Walk through Parklands, and you will still catch glimpses of another Nairobi. Between established, upcoming apartment blocks and gleaming towers are houses with rounded corners, geometric motifs and sunbursts etched into their facades. Some are hidden behind walls, others stand stubbornly amid the encroaching skyline. Their owners are ageing. Their children long moved abroad. Developers circle with bags of money. Soon, many of these homes will be gone.

But if buildings disappear, what happens to the lives they contained?

That question lies at the heart of The Art Deco Buildings of Nairobi, the latest work by South African writer Barbara Adair. More than a study of architecture, the book documents the memories and histories of Nairobi's African Asian communities, particularly Indian Kenyan families who transformed Art Deco designs into spaces that reflected their own traditions, aspirations and ways of life.

Through interviews with residents, descendants and custodians, Adair uncovers stories of migration, extended families, women gathering around inner courtyards, and the complicated politics of heritage and belonging. Along the way, she asks uncomfortable questions: Who gets to claim space? Whose histories are remembered? And are buildings themselves living archives?

Speaking to Books in Africa, Adair reflects on architecture, memory, migration and why, in her words, walls do indeed have ears.

You often say buildings tell stories. What do you mean by that?

Buildings are never just bricks and glass. Their walls are seeped with stories. They reveal cultures, ways of living and the people who inhabited them. I don't see buildings as silent structures. I see them as records of human lives.

Your journey into architecture began in South Africa. How did it lead you to Nairobi?

I had previously worked on the buildings of Springs, east of Johannesburg. It's a migrant town. Originally, European migrants built those spaces, but now people from across Africa and Asia inhabit them. They have made the buildings their own.

During Covid, I happened to visit one of Nairobi's Art Deco houses after taking a test nearby. I knocked on the door and was welcomed inside. Through that chance encounter, I met Saryu Shah, who introduced me to families and opened doors for me. Everything began with curiosity.

Why focus specifically on Nairobi's African Asian heritage?

Because these buildings tell a story that is often overlooked.

Many of the houses in Parklands were built after Indian families gained the opportunity to purchase land previously occupied by European settlers. They embraced Art Deco architecture but adapted it to their own traditions.

These weren't copies of European homes. They incorporated Indian ideas such as inner courtyards and decorative motifs. They became uniquely Kenyan spaces.

Heritage is often framed as preserving the past. Yet you seem sceptical about nostalgia.

Heritage isn't neutral. When people speak nostalgically about preserving the past, I ask: which past?

Things change. Buildings change. People adapt spaces and make them their own. That's natural. In Springs, Congolese families cook Congolese food in buildings once occupied by Eastern Europeans. Bangladeshi migrants place Hindu deities on shelves.

Change isn't the problem.

Erasure is.

So what worries you about Nairobi?

Not change itself, but disappearance.

Many of these houses are simply being erased. Tiny Art Deco homes are now overshadowed by highrise buildings. Some no longer receive sunlight because towers surround them. And when elderly owners are offered large sums of money, why would they refuse?

I'm not interested in blaming anyone. But if the buildings cannot survive, then perhaps the stories can.

One of the strongest themes in your book is memory. What memories stayed with you?

The women.

Many of the houses had inner courtyards where women gathered to cook. They remembered rolling papadums, the smell of spices, and listening to their mothers gossip.

These weren't just domestic spaces. They were places of connection and empowerment.

Those stories moved me deeply.

You've spoken about architecture as a reflection of migration. How are the two connected?

Migration shapes everything.

Art Deco itself travelled. Decorative motifs came from Egypt, South America and India. Architecture absorbs influences.

People move. Cultures move. Buildings move with them.

Nothing is fixed.

Some people would argue that immigrants erase local cultures.

I disagree.

Cultures change. They have always changed.

The problem is not sharing cultures. The problem is claiming that culture belongs to one group alone. We can preserve our traditions while sharing them with others.

Do we think enough about the spaces we inhabit?

Not at all.

People don't think about space. Yet space influences our lives. The roads outside our homes, our offices, our houses, even forests around us shape the way we think and live.

Architecture affects us more than we realise.

Colonisation changed the way Africans think about buildings. Do you see that changing?

African knowledge systems were often erased.

For generations, building with mud was dismissed as primitive. Now people in Europe are rediscovering these methods and celebrating sustainability.

But African architects are reclaiming those traditions. They're showing that these ways of building have always had value.

Can younger generations reclaim heritage?

Yes, but not necessarily by freezing buildings in time.

Things change.

Instead, preserve stories. Find out who lived there. Record memories. Ask questions. Learn how spaces shaped families and communities.

Stories can preserve what walls cannot.

The conversation eventually turns to borders, belonging and ownership. Do you think a borderless Africa is possible?

Perhaps.

Africa is uniquely positioned for that future. But it requires tolerance and a willingness to move beyond protectionism.

People become attached to ideas of ownership—this is my land, my culture, my job. Yet history reminds us that identities and borders have always shifted.

Finally, what book are you working on next?

A book about bridges.

Not bridges as engineering feats, but as places of connection. I want to tell the stories of people who built them, crossed them, lived beside them and sometimes died around them.

Because bridges, like buildings, are never just structures. They are stories.

Tracy Ochieng is a staff writer with Books in Africa. Email: tracy.ochieng@ekitabu.com

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