ANGLICAN ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE IN COLONIAL CITIES IN KENYA, 1844-1963

Abstract

There is already rich scholarship that explores the diverse ways in which colonial states and architects employed the classical style across the British Empire, paying careful attention to local and imperial influences upon building design. Ecclesiastical architecture in Kenya is a vital source through which to understand the particular nature of colonial entanglement in the region. As colonial architecture and urbanism played pivotal roles in shaping the spatial and social structures of African cities during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the first earlier twentieth century, missionary activities in was at its zenith at the East African Coast and the thus Anglican ecclesiastical architecture began to appear in the mainland dominated and inspired mainly by Early English Gothic architecture. The Anglican Church of Kenya started mission stations in urban areas such as Nairobi, Nakuru, Kisumu and Eldoret in English-like homes, cathedrals and parish offices. The study reveals how the architectural and technological transfers from the West continued synchronously with evangelism to create the prescribed image of the Anglican Church in Kenya. In the context of the international relations, these discourses played a significant role in consolidating British imperial power, as happened elsewhere in the British Empire. We argue that certain architectural elements have long been recognized internationally as symbolic of state power.