APPROPRIATING MODERNISM: APARTHEID AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN TOWNSHIP ERROL HAARHOFF School of Architect

APPROPRIATING MODERNISM: APARTHEID AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN TOWNSHIP

ERROL HAARHOFF

School of Architecture and Planning

University of Auckland

New Zealand

Planning theories and models

Prof. Dr. Sophie Schramm

MSc. SPRING

TU Dortmund

BY - AAKASH BHOCHHIBHOYA

Apartheid city structure by M. Napier. Source: du Plessis and Landman (2002)

Apartheid

• Apartheid (Afrikaans: “apartness”)

• Name of the policy that governed relations between the white minority and the nonwhite majority of South Africa

• 20th century - name was first used about 1948

– National Party

• Dictated where South Africans, on the basis of their race , could live and work , the type of education they could receive, and whether they could vote .

• Events in the early 1990s marked the end of legislated apartheid , but the spatial segregation, and social and economic effects remained deeply entrenched .

Whites Indians Colored Blacks or Native

• The apartheid city was created as a response to the urban crises of the 1940s. In order to protect and enhance the interests of its white constituency the National Party government drew on past policies of racial segregation and spatial management to re structure and entrench more deeply the racial city form .

African Township

• Modern movement

• Traditional >> new (not necessarily better), high density inner city apartments in New Zealand, American planner – Albert Mayer for India “symbolic of the freedom”

• Subsequent brutal enforcement

• Implementation of a low cost mass housing programme

• Enforcement of racial segregation

• Justification “modern” planning and design principles and practices

• 50 s outcome the formal construction of the apartheid city with its distinctive spatial structure and inbuilt inequalities

MODERN MOVEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA

• Origin: Netherlands, Germany (Herbert (1974))

• (On Stuttgart) Martienssen : purpose and beauty of form

• Herbert (1974) comments that Le Corbusier was „deeply impressed ‟ with Martienssen who had brought South African modernism to international attention .

• Le Corbusier: 'model native

township'

• Modernism~ radical social change (this is the core)

• Model native townshipenforced segregation ( criticised , goes against Modernism concept)

SPATIALISING RACE

• Legal basis for racial segregation in South African with a manifesto requiring compulsory urban segregation

• The „separate development ‟ of Black South Africans outside of territory designated as „white ‟ .

• The flurry of legislative measures that followed created independent black „countries ‟ based on tribal affiliations, the so called „Bantustans ‟ .

• Within urban areas, apartheid legislation was extended under the Groups Areas Act of 1950

Native Locations

• Fig: Town Plan of Reitz, Transvaal, South Africa, 1951. Map showing use zoning. The ‘Native Location’ is indicated in the center bottom of the plan, separated from form the ‘European Residential’ zone by a buffer strip comprising parklands and the industrial area. (Floyd, 1960, p115)

• “ Native Locations” as a separate “ to “Residential Areas”= ‘’ means an area set aside for occupation by Natives …… ‟‟(Floyd, 1951)

• Set aside ‟aside ‟ (black occupation) peripheries of cities

European Residential

• Unexplained is the fact that “Residential Areas” are for exclusive white occupation

• This was to ultimately create the illusion of urban Black South Africans living outside „ South Africa in independent „

• To carry Passbooks (permits)

Business Special Areas

• Closer to the city centers other “race zones ‟ were separated for those classified as White, Indian and Colored

• Separated by buffer strips

Native Location

Parks Industrial

• Moreover, spatial separation also required that each group be separated from others by what were now described as „ strips

• Railway lines, main roads, rivers, streams and ridges all form separation media and these should be used as far as possible Where no suitable feature of this sort exists the Group Area Board may insist on a buffer strip

• 200 to 500 yards …and are insisted upon by the Minister of Bantu Administration.

• Green belts / buffer strips

• Apartheid policies impacted on the political, social and economic lives of all South Africans, but especially those who were not white .

‘NATIVE’ TOWNSHIPS IN SOUTH AFRICA

(Calderwood, 1953, p31)

• Mass housing system - Cost minimization

• Largely technical approach

• Apartheid remains the “elephant in the room’’

• Scientific (Housing standards and neighborhood planning)

• Stresses the importance social surveys

• Works used : P. Geddes, L. Mumford, C. Stein

• “Neighborhood unit", "British New Town Movement"

• Calderwood : "(social, scientific) survey before plan" - core principle, but Apartheid did not follow . Focused on technical, not social surveys

• minimum standards - 3 housing types

• First we must erect a standard of living In terms of housing, the minimum standards are set by objective criteria of air, water, sunlight, heat, privacy and so forth (Mumford cited in Calderwood, 1953 p 14

• HOWEVER ‘’ information of this type relating to the urbanizing Black population was either not available or still to be obtained‘’

Case A plots too long and narrow Case B plots reduced a space used in communal open space directly attached to dwellings. Accommodating pedestrian movement Case B is preferable.

• Suggested to:

• Humanizing the inevitable monotony of the township

• Landscaping and the encouragement of individual private gardens

• Reflective of the Modernist position „pre machine age Garden City ‟ to the modern world

• Strong advocacy for home ownership > contradiction to the government stance temporary residents of „white ‟ urban areas)

• WAIVER

• Administrative point of view > easier to administer .

• National point of view > main bastions against Communism and other social ills

Conclusion

• Modernism's failure : too focused on technical, not social ,(FOR US, 1962 )

• 16 June 1976, police fired into a large crowd of schoolchildren in the township of Soweto, Johannesburg

• Native townships became symbol of revolt to end apartheid leading to democratic elections in 1993

• Apartheid : embedded in South African systems, hard to change (beyond laws) due to " spatial segregation "

• “Most inefficient cities“ ( Mabin & Smit, 1997) . - spatial separation, fragmentation, sprawling, social and economic inequalities

Suggestion

The World Bank suggested that reconstruction should aim to achieve higher density and more compact urban form.

Another important imperative for more compact urban forms is the goal of sustainable development now high on the agenda of the international community.

The legacy of the apartheid city, with its inefficient form will make meeting sustainable goals very difficult

References

• https://www.britannica.com/topic/apartheid

• https://www.britannica.com/place/South -Africa/Diamonds-gold -andimperialist -intervention -1870-1902

• https://www.noma.net/news/the-architects -of -systemic-racism -southafrican -wandile-mthiyane-tells -an -american -story-on -architizer/

• Guardian News and Media. (2016, June 23). Divided cities: South Africa's apartheid legacy photographed by drone. The Guardian. Retrieved February 2, 2023, from https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2016/jun/23/south -africadivided -cities-apartheid -photographed -drone

• YouTube. (2021). YouTube. Retrieved February 2, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVH7JewfgJg&ab_channel=Vox .

• The harsh reality of life under apartheid in South Africa - history. (n.d.). Retrieved February 2, 2023, from https://www.history.com/news/apartheidpolicies-photos-nelson -mandela

• HAARHOFF, E. R. R. O. L. (n.d.). Appropriating modernism: Apartheid and the south african township. Retrieved February 2, 2023, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236144278_Appropriating_mode rnism_Apartheid_and_the_South_African_Township

THANK YOU