Affirmative architecture.

The slightly unorthodox format of this special issue deserves some explanation. It begins with a historical survey of South African architecture (p26), from earliest pre-history to the richness and diversity of the present day. Since most readers will be unfamiliar with developments in the region (due to the long period of apartheid enforced isolation), Ivor Prinsloo's essay provides essential background to the work discussed in this issue.

The power of architecture to heal division and improve the lot of humankind will be greatly tested in the coming years, as South Africa struggles to transform itself. We seek to reflect this in our coverage of a range of projects across South Africa's broad social and cultural spectrum. As the political climate changes, overwhelming social problems are slowly being addressed, widening the role of the architect and generating new ways of working. From these tentative beginnings, progress is being made towards an inclusive and life-affirming architecture.

The work of practitioners such as Jo Noero, Rodney Harber and GAPP Architects is an inspiring paradigm of poetic functionalism and grass roots involvement. Noero's community college in Soweto (p38) gives hope to a marginalised populace, traumatised by violence and the collapse of social systems. Rodney Harber's two schemes in KwaZulu-Natal (p42) show how it is possible to make decent architecture in the most unforgiving of contexts. Harber also presents some stark reflections on South Africa's desperate housing situation (p46), which will continue to tax the energies of politicians, planners and architects for decades to come. GAPP Architects' new retail and transport interchange at Nyanga in the Cape Flats (p30) is an instructive example of how the black community became engaged in all aspects of the development process, providing an important blueprint for future schemes. Amid a desolate township, the resulting architecture has a tectonic expressiveness and urban presence. GAPP Architects also designed an inviting new public library for a Johannesburg suburb (p50) that attempts to make sense of a fractured and disorientating public realm.

The frustrating lack of acceptable commissions during the apartheid years has intensified the traditional notion of architects' houses as a means of critical self-development. Towards the end of the issue, we examine some houses that respond in different ways to their owners' preoccupations - from Gabriel Fagan's sensuous fusion of Cape Dutch and Le Corbusier (p79), to Ora Joubert's eclectic geometry in suburban Pretoria (p82). To complete the picture (although it is not generally the AR's policy to encourage navel gazing), we have also included a series of short personal reflections by South African architects (p48) on the profound complexities and contradictions of making architecture in their country. In the past, their roles have been extremely precarious, but now the future depends on them.