Erica Mann

Not long after she settled in Kenya, the colonial administration set up a town planning department in Nairobi. Mann applied to join it and worked on the 1948 master plan for the city. Although some aspects of the original plan still exist, like the suburbs of Jericho and Ofafa designed by Mann,^[1] she said in the 1990s that Nairobi was not the city she and her colleagues had planned, although she did plan some of the broad boulevards.^[4]

She was soon recognised as a talented and committed urban planner and became the senior planning and development officer for many major projects, in charge of researching and evidence gathering for strategic planning decisions.^[4] She was attracted by the ideas of the "Ekistics" movement which encouraged a holistic approach to planning harmonious human settlements.^[4] Mann was interested in traditional African house designs, repudiating any idea that they were "primitive", and wrote and lectured on the subject.^[2] She saw urban planning as "an ideal profession for a woman because it builds on her innate capacity for providing an orderly and aesthetic environment for herself, her family and the community in which she lives".^[2]

She kept in touch with the ideas of architects and thinkers across the world and promoted the work of "ecological" and innovative architects in the magazines she founded: Build Kenya and Plan East Africa.^[4] In 1952 she started planning work on the city of Mombasa and Coastal Province. In 1962 she moved on to Central Province for another ten years, and then to North-Eastern Province.^[2]

After Kenyan independence in 1963 Mann was one of the Europeans who continued to serve under the new government. She supported independence and was happy to work under President Kenyatta who believed in continuity and gradual administrative change.^[4] She went to many international conferences and lectures as a representative of postcolonial Kenya,^[4] and between 1964 and 1968 she was intermittently seconded to take charge of overseas trade exhibitions.^[2] Her interests broadened out to include sustainable development and human rights issues and she described herself as a socialist. In 1972 she founded the Council for Human Ecology: Kenya, also known as CHEK, concerned with empowering rural women as well as environmental protection.^[3] CHEK became the umbrella for numerous NGO efforts over the years. With CHEK, Mann led the Women in Kibwezi rural development project which offered several thousand women support in building self-sufficiency, including training in apiculture (bee keeping), brickmaking, and rabbit breeding.^[5] This was recognised as a valuable and successful project by the United Nations Habitat II conference in 1996.^[2] Mann became known for her deep respect for the wisdom and knowledge of the indigenous peoples of Kenya, working for example to preserve the knowledge of healing botanicals held by many traditional healers.

After retiring from government employment in 1984 some of Mann's creativity went into her unique collection of succulent plants from different parts of the African continent, arranged in an artistic and carefully designed garden. It drew international attention from botanists including some from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London. Erica also accumulated one of the largest private collections of African art anywhere in East Africa.

Mann was given the title of Architect Laureate in 2003.^[2] Four years later she died, on 4 June 2007, shortly before her 90th birthday.^[2] At her memorial service a former chairman of the Architects Association of Kenya, said she was "a lone woman in a forest of men - one reason why she joined the International Union of Women Architects as well as becoming an active member of the Kenya Association of University Women". In a memoir Mann said, "I have generally tried to put both my head and hands to good use, always guided by my heart. From this point of view, I have maintained that I was a complete person in that I have used every gift granted by my Maker." Writing shortly after Mann's death, Betty Caplan, in an obituary titled "A Woman of Substance", described her as "Town planner, architect, ecologist, project manager, conservationist, bee keeper, speaker of seven languages, avid promoter of women's equality, jeweller, potter, craftswoman, gardener, collector."^[2]

In 2013, Erica's life in Kenya was memorialized in a documentary film titled Beautiful Tree, Severed Roots. The documentary was directed by Erica's daughter, Kenny.^[3] The title of the film is a reference to Erica's maiden name, Schoenbaum, which means "beautiful tree".