Malawi's National Assembly sits in a large modern complex on the Capital Hill in Lilongwe's New Town. The building itself is an example of the pan-African institutional architecture of the 1970s and 1980s — designed to project modernity and permanence — and it anchors the government district that Banda built when he moved the capital from Zomba in 1975.
The parliament building and surrounding government quarter are not generally open to casual visitors, but they give a strong sense of what the postcolonial capital was meant to be: planned, ordered, and purposeful in a way that contrasts sharply with the organic chaos of the Old Town. The broad avenues, the sparse street life, and the carefully laid out ministries have an almost ghostly quality compared to any other African capital. Worth a drive or walk through if you are interested in postcolonial urbanism and African political history.