Aapravasi Ghat
British colonial public works · Port Louis, Mauritius · 1849
Aapravasi Ghat preserves the surviving remains of the immigration depot through which large numbers of indentured laborers entered Mauritius during the nineteenth century. Basalt walls, stairs, service buildings and archaeological fragments record a utilitarian colonial complex rather than a monumental architectural composition. Its significance comes from the relationship between ordinary infrastructure and a global system of migration that reshaped societies across the Indian Ocean and beyond. Dating from the mid-nineteenth century, the site is now conserved as a UNESCO World Heritage property and museum.