BIOGRAPHY

Antonieta Candida Pires Jacinto was an Angolan architect and urban planner, born in Kahala, Huambo province in 1930, during the Portuguese colonial period. She went to Portugal to complete her studies, graduating from the Lisbon School of Fine Arts in 1956, the first woman born in Angola to become an architect. At the end of the fifties, she returned to Angolan territory, working on housing projects for African populations including the Cacuaco Fishermen neighbourhood, and Luanda Indigenous neighbourhood, 1958, and their schools. The High School she designed with Francisco Silva Dias from 1958-59 for the former village of Henrique de Carvalho (present-day Saurimo, Lunda Sul) in the northern border area of Angola, is considered a reference work of modern architectonic culture in Africa and an influence on the work of other pioneer women architects such as Cristina Salvador. She elaborated several urban plans before Angolan independence for places like Porto Alexandre and Baía dos Tigres, both in 1958. 

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(Ana Vaz Milheiro, 2021)