The House of Wonders, or Beit al-Ajaib, stands as the tallest and largest building in Stone Town, marked by its distinctive, wide external verandas supported by slender cast-iron columns. Commissioned in eighteen eighty-three by Sultan Barghash bin Said, the structure served as a ceremonial palace designed to project the sophistication of his Sultanate. It earned its name because it was the first building in Zanzibar to be lit by electricity and the first in East Africa to install an automated elevator.
House of Wonders
museum
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