One of the few sights that people recommend in Monrovia when you ask, is the old Ducor Palace Hotel. Or what used to be. It was the first hotel built in Liberia, in 1967, and one of the few five star hotels in Africa for a long time. It had most things a classy hotel needs, like a pool, a French restaurant and an incredible view. However, it was closed due to the instability in the country in 1989, and during the civil was it was looted, sabotaged and filled with settlers that had nowhere else to go in the wartorn city. And now the disrepair is extensive.
A couple of years ago Gaddafi signed a contract with the Liberian government, with the plan to rebuild what had been destroyed – but then the Arab Spring came and now there’s only a couple of guards there, who, for a fee, can be persuaded to take you on a tour. A huge skeleton on the best piece of property in Monrovia.
The first thing that you meet when entering the hotel is this. It’s not hard to imagine the once upon a time splendor of this place.
One of the 300 rooms.
The view from the roof terrace. West Point out on the sandspit, an area that I was told not to go to – it could be dangerous for an inexperienced white girl like me.
And that glazed tile. The color, clashing with the roughness of the bare concrete.
It was sad and tragic, but still, I couldn’t help feeling it was so incredibly intriguing too. There is an aesthetic with ruins that makes me go wild with my camera. It doesn’t make me proud of myself.
Katja Malmborg 