When I mention Kenyan Architecture, what comes to mind?
I will give you time to think about it……… Now, let me help you. NOTHING!
You may not admit it but your mind went blank for a while. Don’t pretend you thought of an African hut. If you’re reading this article chances are you are already alienated from it. Your mind did not go to K.I.C.C. It is the most iconic building in Nairobi’s skyline, right? Yes, although it was well done, few of the other buildings that litter our landscape can compare in thought, detail or expression and thus the pattern is lost.
I am not about to give remedy to the predicament we find ourselves in. The damage has already been done. The trends of putting up faceless buildings have already been set, and you know what they say about new tricks and dogs. I am here to assign blame. In my view there two culprits whom should be lynched!
The lesser of the two is the greedy developer who owns funny shaped plots of land all the way from Kayole and Umoja, to Kasarani and Zimmerman. In all his projects, he is the architect, quantity surveyor, engineer and contractor.
Such a developer would go to site with a drawing borrowed from a friend, bribe the local authority inspectors to look the other way, construct the ground floor and have people move in as the other floors come up.
The colour scheme of his buildings is highly dictated by the left over paints from his previous project. Such developers will get into books of history as being responsible for that architectural style loosely referred to as Dandora Architecture.
Sadly though, these are the developers with random parcels of land all over the place and have the ability to set trends. They have convinced the masses that a country without expression, art and culture is okay. After all, this is a third world country and the cheapest way to do it is the right way to do it.
The other culprit is the ‘run off the mill’ architect. This is the architect that has brought about our predicament and is the kind that has been cultured by the greedy developer for years.
This architect’s design philosophy is, ‘You cannot reinvent the wheel’. For every project, he would pull plans from the previous project, fit them to the current site, and change the names in the title block and print.
For a few lucky clients, he would come up with a module, multiply it across the floor and duplicate to the number of floors needed. Many a times, the client, who would most likely be one of the greedy developers, may add a few more floors easily.
I have no conclusion, no way forward and no remedy for our city. However, I have a parting shot, “The master piece of the greedy developer and his architect defiling our city one more time”.
The author is an architect working with Triad Architects
I was considering this same question with regard to the Nairobi National Museum and whether in its design it was Kenyan (and historically too) in a class I took. I would like your thoughts on it if you don't mind reading it.
nicely said
I think diversity of the kenyan culture and the lack of the inbuilt spirit of kenyanness probably is the biggest factor to this lack of kenyan architecture.Universality of religion, Climate, culture or language are known to be the binding factors to contribute to identifiable architecture.That's why we can comfortably say, European, Arab or polar architecture.Commerce is not entirely to blame.
good article…keep them coming.
Well Said
Me thinks the reason is because we lack identity as a people.We are selling our culture, religion, language for a penny to the west.
hehe interesting angles. but maybe one more culprit, the architect with a great fascination of global trends regardless of context.