The Hilton Lodge was Nairobi’s first skyscraper. The enduring cylindrical tower was opened in 1969 by President Jomo Kenyatta, six years after Kenya’s independence from Britain.

The latest closure of the resort after greater than 50 years of operation comes at a time of vertical transformation within the metropolis’s skyline. As Nairobi grows ever taller, and as newer suburbs take over from the central enterprise district as town’s business centres, the Hilton is a landmark from a special period of city life.

The Hilton’s modernist form was a part of a post-independence shift away from colonial resort structure in Nairobi. As seen within the unique Norfolk and Fairview accommodations, the colonial type had mimicked the English nation home.

Throughout the continent, a brand new African modernism emerged within the Sixties. Just like the Lodge Independence in Dakar, Senegal, or the hovering Lodge Ivoire in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, the vertical attain of the Hilton was symbolic of a brand new period of ambition and a way to specific an rising nationwide identification. Because the anthropologist Filip de Boeck has stated, by pointing in direction of the sky, it additionally pointed in direction of the longer term.

The Hilton helped to form the character of central Nairobi. It shortly grew to become an city landmark and a gathering place of the brand new elite. It additionally gained notoriety for what went on behind closed doorways. Extra not too long ago, it has symbolised the declining fortunes of town centre. As my analysis has examined, Nairobi’s high-rise transformation is intently linked to the politics of city change.

Upwardly cellular life

Within the Hilton’s early years of the Nineteen Seventies, accommodations in Nairobi had been an necessary a part of the upwardly cellular life of aspirant households. One thing just like the Kenyan equal of the nation membership, accommodations had been the place you went to see and be seen. Enterprise and political elites took their households for lunch and a day by the pool, understanding that others could be doing the identical.

Motels had been locations the place alliances had been made and offers had been struck in a extra casual environment. Totally different accommodations had completely different personalities and had been related to completely different social units. Some had been extra unique; others had been related to sure political allegiances.

This was a intentionally unique and exclusionary scene. A world the place you needed to costume a sure solution to get in, the place you had been judged on what automobile dropped you or on the place you’d purchased your costume. It was a part of how new types of socio-economic distinction had been established and skilled within the aftermath of colonialism. In downtown Nairobi, areas of racial exclusion started to be overwritten by distinctions primarily based on class and wealth.

Whereas the close by Intercontinental or Panafric accommodations had been considered family-friendly, the Hilton was extra intently related to authorities and politics. It was often called a spot for government-funded conferences and “trainings” that had been held in its large salon; extravagant capabilities that had been one other indication of the way in which energy and finance circulated within the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties.

Over time, nonetheless, the Hilton additionally gained a status for high-end sleaze. It was a spot the place the predominantly male politicians of the time would go to select up girls, the place infamous events had been held, and rooms might be booked for “a short while.”

The way forward for the constructing is unsure. The Kenyan authorities nonetheless holds a controlling stake in it via the Kenya Growth Company, with a call nonetheless to be made.

As an unique resort, the Hilton was maybe irrelevant to most Kenyans’ lives: most have by no means been inside, and now seemingly by no means will. But many metropolis residents nonetheless converse of it fondly, utilizing it as a landmark to search out one’s approach across the metropolis.

Regardless of its inaccessibility, it’s a acquainted and even comforting a part of the city panorama. ‘You see it on daily basis nearly with out noticing’, as one pal put it. ‘We grew up with it. We’d miss it if it wasn’t there’. It is sort of a tree within the compound that you just construct every part else round: an orientating characteristic that provides the panorama character.

In recent times, the declining fortunes of central Nairobi have been mirrored by the waning status and monetary viability of the Hilton. Westlands and Higher Hill have turn out to be the brand new business and political heartlands, and downtown Nairobi is usually bypassed by each guests and residents alike.

But the early ambition of high-rise buildings just like the Hilton can nonetheless be seen as influential in modern Nairobi. For the reason that flip of this century, town has been experiencing a high-rise growth. Neighbourhoods like Kileleshwa and Kilimani have gone from single dwelling plots to multi-storey residence blocks. This transformation is a part of Nairobi’s rising presence on a world stage, because it turns into identified for its digital and tech economies, and its middle-class standing.

The darkish facet of the high-rise

Excessive-rise buildings are reshaping different components of Nairobi too, with estates like Pipeline, Zimmerman or Tassia identified for his or her densely packed blocks of rental models. Though aimed toward a special kind of tenant, these high-rise buildings, often called maghorofa in Kiswahili, typically imitate extra high-end tower blocks. Reflective glass, vivid paint colors, fairly balconies and fancy names – Life-style Plaza, Jazzy Heights, Muthaiga View – point out new aspirations, even when the inside of the constructing may not reside as much as its floor claims.

This high-rise growth has a darker facet too. Simply because the modernist ambition of the Hilton hid much less salubrious exercise, so is Nairobi’s shiny vertical transformation awash with rumours of property hypothesis, cut-throat offers and a murky actual property sector.

The latest spate of constructing collapses has tragically killed scores of Nairobians and has destroyed the properties of many extra.

These collapses converse to the suspect economies of the development business, the place shortcuts are taken with little regard for security, in addition to the challenges of exerting regulatory management over a sector that’s so entangled with political and enterprise elites.

In a metropolis like Nairobi, the place city inequality is getting ever wider, the floor promise of high-rise futures might be hole, overlaying a way more unsure actuality inside.

Constance Smith is a lecturer of Social Anthropology on the College of Manchester