect the concrete from the damage caused by rusting steel and the threat of seismic activity.

Total Liberation

Protective measures also included a strengthened frame for the crown jewel of Africa Hall: the two-story stained-glass window that has adorned the foyer since 1961.

Titled “The Total Liberation of Africa,” it was Ethiopian artist Afewerk Tekle’s signature piece and is split into three panels; Africa Then, Africa Then and Now, and Africa Now and in the Future.

Featuring a knight in shining armor emblazoned with the UN logo, a dragon and the grim reaper, the work tells a story of liberation, of “slaying the demons” of colonization, Boundy explained.

Tekle’s work is Africa Hall’s definitive symbol, and can be seen splashed across shirts, ties and more in the city.

“The symbolism of the artwork is something that’s really hard to overstate, how important that is,” Boundy said.

“It really tells the story of what Africa Hall is trying to represent, which is the very best of what Africa can do, quite literally shedding the recent history, and looking very much forward … You can sit and spend hours staring at it.”

With various original pieces either loose or missing, the entire artwork was meticulously disassembled, cleaned and restored panel-by-panel by Emmanuel Thomas, the grandson of the person who originally made the stained glass from Tekle’s design.

Its refreshed look was unveiled alongside a new permanent exhibition to highlight the key events at Africa Hall that have helped to shape Pan-African history. For Wolde, both the artwork and the renovation itself are reflective of Selassie’s 1963 address, where he spoke of molding the Africa of tomorrow.

“Even now, even with all the upgrades that have happened in Africa Hall, this quote is actually true,” Wolde said.

“This is the space that we’re going to use to shape the future. Even then it was where they were having meetings … to shape the future of Africa, and even now, it symbolizes that. I really love this.”

By Mathias Henry

China's military conducted a live-fire exercise in the Taiwan Strait to simulate strikes on key ports and energy facilities, it said on Wednesday.

The exercise, codenamed "Strait Thunder", is an escalation of military drills China held on Tuesday around Taiwan, the democratic island Beijing claims as its territory.

Taiwan's presidential office said on Tuesday that it "strongly condemns" the "military provocations", which have become increasingly routine amid souring cross-strait ties.

The drills come as China sharpened its rhetoric against Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te, labelling him a "parasite" and "separatist". Lai had earlier this month referred to China as a "foreign hostile force".

The drills were meant to be a "serious warning and powerful containment of 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces", said a statement from China's People's Liberation Army (PLA).

It also released a series of cartoons depicting Lai as a "parasite" that was "poisoning Taiwan island" and - along with an image of Lai being grilled over a fire - "courting ultimate destruction".

Another video by the PLA, titled "Subdue demons and vanquish evils", likened the military's capabilities to the magical powers of the Monkey King, a mythical Chinese character.

In recent days, the Chinese Communist Party newspaper People's Daily published a series of op-eds denouncing Lai as a "troublemaker" and "warmonger".

"Facts have fully proven that Lai Ching-te is a vicious war maker," read one of the articles published on Wednesday. "Subdue demons and vanquish evils, use force to stop war."

While the trigger for this week's drills were not spelled out, Chinese authorities and state media have referenced a slew of policies announced by Lai last month to counter influence and infiltration operations by Beijing - where Lai used the "foreign hostile force" term.

However, the timing of the exercises, coming weeks after Lai's announcement, suggests that Chinese authorities wanted to wait for the conclusion of meetings between Chinese President Xi Jinping and international business leaders, along with the annual Boao business summit that wrapped up on 28 March.

They also come with the world's attention turned elsewhere, as global markets brace for the Trump administration's latest round of tariffs.

In response to China's latest military drills, the White House said on Tuesday that US President Donald Trump was "emphasising the importance of maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait". On Wednesday, the US State Department reaffirmed its "enduring commitment" to Taiwan.

During his recent visit to Asia, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth also repeatedly criticised China's aggression in the region and pledged to provide "robust, ready and credible deterrence", including in the Taiwan Strait.

However, the PLA seems to be moving towards a situation where such exercises around Taiwan occur regularly rather than in response to any specific perceived provocation.

Some experts see the drills as a dress rehearsal for a possible real blockade in an attempt to overthrow the government in Taipei in the future.

In the words of the Chinese military this week, they serve as a practice run "close in on Taiwan from all directions".

In addition, analysts believe that Beijing has been increasing the frequency and size of its military exercises as a way of trying to increase pressure on Taiwan's population to eventually accept an annexation by China as inevitable.

This is despite the fact that opinion polls have routinely shown that the vast majority of Taiwanese people firmly oppose a takeover of their democratically governed island group by China's Communist Party.

Taiwanese officials have warned that China may stage more military drills later this year, on dates like the anniversary of Lai taking office or Taiwan's National Day in October.

However, in Taiwan, movements by the PLA can also provide an opportunity.

Each time China conducts such war games, Taiwan's military chiefs have said that they can study the manoeuvres in order to better prepare their own forces for any real attack.