Police Booth, Asmara

I love this little police booth on the outskirts of Asmara. It reminds me of a series of bus shelters in Brighton on the south coast of England.

It is small but it packs a punch. The flat roof, curved at the front and extending over the front wall to provide some relief from the African sun.

Even the wall are stepped inwards as they near the ground opposing the usual notion of the stepped skyscraper style.

The windows are interesting. There is a band of square windows around the whole front of the booth just above the door and a segmented porthole window on each side.

The booth seemed to be used as a checkpoint for traffic leaving Asmara on the way down from the plateau to Massawa on the Red Sea. An officer boarded the bus I was on but only checked the papers of a few people, all young men. There was no drama to the situation but it gave me time to take note of the booth and come back a couple of days later to take a few pictures.