Heritage

City Market is a gem among Kenya’s green architectural projects

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Nairobi City Market building, along Muindi Mbingu street. EMMA NZIOKA

The idea of a municipal market in Nairobi had been mooted as early as April 16, 1900 when the Nairobi Municipal Regulations were published.

The market was planned to accommodate Europeans only but Jeevanjee decided to build a market for all in 1904 at a cost of 100,000 rupees, situated along Gulzar Street (current Monrovia Street), between Stewart (current Muindi Mbingu) and Sadler (current Koinange) streets.

The yellow and purple structure had a central clocktower from the balcony of which one could see, on a clear morning, the snow-capped peaks of Mt Kenya and Mt Kilimanjaro.

By the 1920s, Nairobi was developing very rapidly in all directions and the need for a new, modern design municipal market was uppermost in the minds of the town planners. Jeevanjee Market was pulled down and replaced by a new market (current City Market) along Muindi Mbingu Street.

The new market comprised a main market hall, stalls on the flanks, shops to the main façade, low level stalls to the rear, toilet facilities with running water, offices on an upper floor and an extensive car park. It featured a unique architectural design which was ahead of its time and particularly suited to the intended function of a public market in an equatorial climate where the electricity supply was unreliable.

Its walls are constructed of reinforced concrete parabolic arches with stone infilling to the lower elevations. The upper elevations feature large glazed steel casements some of which are pivoted and operated by a series of steel cables and pulleys for natural lighting and ventilation.

Floors are finished in a variety of granite and terrazzo with cement screed to the low level stalls at the rear, which are covered by a Mangalore tiled roof. The external walls feature a series of concrete sun shading fins.

The design appears to have been based on the award-winning Lawrence Hall, one of two Royal Horticultural halls in London accredited to the architectural partnership of Easton and Robertson. Architect Eric Loki David analyses the unique qualities of the building that still work even today as follows:

Site layout

To minimise heat gains through solar radiation, all windows are placed on the northern and southern facades.

Buiding layout

The market uses a series of courtyards around the main hall which allow cool air to enter the facility providing sheltered outdoor spaces.

Building form

The main hall has a pyramidal form made possible by the use of reinforced concrete arches. Such a form would have resulted in high exposure to solar radiation within the building but it has been countered by the use of deep sun shading concrete fins externally.

Shading of the main entrance
This is located on the eastern side and is sheltered from the hot afternoon sun by the high building mass on the western side.

Low-rise mass

The market building has a relatively low height for the accommodation provided, exposing a comparatively small surface area for heat gains. Tall buildings experience high heat gains.

Construction materials
The building is painted cream-white which helps to reflect most of the sun’s radiation. Extensive use of concrete provides a high time-lag keeping the interior space relatively cool even when outside temperatures are high.

Provision for natural lighting

The stepped roofing provides external light shelves which reflect light into the interior space breaking it into even, diffused light.

Provision for natural ventilation

The location of the main façade with entrance openings and ventilation gratings on the windward side directs windflow on this façade allowing for air movement into the building. This provides cross-ventilation with openings on the other side. Pivoted window openings allow for air movement into the main hall.

Their location on opposite sides also boosts cross-ventilation. High louvred windows allow for stack ventilation with warm air rising and exiting through the louvres and allowing for cool air to come in through the lower openings.

He concludes by saying that “green architecture” is nothing new and that environmental design issues have always been part of architecture even in our short recorded history.

When the market was completed it became a ready outlet for fast moving agricutural produce for African smallholder farmers providing a steady and profitable livelihood for many.

The market has four sections: Section one is the curio sector displaying Kenyan culture and artefacts; section two the butchery sector selling all sorts of fresh meat and fish; section three selling traditional roast meat known as “nyama choma” and section four which sells fresh flowers for all occasions.

Whilst the integrity of the structure is good due to the original sound construction, the decoration and general maintenance could do with a good sprucing. The mechanism for operating the high level windows no longer works and they have not been cleaned in a long time.

The Nairobi City Market receives about 20,000 visitors per month most of whom are wholesale customers purchasing for small restaurants or planned households.

In the 1992, the parking lot for the City Market was allocated to Market Plaza, a company associated with a senior Kanu minister of the day, which fenced off the plot.

Traders at the market went to court to reclaim the plot but their case was thrown out. In a highly publicised event later that year, the traders joined hands with the late Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai and some opposition leaders to pull down the fence and forcefully reclaimed the plot.

The traders got some reprieve on November 26, 2010 when the Registrar of Titles issued a Gazette notice revoking the title to Market Plaza, saying the title was illegal since the land was reserved for the City Council for a public market.

Fortunately, the City Market together with the parking lot were gazetted as a national monument in April 2009, which means no development can take place without the express authority of the National Museums of Kenya. One might say a form of poetic justice for this architectural masterpiece.

Mr Kiereini is a retired banker and motorcycle enthusiast. E-mail [email protected].