Architecture and Politics in Africa by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer, Limited

Figure 7.1 The McMillan Memorial Library front entrance (Marie Gibert, July 2021).

Because of the history of the buildings and their contents, however, these tranquil refuges are also at the centre of debates that reflect current controversies about both the representation of colonisation and that of Kenya’s own past, and important reflections over how to deal with these representations. The original McMillan Library (figure 7.1), situated at the heart of Nairobi’s CBD, is most clearly linked to Kenya’s colonial history. It was inaugurated in 1931, as Kenya’s second public library.3 Built by Lady Lucie McMillan in memory of her late husband, American-turned-British explorer William Northrup McMillan, with a significant participation from the Carnegie family,4 it was a segregated library open to white Kenyans only until Kenya’s independence in 1963. Its architecture and contents have not changed since the early 1930s and bear all the grand signs of the unabashed colonial spirit of the time:

The building features a neo-classical design with towering granite-clad columns dominating the façade and a grand white marble trapezoidal stairway leading up to the portico. Twin lion statues stand guard on either side of the entrance way … Walls are built of smooth rendered stone under a flat roof. Windows are glazed in tall steel casements providing ample natural lighting. Doors are made of heavy hardwood panels hung in timber frames, pedimented to the lintels. A bust of McMillan finished in Makonde black sits atop a mock fireplace overlooking the main reading area, as if in watchful vigil. Twin elephant tusks are mounted at a short distance in front of the mock fireplace. (Kiereini, 2016a)

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