Mandala House is the oldest surviving European-style building in Malawi, constructed in 1882 by the African Lakes Corporation — a Scottish trading company that followed the missionaries north from the Zambezi. The single-storey colonial house, with its wide veranda and corrugated-iron roof, was the commercial headquarters of the corporation and the social centre of the early settler community.
Today the house is home to a café, an art gallery, and the Society of Malawi's library and archive, which holds historical records and publications going back to the colonial era. It is a pleasant place to spend an hour: the café serves decent coffee and light meals, the bookshop stocks a good selection of Malawi-related titles, and the building itself rewards a slow look around. The veranda, in particular, has the unhurried atmosphere of a place that has been used continuously for over a hundred years.