Visions of the global: the classical and the eclectic in colonial East African architecture

Abstract

This article discusses the use of the classical language of architecture in the early colonial urban landscape in East Africa and assesses the stylistic choices by British colonial architects in Zanzibar and Nairobi. It focuses upon the buildings of John Sinclair, administrator-architect in Zanzibar from the early 1900s to 1923 and his later work in Nairobi. It highlights the various competing factors which informed decisions made by architects in the colonial world