South Africa is an ever-evolving, dynamic country – which over the recent years has seen the emergence of landmarks that have achieved global recognition. In Cape Town, there’s the distinctive elevation of Heatherwick Studio’s Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa. In South Africa’s Western Cape, there’s the free-flowing concrete roof of the Bosjes Chapel, designed by Steyn Studio. And, in a design only unveiled last year, there’s the granary-inspired Thabo Mbeki Presidential Library in Johannesburg, designed by 2021 RIBA Royal Gold Medal winner Sir David Adjaye.
These landmarks play, or are going to play, a significant part in shaping South Africa’s future architectural heritage. Co-existing with these landmarks, however, is the spatial inequality that is a feature of many South African cities – an inequality borne out of the legacies left by South Africa’s racist Apartheid government. Apartheid, far from being a system only codified by laws, was also structural. Black citizens of the country barred from accessing certain spaces and relegated to allocated residential areas called townships. The Urban Planners of the Apartheid regime sought to segregate South Africa's cities along racial lines - and these legacies remain an intrinsic part of South Africa's urban fabric.
