In Dar es Salaam, the concrete forest of Kariakoo is even more sustainable than the glass jungle of the Capital

“Brutalism tries to confront the society of mass production by drawing a rude poetry from the powerful and confused forces that are around. So far, brutalism has been discussed stylistically, but its essence is ethical.”

(“Thoughts in progress: the New Brutalism”, in Architectural Design, 1957, by Alison and Peter Smithson)

© arcomai I View of Kariakoo Market.

Between the post-World War II era and the early 1980s, an architectural trend developed – known as “Brutalism” – which, criticizing/overcoming the Modern Movement, proposed a plastic, tectonic, sometimes monumental and sculptural architecture, characterized by the massive use of exposed reinforced concrete (béton brut). Although we are used to remembering European (Great Britain, France, Spain, Soviet Union, …), Asian (Japan, India, …) or American (USA, Brazil, …) experiences, there are still excellent examples in Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, …) – which belong to this architectural movement – on which to focus, and not only on the purely aesthetic level. A unique example of its kind is the (still functioning) Kariakoo Market in Dar es Sallam (capital of Tanzania until 1961) designed by Beda Amuli in the early 1970s, therefore in the full “Brutalist” period. The complex is one of the largest of its kind in the city. It is located in the Ilala district (one of the three districts in which the city-region of Dar es Salaam is administratively divided) in a rectangular lot between Nyamwezi Street, Tandamuti Street, Mkunguni Street and Swahili Street. Although the building is only 50 years old, the area on which it stands had already become strategic for the development of the city a century ago.

© arcomai I View of Kariakoo Market.

In 1914, the German administration acquired the Kariakoo area from a businessman named Schoeller to transform it into a township for the local population, in line with the racial segregation policy that was also coming into force in German East Africa. Schoeller then sold the area to the government for 500,000 rupees, which he subsequently began to urbanize. During the same period, a market was created; however, the advent of the First World War postponed its opening. In 1916, when the British conquered Dar es Salaam, they set up their supply depots there. It was during these years that the area acquired the nickname “Kariakoo”, derived from the deformation of the name of the entity that managed the area, the “Carrier Corps”. When this ceased operations, the market came into operation in 1923, although it soon suffered severe degradation. In the early 1970s, the Dar es Salaam City Council decided to build a new market in the same area. The young Beda Amuli was called for an interview by the city’s technical office, to which he presented some sketches of a project relevant to that function, developed when he was still a student in Israel. After convincing the office staff that the new complex should be built by a local designer, the young architect produced some study sketches that later helped him win the commission.

The conceptual idea was inspired by the traditional African market that usually develops under trees. The technicians seemed convinced of the young architect’s professionalism and, as they wanted the project to proceed quickly, they entrusted the construction to the construction company MECCO Ltd (Mwananchi Engineering and Contracting Company Limited) without issuing a call for tenders. The structural part was developed by the engineering firm GMP (Gordon Melvin & Partners), which developed the “tree”-shaped structural element as indicated by the designer – who had conceived it as a hyperbolic paraboloid. Construction began in 1972 and was completed two years later.

© Google Earth I Aerial photo of Kariakoo Market.

The image of the complex is certainly strong due to the roughness of the exposed concrete, which gives the market the appearance of a Gothic cathedral, but it is also a testament to a time when that material still represented (in the 1970s) a symbol of modernity. Although the concrete is visually heavy and monotonous, Beda Amuli used it entirely, creating gigantic but light elements at the same time, generating within it a space with plastic forms that enhance the strength of the structure, adding, however, also a sense of levitation as well as the sensation of being not inside a building but inside a forest. These “trees” with a raw appearance are modeled with elegance according to a visual narrative of strong architectural vigor. Together they form a dense forest whose volume gives shade inside, while outside it creates another one that during the day protects the commercial activities active around the complex from the sun. For these exercises, and together with the fact that not far from here there was until a few years ago an important bus station – then moved to Ubungo in the western area of the city – Kariakoo has become over the years – and still remains today – an urban catalyst for Dar es Salaam and perhaps for the whole country, given that many of the resources produced in the country converge there.

© arcomai I Internal detail of the “cement tree” roofing system of the Kariakoo Market.

The building is not only an exceptional example of ‘brutalist’ architecture (made in Africa) but also an example of sustainable design decades ahead of contemporary thinking. The roof, in fact, is made up of 24 (4×6) funnel-shaped elements which, supported by slender hollow columns, allow rainwater to be collected and stored in an underground tank. The gap between the roof and the volume of the complex allows for natural (horizontal) ventilation necessary to mitigate the effects of humidity and heat. These elements (all the same) are grouped according to two bodies: one perimeter of 16 “trees” and a central one of 8 which, however, are about a meter higher than the external ones. This gap between the two roofs has the function not only to facilitate the expulsion of heat in a vertical direction but also the emission of noise and voices produced by the public.

Prospect and sections of the original project (source: Instagram).

The market is managed by the Kariakoo Market Corporation, which would like to remodel the complex because it is no longer suitable for the times in terms of economies and functionality. It would do so with the involvement of the central government, asking for participation in the modernization and integration of the infrastructure of the area. Currently, the companies that sell within the building are mainly wholesalers and linked to the agriculture and livestock industry – and therefore not to retail trade. This means that the volume of visitors who access the Kariakoo area daily turn to commercial activities outside the market itself. In recent years – to decongest the area – the Machinga Complex has been built, a new market 10 km from Kariakoo along the road that connects the city to the center of the country; but without achieving the desired success. This shows that here any recovery intervention cannot only be a mere restyling but must consider a holistic approach and on a more urban scale (modern system of accessibility / mobility, re-balancing of the economies weighing on the area, street furniture, …) without the pretense of asking people to change their habits for functional alternatives disconnected from those socio-cultural factors that make them belong to a community.

© arcomai I Internal view of Kariakoo Market.

In 2011, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Tanzania’s Independence, Amuli publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with the recent urban planning, architecture, and construction industry. His criticisms were mainly directed against the destruction of historical buildings and the increasing disappearance of public spaces. He also challenged the attitude of foreign investors who, bringing their own designers, were transforming parts of cities into “glass jungles,” often incompatible with local aesthetic and climatic conditions. “They come here for a short period, but their buildings remain for a long time.”

Although “brutalism” is told differently depending on the country in which it is found, it carries with it (from its origins) the desire to rebuild and break away from history – focusing on civil architecture but also on churches, schools, and social housing with the aim of rediscovering the sense of belonging and aggregation. For this reason, we find it mostly in buildings for collectivity. The architecture is designed thinking about spaces together with/for its inhabitants, and the straightforwardness of its materials conveys this message. We do not know the reasons if Amuli approached this movement consciously, certainly his actions in coincidence with the historical events, which led in 1961 to the independence of the country from the British Empire, make this complex a monument to freedom.

© arcomai I View of Kariakoo Market.

Beda Jonathan Amuli

(1938-2016) was born in the village of Machombe in the Mtwera region, the capital of the Mtwara Region in southeastern Tanzania, not far from the border with Mozambique. He was the first architect to be registered in his country (1966) and later in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia. In 1966 he opened his studio in Tanzania and in ’73 in Kenya. He was also president of the Association of Architects of Tanzania, of which he was a very active member. In his second year of university at the Royal Technical Collage of East Africa in Nairobi (Kenya) he obtained a scholarship at the Techinion (Techical Israel’s Institute of Technology) in Haifa (Israel). Beda was the only African student in a course of 4,000 students. During the summer of his fourth year of studies he worked at Zevet International Architects (Tel Aviv). It was this studio that sent him in October 1964 (at the end of his studies) to Dar es Salaam to follow the works (as an associate) of the Kilimanjaro Hotel, commissioned to the Israeli studio. For them he followed other important projects until 1969 when, due to some discrepancies with the partners, he decided to resign and open his own studio in Dar es Salaam and then in 1973 in Nairobi in Sunglora House. This office closed in 19782 due to the breakdown of the East Africa Community.