A Sense of Place: Identity, Community, and the Role of Inseparable Location in Contemporary South African Architecture (original) (raw)

The homogenising influence of the ‘melting pot’ aesthetic of an American ideal – experienced as much in South Africa as it is globally –would insist that our constructed spaces become, essentially, a-historical. Meanwhile, the criteria for ‘what makes a good building’ is further impacted upon by the lauded tradition of European architecture. In renegotiating, and re-imaging, the future role of the humanities in Africa, it becomes imperative that this process looks to renegotiating the very ways in which we create the physical spaces that surround and influence us daily in our lived and felt experiences. With this in mind, this paper emphasises the importance of designing buildings that are valued both for their formal elements in as much as they are for the societal relevance their design reflects, resonating with the diverse and complex South African peoples that will make these spaces their place of living. Hereafter, it argues the need for the implementation of new criteria for buildings in the field of architectural studies that will encourage students to actively participate in the multiplicitous national identit(y/ies) speaking specifically for the South African dynamic, rather than pandering to the prerequisites of form and style that once colonised our sense of home. Though our identity is in the process of re-imagination, there is still a shared (in part) trajectory that has brought all of us, as South Africans, to this particular moment in our country’s history. As such, this alone speaks for the fact that there is a ‘South African experience’, although it will always be nuanced and difficult to articulate. But this is not to discourage us from trying, and in this, architects can seek to ‘articulate’ new post-apartheid spaces for living that operate in dialogue with our country’s re-imagining.