In downtown Luanda in Angola, an abandoned hotel with broken windows and weeds pushing through its walls now hosts something no one expected. The old Globo Hotel no longer checks in guests or offers room service. Instead, it fills with paintings, photographs, conversations, and crowds drawn by art. Believe it or not, a building left to decay now stands at the centre of Luanda’s contemporary art scene.
From Hotel to Empty Shell
The Globo Hotel once welcomed guests before it slipped into disuse. Over time, the building stopped operating as a hotel and began to deteriorate. Its sign and awnings fell long ago. Windows broke. Cracks in the walls grew large enough to support plant life. The structure sat abandoned in the city centre, overlooked and forgotten as Luanda changed around it.
For many years, the Globo stood as little more than a ruin. Most cities would have written it off as a loss. In Luanda, artists saw opportunity rather than failure.
Art Enters Through the Broken Doors
Around 2018, artists had begun using the abandoned Globo Hotel as an underground venue for exhibitions. Art events took over individual rooms, stairwells, and hallways. These were not polished gallery spaces. They were raw rooms still marked by time and neglect.
Exhibitions did not happen once and disappear. Artists continued to return, staging multiple shows at the hotel. Event listings and art coverage highlight recurring takeovers, turning the Globo into a recognised site for contemporary art in Luanda.
Rooms Claimed by Creativity
Inside the Globo, former hotel rooms now function as spaces for exhibitions and creative work. Walls once meant for framed hotel art now display bold contemporary pieces. Doors once marked with room numbers open into temporary galleries.
The building also became home to professional galleries. JAHMEK Contemporary Art operates from inside Hotel Globo, using the address as a public-facing gallery location. Listings on international art platforms show the Globo as an official point of contact for Angolan contemporary art, not just a hidden venue known to insiders.
This shift marked a turning point. The Globo moved from an abandoned shell to a recognised address in the art world.
Art Beyond Polished Galleries
The art on display at Hotel Globo is not intended to be perfect. The unfinished walls and damaged floors remain part of the experience. Artists use the setting to reflect on identity, history, and modern life in Luanda.
Art writing linked to the Globo connects these modernist ruins to wider questions about Angola’s past and present. Some artists document changing city spaces. Others explore themes tied to history and everyday life. The building’s condition underscores the work on display.
The Globo functions as a base, but its influence stretches beyond the hotel itself. Exhibitions and recurring events draw people into parts of the city they might otherwise pass by.
A City of Repurposed Spaces
Hotel Globo does not stand alone. Across Luanda, artists and creatives increasingly work inside older structures rather than purpose built galleries. Photographers and visual artists document modernist ruins and changing neighbourhoods, using their work to record how the city evolves.
Writing about Angolan art often links these spaces to memory and urban change. The buildings connect colonial history, decades of transformation, and today’s creative response. Through exhibitions and documentation, artists give new meaning to places once considered obsolete.
Why Globo Matters
Hotel Globo matters because it proves that cultural spaces do not need luxury finishes to hold value. The building no longer functions as a traditional hotel, yet it now plays a visible role in Luanda’s art landscape.
Visitors do not enter expecting comfort. They arrive curious. Art fills rooms once meant for guests. Crowds move through hallways that once echoed with footsteps of travellers. The ruin remains, but its purpose has changed.
Few places feel as unexpected as an abandoned hotel reborn through art. Hotel Globo now hosts exhibitions inside a building that no longer runs as a hotel at all. Believe it or not, a structure left to crumble has become one of Luanda’s most active creative sites. In a city shaped by change, the Globo stands as proof that even ruins can claim a powerful new role.
