Dear Friend of Cultural Heritage,

This is our first letter, and we are glad you are here.

The Cultural Heritage Centre has stood on Dodoma Road since 1994 — a place where the creative spirit of East Africa has always had a home. Over thirty years, we have grown from a modest gallery into something that is difficult to describe in a single sentence: a market, an atelier, a gallery, a museum, a workshop, a destination. Over 50,000 visitors pass through our doors each year from every corner of the world.

Every two weeks, this letter will arrive in your inbox — stories from our makers, gemologists, and curators; news of what has just arrived and what is coming; and the kind of depth that a visit to the Centre gives you, delivered wherever you are in the world.

— The Cultural Heritage Centre Team

Thirty Years on Dodoma Road

In 1994, when the Cultural Heritage Centre first opened, Arusha was a far quieter city than it is today. What drove its founders was not a calculation about tourism — it was a conviction that East Africa’s creative traditions deserved a home worthy of them.

Thirty-two years later, the Centre has outlasted many of the businesses that opened around it, grown into East Africa’s largest private art gallery, and introduced thousands of visitors to a gemstone found nowhere else on Earth. The art gallery fills three halls. The market brings together makers from across Tanzania. And now, a new chapter: a dedicated two-storey showroom for The Vault, and more to come.

We think about that original conviction often. It keeps us honest about why we do this.