Michenzani, the other part of “Stone Town” where cement is metabolic

© arcomai I View of the of Michenzani’s “Trains”.

In Swahili, the language spoken along the Swahili coast, ng’ambo means “the other side”, a popular term referring to the “other side of a place”. This word is also the name given to the “other side” of Stone Town, now Zanzibar City on the island of Zanzibar in Tanzania. Historically, the two urban entities were divided by a stream now covered by the Creek Road axis. Ng’ambo and Stone Town have for two centuries (since the early 19th century) lived a common history sharing all those socio-cultural aspects connected to the typical urban development of each settlement. However, this intrinsic link between them was severed by foreign impositions, leading to a division of the settlement. In fact, Ng’ambo from the second half of the 19th century was the place where, according to the colonial planning logic of the time, the poorest African and Swahili populations had to live; while the wealthier Arabs, Indians and Europeans were allowed to live in Stone Town. To a large extent this socio-economic division of the population still exists today. Ng’ambo ceased to represent the “opposite” to become even the “core” of a new urbanity when in the early 70s Michenzani was created, a new neighborhood for a young African society of socialist inspiration.

© arcomai I View of the of Michenzani’s “Trains”.

The (re)foundation of the “neglected city” took place through an urban renewal plan promoted by the revolutionary government of Zanzibar. This government, which came to power after the overthrow of the post-colonial administration in January 1964, prioritized the implementation of an ambitious public housing plan in its program. Consultations were initiated with the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries, aiming to obtain substantial contributions to the modernization and economic progress of the island. Communist Germany thus became Zanzibar’s most important cooperation partner between 1964 and 1969. In the following years, an intervention plan was developed, but it did not fully materialize. In fact, the housing plan, launched by the Revolutionary Council, only partially fulfilled the aspirations of the revolutionary regime.

The original Zanzibar “Urban Plan” envisioned approximately 7,000 apartments within 229 buildings ranging from five to fifteen stories, housing a population of 30,000 inhabitants. However, the regime under President Abeid Amani Karume (1905–1972) ultimately opted for the construction of a series of row houses 300 meters long. The blocks known as the “Trains” of Michenzani comprised about a thousand completed apartments, a significant number undoubtedly, but far from the ambitious expectations of the initially planned intervention. The program was initially developed by a team of architects led by Hubert Scholz and included ten blocks known as “Plattenbauten” (built with large prefabricated concrete slabs) with heights ranging from four to seven storeys.

© arcomai I View of the of Michenzani’s “Trains”.

The architecture of the dwellings reflected the spatial ideals of socialist thought of those years regarding popular housing, focused on standardization, rationality, order and control of living space according to that principle of Existenzminimum Housing (i.e. Housing for the minimum level of existence), theorized during the Second CIAM (International Congress of Modern Architecture) of 1929 in Frankfurt. The planning expressed an extremely functionalist vision without hiding “monumentalist” ambitions conveyed mainly by Soviet models, here expressed by the “monolithicity” of the blocks and the two 15m wide road axes on which the “Trains” face. The intersection of the two avenues (oriented north-south and west-east) manifested the desire to create a symbolic centrality intended both as an “entrance door” (originally designed to house a fountain), and as a “focal point” for a new urban center of gravity; an architectural gesture aimed at celebrating the birth of a new urbanity.

A sense of order that did not take into account the nature of man. In fact, not only will those building models soon undergo a process of metabolic transformation by its inhabitants, but behind that “concrete cross” another Ng’ambo would soon be formed, made of “informal settlements”, typical of modern slums. If colonialism had been defeated by its revolutionary “after” – thanks to the modernist static structure imported from socialist Europe – this in turn was overcome by “another modernity”, disorderly, dynamic but African; a “third way” expressed by a “lived architecture” expression of the intrinsic needs of the hangman being.

The General Plan of the City of Zanzibar of 1923 by Lanchester (source African Architecture Matters).

Although the landscape of Ng’ambo city has been rewritten by introducing the prefabricated block system, the process that these buildings have undergone since then is constantly rewriting the history of those buildings. In fact, despite the condominiums being the pride of revolutionary Zanzibar, after their construction, virtually no improvement of the facilities or even maintenance was done by the local government bodies; therefore, the buildings are now in a state of disrepair. For example, although they were designed as multi-storeys, elevators were never installed and therefore all vertical circulation took place and still takes place only through the stairs. Furthermore, the lack of water pressure has made water services unavailable from the second floor upwards. As a result, many residents have installed their own water pumps externally, which are certainly not in line with the original style of the buildings. Aside from the lack of services and the maintenance of the buildings, the nature of the human being has made these complexes another “home”. The lifestyle of the people has been so strong as to transform the concrete structures.

© Mieke Woestenburg I Aerial view of the “Trains” of Michenzani.

Over the years, the ground floor of the blocks has undergone profound transformations. Some housing units have begun to accommodate small commercial businesses at the same time as the occupation of the appurtenant spaces by kiosk shops. Elderly residents from the upper floors have moved to this same level, which in the meantime have begun to host illegal activities such as prostitution and drug dealing with the consequent use of protections on the facade such as gates and iron bars for the prevention of crime. The stairs and landings have become places of meeting and socialization, but also transit areas for non-resident people. Inside many apartments, walls have been added, moved and removed to facilitate the life of family units that can reach up to 13 members. Whoever thought of implanting from Socialist Europe a model of prefabricated/built housing has not reckoned with the identity, culture and structure of Swahili families who, among other things, are mainly Muslim here and therefore extended.

© arcomai I View of the of Michenzani’s “Trains”.

The adaptation of living space has inexorably contributed to the daily transformation of the urban fabric. The desire of the inhabitants to reclaim their habitat has helped to rewrite the history of Michenzani. The evident duality between colonial urban planning and that of the immediate post-colonial period has been erased here by an “architecture of needs” that today leads us to reflect on the objectives, achievements, shortcomings, and ideology of the original project. This “lived urbanism” compares the rigidity and uniformity of the models of “modern” building types with the flexibility and diversity of individuals’ housing experiences, where the interrelation between people and space has provided practical answers to living problems, ignored for long periods by public bodies, thus leading to a continuous change of use of the place.

Since 2002, Stone Town has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Although the purposes of the UN organization do not recognize the cultural and architectural peculiarities of Michenzani, it is evident that the historical part of Zanzibar is considered a single, separable entity, a sort of enclave to be protected, thus denying its belonging to a social and territorial dimension larger than that defined between the sea and Creek Road. The 1968 Plan commissioned by Karume paradoxically shows how the revolutionaries intended to rediscover that urban unity necessary to build a fairer society also through a (re)foundation obtained – if necessary – by razing Stone Town to the ground. If colonial culture has always discriminated against Ng’ambo, imported socialist idealism has not behaved differently with Michenzani. More than an urban dualism between the two citadels, we are faced with an ideological oxymoron, a misunderstanding of intentions resolved by the “architecture of living”. The fact that the skyline of Stone Town makes the city resemble a large shantytown seems to be Ng’ambo’s revenge on the hypocrisy of planning.

Model of the General Plan of the City of Zanzibar of 1968 by Hubert Scholz (source African Architecture Matters).

NOTE

The historical reconstruction of the urban development of the city of Zanzibar is based on a study entitled Ng’ambo Atlas: Historic Urban Landscape of Zanzibar Town’s ‘Other Side’ by the non-profit consulting organization African Architecture Matters based in Amsterdam (Netherlands) together with the Department of Urban and Rural Planning of Zanzibar (Tanzania).