Towards a minor global architecture at Lamu, Kenya

Abstract

Major accounts of globalisation from a built environment perspective bring global cities and celebrity architects into focus. In this paper, I resist this and give an account of globalisation from the perspective of one of its minor architectures. A minor architecture is not a minor architectural language, but rather one that a minority constructs within a major language, encoding it differently and subverting its prevailing myths. The paper investigates this proposition by focusing on Lamu, the historic Islamic seaport and World Heritage Site on the northern coast of Kenya where a skirmish between local, national and global interests is currently underway over the construction of a new deep-water port. The port is a building site, not only of one of globalisation’s major architectures – a port, free economic zone and transportation corridor, but also of one of its minor ones, taking shape through the strategies Lamu’s organisations are deploying to object it. Through the analysis...