October 25, 2002
By Lucille Davie
IT didn't take the judges long to decide which of the 35 entries in the Walter Sisulu Square project was the winner - the one which not only designed a very symbolic square but incorporated a larger urban design for the area, as part of the rejuvenation of greater Soweto.
Pierre Swanepoel, urban designer and architect of StudioMAS Architecture and Urban Design, and winner of the competition, describes the design submission as "a living brief" in which there was a need to "balance all realities" to "create an urban context for the building". The submission, according to the eight judges, was to "provide statements that indicate a direction to be taken rather than a destination", and the winner's design does that.
He says: "We were very, very happy to have won this competition. We worked very hard and it was our intention to win. We knew we had a good scheme." This is the firm's first public building - other projects include the Westcliff Estate and the Absa Towers North, both of which won international merit awards, and the African Bank in Midrand.
The judges, despite having reservations about the design, declared: "The project was chosen for its bold scale and also for its exemplary potential to change Soweto into a city . . . The winning scheme demonstrates an understanding of possibilities. It proposes a rich and enabling programme of spaces, functions and opportunities."
Kliptown was established in 1903 and is the oldest suburb in Soweto, Johannesburg's largest black township, some 25 kilometres south-west of the
city centre. It was one of the first townships, along with Sophiatown and Alexandra, in which blacks could own property.
Kliptown became famous in 1955 when thousands of Congress of the People - a coalition of anti-apartheid organisations - delegates converged on the square to agree on a draft Freedom Charter, drawn up from contributions from around the country after people were invited to submit their ideas for a new constitution for South Africa. The final draft was read out to congregated delegates in a two-day meeting.
The late Rusty Bernstein, a member of the Communist Party and active anti-apartheid campaigner, played a major role in the final draft of the Freedom Charter. He describes the square in his autobiography Memory against Forgetting, as ". . . a piece of wasteland, a few acres of red dust, scattered tufts of scrub grass, khaki-weed and 'blackjacks'. On it, boys had set out empty oil drums as goalposts for makeshift football games; pedestrians took short cuts across it, and stray mongrels foraged through the litter and used it as a latrine. It was bounded by the main rail line to Soweto on one side, and a dirt road on the other".
It's still pretty much a dusty piece of land, with scruffs of weed scattered around it, about the size of a football field. It's situated behind the very busy row of shops in Union Road in Kliptown. East of the square are hawkers' stalls, interspersed with cages of white chickens, clothes for sale laid out on the ground, and a makeshift taxi rank. A busy, untidy but thriving trading area.
In 1997 the square was declared a national monument. At the unveiling of the winner's design in June in Kliptown, the square's name was changed to the Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication.
Winning design
The team - Swanepoel, Precious Makwe and Justin Snell - worked on the project over a 4-5 week period. The first step was to create a value system on which to base the design. Nine principles were put together - identity, legibility, history, symbolism, analogy, accessibility, robustness, legality, programme and equality.
"The nine principles are a strong anchoring point. There is a universal acceptance of these nine principles," says Swanepoel.
These ideas are presented in a grid, as nine squares, representing the nine provinces, and also "a symbol of equality and democracy". This grid is reflected in the two squares that make up the design, one to represent the old apartheid South Africa, the other to represent the new, democratic South Africa.
Pierre Swanepoel, Precious Makwe and Justin Snell of StudioMAS Architecture and Urban Design
The "old" square, of 100m by 100m, was the original meeting area of the 1955 meeting. This square will be an open meeting space, crossed by a jagged diagonal line representing a path across the square that was originally taken by residents, symbolic of crossing out the past.
South of this square is a row of wholesalers, largely dealing in hardware, livestock and bulk food supplies. "These will be demolished," says Swanepoel. "They are in a bad state, with leaking roofs. They represent a fire hazard." They will be replaced by up to 600 hawker stalls, set amongst colonnades. The stalls will be interspersed with a police station and a post office. Above the stalls allowance is made for offices - doctors, lawyers and perhaps an advice centre, says Swanepoel.
Along this south side, in Union Road, is an original house. The walls of this house are to remain as part of the Kliptown heritage.
Opposite the hawker stalls, on the north side of the square, a museum will be built supported by ten columns, representing the ten clauses of the Freedom Charter. West of the square is the railway line. The design includes a proposed new railway station for Kliptown. The judges felt that the station design was "overstated" and should be "more in scale with other railway stations along the line".
Hawkers' stalls under indigenous trees
The "new" square, also of 100m x 100m, is to have a grid made up of nine squares, and in each square, stones, brought in by people from the nine provinces, will be placed in the shape of crosses, each cross representing the votes cast in the country's first democratic elections in 1994.
The north side of this square will be taken up with an auditorium, exhibition space, monument and museum.
Between the two squares is a walkway, planted with a winding snake of indigenous trees, representing the snakes of people queueing to cast their first vote in 1994. This leads to a tall tower on the north side, which will be the Freedom Charter Monument. Inside the monument will be the Flame of Freedom and an X shape will be cut into the roof of the tower, the "mark of freedom". The tower will be lit and visible as a beacon of light to guide people to the Square.
The shape of the tower is to be conical, a "universal form", says Swanepoel. He elaborates on other examples of conical shapes - the towers in the Great Zimbabwe ruins, American Indian tents, and traditional African fishing baskets.
Opposite this tower is another tower which will contain a "kwashisanyama", a Zulu word meaning "a place to prepare food". It is envisaged that this will be an open informal restaurant.
At the end of the row of hawker stalls will be another tower, a "marker" to indicate the Square within the greater Soweto area. It could be a water tower, it could incorporate a cellphone tower - it will be decided together with the community.
The judges felt that the "scale of the buildings around the square should be reduced". Swanepoel is open to suggestions. "Lots of things have happened since our submission in June. This is a dynamic process, and we're open to suggestions." He's happy to receive suggestions on e-mail.
The broader urban context in the winner's design is exciting. Moving east from the square are acres of green space, at present a golf course. This is to be converted into high density, mixed use space, largely in the form of a park, similar to Central Park in the middle of New York, says Swanepoel.
"This will be an urban park, and we could densify around it with shops and restaurants, for example, depending on what the community wants," he adds.
Included in this densification will be a "parliament", or a "building of significance", to be built on the highest point in the park. Swanepoel sees this as a possible African parliament, or the offices of Nepad, or any other significant function that the community chooses. The judges indicated in their judgment that they are keen to give the parliament "international significance" and not just a building of African significance.
The walkway between the two squares
The budget for Kliptown Square is set at R110-million. The broader budget for the urban renewal scheme for the area surrounding the Square comes in at R350-million.
African architecture
Swanepoel says that with the construction of the Westcliff Estate his firm was exploring the meaning of African architecture. There are certainly clear traces of African culture and lifestyle in his design for the Square. The hawkers are integral to any African city; the open cooking area in the kwashisanyama; the conical tower has clear African associations; and the open feel to the whole development allows plenty of views of the African skies and sun.
Says Swanepoel: "We wanted to celebrate space with space, set against the nine principles."
He points to the Constitutional Court and the Apartheid Museum as other good examples of African architecture. Swanepoel hopes that his firm's design for the Square will make "a small contribution" to the debate and development of African architecture in the city.
Plan for greater Kliptown
In November 2001 the Greater Kliptown Development Project was established, with an amount of over R400-million committed from four sources: Blue IQ (R293m), the Gauteng Housing Department (R110m), the City of Johannesburg (R30m), and the provincial Department of Agriculture, Conservation, Environment and Land Affairs (R1.2m).
The plan is broad: it covers environmental, economic, transport, housing and social development. The nearby Klipspruit River is to be rehabilitated, an informal traders market and taxi rank is to be built, together with a museum and media centre, an access road from the highway is being built, almost 7 000 new houses are to be built from December 2002, and a new crèche is to be erected, accommodating 200 children.
The Kliptown project is one of seven sub-projects for the greater Soweto, co-ordinated by the Johannesburg Development Agency.
Construction of the Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication starts in April 2003, but there is to be further consultation with the judges of the competition, and the local Kliptown community, at the end of October. The competition brief specified that the winner's design may be modified and incorporate aspects of other entrants' designs.
The Square will open on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Charter, in 2005.
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