Expanding the Heritage Narrative in N’gambo & Stone Town, Zanzibar: the ‘Upande Mmoja na wa Pekee’ Project

Zanzibar City represents over 800 years of development, expansion, and transformation, beginning as a fishing village in the early eleventh century AD. The city consists of two main urban cores. The old colonial town, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2000, features stunning buildings that blend Portuguese, British, Omani, and Indian influences, mostly constructed over the past 200 years. This area is known as Stone Town, or Mji Mkongwe in Swahili. Directly to the east of Stone Town lies the newer urban center, Ng’ambo, meaning “the other side.” Ng’ambo is characterized by Swahili dwellings and post-independence modernist social housing and public facilities. The two parts of Zanzibar City were originally separated by a natural creek, which was later filled in and converted into parks and a major road, reinforcing a physical division between Ng’ambo and Stone Town. The designation of Stone Town as the sole UNESCO World Heritage site on the island has exacerbated this division, marginalizing other forms of intangible and tangible pre-colonial and post-colonial heritage. This paper proposes a new approach to Zanzibar City’s heritage narrative, one that embraces its pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial built heritage. It will examine the urban evolution of Stone Town and Ng’ambo, critique UNESCO’s problematic heritage narrative, and discuss the methodology, goals, preliminary outcomes, and prospects of the first phase of the joint research project Upande Mmoja na wa Pekee (“The One and Only Side” in Swahili). This project seeks to reimagine public spaces and repurpose unused public buildings to express a more inclusive heritage narrative.