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Name: MAY, Ernst

image of individual

Birth Date: 27 July 1886 Frankfurt am Main

Death Date: 11 Sep 1970 Hamburg

First Date: 1933

Last Date: 1953

Profession: Architect

Area: Arusha, Nairobi

Married: In Hesse 20 Apr 1914 Anna Maria Wilhelmina Bodewig

Children: Klaus; Thomas

Book Reference: Info provided by Tom Lawrence

School: Technical Univ. in Munich

General Information:

1886 (27th July) Ernst May is born in Frankfurt-am-Main, the son of a leather goods manufacturer. 1906-1912 Spends part of his education working in the UK under Raymond Unwin, and absorbing the principles of the garden city movement, and finally completing his education at the Technical  University in Munich. 1926 May brings in the Austrian architect Margarete Shutte-Lihotzky to join him in Franfurt as part of a high-powered team building housing in Frankfurt, which has been described as ‘one of the most remarkable city planning experiments in the twentieth century’ by John R. Mullin

1930 Ernst May and his team are invited to Russia to help develop various cities there, in particular Magnitogorsk, but the impact was not great, through a lack of trust and corruption, and he eventually left in 1933. Other cities included Orsk, Novokuznetsk and Kemerovo

1933 (Dec) Using money earned from his efforts in Russia, Ernst May leaves Europe by boat from Genoa and sails to Mombasa. He buys 160 acres near Arusha in Tanganyika. For three years he grew fruit and coffee. Ernst May designs the Oceanic Hotel in Mombasa, which is then drawn up by Mann

1936 (circa He sells his land in Arusha and goes to Nairobi and sets up a small architectural practice. He designed several large buildings and factories in Nairobi and Kampala. He also designed ‘an English boys school’ in Arusha

1937-38 He builds a home in Karen suburb of Nairobi

 1938-39 He designs what was to become ‘Delamere Flats’ in Nairobi -they were not built until 1947-51

1939 (circa) He is interned as an ‘enemy alien’ and is sent to South Africa

 1941 (circa) He returns to Nairobi and becomes an active architect and planner all over East Africa. With the war-time shortage of building materials he starts to experiment with low-tech, self-help technologies like adobe rammed earth, and hand made terra cotta and concrete panels

1945 (Jan) May starts work on designing Kampala which lent itself beautifully to being a ‘Garden City’

1949-52 May takes on the project of building a Cultural Centre in Moshi -the first architectural project financed exclusively by Africans

1953 (Dec) Ernst May sails back to Germany, as he felt that it was difficult to work during the Mau Mau

1954-56 He leads the Planning Department in Hamburg, and was involved in several large housing projects in other cities. Several are very well regarded amongst the post-war settlements and reconstruction plans, such as New-Altona in Hamburg and Neue-Vahr in Bremen

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