City Plan, Newspaper, Paper Subject

Plan:

The plan I chose to rectify was Ernst May’s 1947 Kampala Plan. May was a German architect and city planner known for his urban style. He worked on Frankfurt during the Weimar period in Germany, applied some of his techniques to Soviet Union cities, and found himself in exile in Africa once the Nazis took over Germany. It is necessary to note the significance of a European plan on the African city. The similarity of this plan and the actual city today confirms the influence of the European on the African while raising issues of the role of the European in the African city.

In terms of the plan itself, it is quite apparent that the city is very much structured around its geography. The hills dictate much of the city plan and allow a quite limited city flow. The major arteries of the city are thus in between the hills.

Newspaper:

In my search for a newspaper article, I came across a very interesting study by James F. Scotton on the independent African press in East Africa during the 1920s and the role that it played in the nationalist movement in this area. Kampala has a long history of monthly Luganda-language newspapers that “stimulated political awareness among large numbers of Africans.” (Scotton 212) I found it very intriguing to learn that at the beginning of the 1920s, many of these newspapers included the criticism of the Buganda government, and it was not until later in the 1920s that the people of Kampala began to question the role of the

British in Uganda. I think that this piece of information is particularly interesting in thinking about the evolution of this area and the development of Kampala as an independent African city.

Inspired by this finding, I selected The Uganda Herald from January 1920 and read through the entire 28 page newspaper that was published weekly. The newspaper was full of different kinds of advertisements – testament to the commercial nature of this city. The headline article of this week’s edition was titled “Facts and Theories Concerning the Geology of Uganda” which basically defined and outlined the geological composition of Uganda. It was quite didactic, similar to something one would find in an earth sciences textbook. This suggests the educative nature of the newspaper for the city of Kampala. Because literacy was actually quite common, newspapers served as a means to communicate new revelations, discoveries, and ideas with the people of Kampala.

Benin Rectified Maps:

Paper Subjects:

I am quite interested in architecture, so I am considering doing a study of the architecture of Kampala and how it fits in with the city plan. I think that the fact that much of the city plan is dictated by its hills is quite interesting and perhaps related to the city’s architecture. There is a very diverse array of architectural forms – ranging from mud huts to magnificent hotels and residences. I find the quintessential Kampalan hut to resemble the hill, and would like to explore this idea more thoroughly.

Works Cited:

Scotton, James F. . "The First African Press in East Africa: Protest and Nationalism in Uganda in the 1920s." The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 6. no. 2 (1973): 211-228. http://www.jstor.org/stable/216775 (accessed March 2, 2012).

"Facts and Theories Concerning the Geology of Uganda." Uganda Herald, January 09, 1029. http://infoweb.newsbank.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/iw-search/we/HistArchive?p_theme=ahnp&p_product=WHNPX&p_nbid=F54J55NRMTMzMDcwODI5Ni43MTA5Nzk6MToxNDoxMjguMTAzLjE0OS41Mg&p_action=keyword&f_pubBrowse=12EED55ECC39C2C0 (accessed March 2, 2012).