Letter of the Day: Plans to demolish Uganda National Museum irrational

An old vehicle at the museum

The article titled, What next for National museum? in your Christmas Day edition (Saturday Monitor, December 25) was a welcome reminder. I have been alarmed ever since the news appeared sometime back that the Ministry of Tourism, Trade and Industry was entertaining plans to demolish the national museum and in its place, put up a 60-storey office block. The museum would be given two floors in this gigantic monster of a 200-metre high building.

The report reveals a sad story of a government that has zero-understanding of the importance of cultural roots to the nation. No campaign to foster “patriotism” can bear any fruit if there is nothing to tell Ugandans about what they should be patriotic about. It is about our history and the way we manage to maintain the memories that should constitute our personalities - both individually and as a nation - that should give us reasons for pride and patriotism.

This country has a lot to be proud about including the many histories that pertain to the various peoples that together make the nation of Uganda. It is hard to believe that the ministry of tourism, is planning to demolish the container of our historic memories.

To the litany brought forward in the story, comes that the building that houses Uganda National Museum is in itself a historical monument.

The museum was designed by Ernst May, a German architect and planner of some repute. He was one of the pioneers of modern architecture, city architect and planner in Frankfurt, and founding member of CIAM (Congrès Internationax d’Architecture Moderne).

When the Great Depression made it impossible to continue the work in Frankfurt, May went with a ‘Planning Brigade’ to the Soviet Union and worked on plans for several new towns until Stalin’s less than progressive attitude towards architecture and planning made it unfeasible for him to stay.

In the meantime, Hitler had won power in Germany and a return there had become out of the question for a man who was both of a ‘wrong race’ and wrong views.

May then came to Tanganyika in 1934 and later settled in Nairobi. He was instrumental as far as the development of modern architecture and modern planning in East Africa is concerned.

He made a plan for Kampala in 1947, and one of his last assignments before he eventually went back to Germany was the Uganda National Museum. It is one of the few remaining and fairly unaltered works of his.

Therefore, demolishing the museum will be a scandal of international dimension. It will also demonstrate that the government of Uganda does not understand values, only prices.

Cato N. Lund,
[email protected]