Re-envisioning Greater Johannesburg: South African heritage development in the first decade of democracy.

Changes in heritage legislation in South Africa, as elsewhere, speak to the present as much as the past. Thus, South African heritage legislation evolved from the Bushman Relics Protection Act of 1911, which sought to preserve the country's precolonial and prehistoric heritage, through the 1934 Historical Monuments Commission, which protected the built environment of settlers and colonists, to the National Monuments Act of 1969, which was designed to bolster the state ideology of Afrikaner Nationalism and separate development. By 1994, therefore, out of 4000 national monuments, no less than 98% represented colonial and settler history, with the remainder comprising natural heritage geological, paleontological, archaeological, and rock art sites (Deacon et al. 2003:11). In the 1980s, however, in opposition to the Grand Narrative of official heritage, there were already alternative contestations and small pockets of resistance in the form of "a counter archive" such as the District Six Museum in Cape Town (Rassool and Prosalendis 2001). The National Heritage Resources Act of 1999, while concerned to acknowledge the achievements of these few challenges to the dominant ideology, took on the task of transforming existing "mainstream" heritage institutions and of giving more voice to indigenous forms of heritage. Borrowing from the Burra Charter developed by Australia's International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) in the late 1970s, the new Heritage Act emphasizes the notion of living and intangible heritage and argues both for the idea of cultural significance and for redress to previously marginalized heritages. The Act emphasizes capacity building, in line with attempts to grow the country's human resources and skills base post-1994, and public education and, while acknowledging the importance of heritage resources for tourism and economic development, it argues for the management of these resources in a sustainable and sensitive way.

The program of nation-building that underlies the Heritage Resources Act, however, is not without its problems. There are obvious anomalies in the formation of modern nation-states within an era of globalization (Comaroff and Comaroff 2000). South Africa is reimagining its community and affirming its sense of national identity at the very moment that currencies are amalgamating, borders are becoming more permeable, trade and industry barriers are being reduced, and the global economic landscape is being marked by the logos of the great multinational corporations. This is the real context in which cultural diversity as a tool for nation-building is being asserted, while still maintaining a human rights discourse. Deacon et al. relate this dilemma to what they term "post-national citizenship': global citizenship which allows people to assume universal rights and responsibilities, and more localized, distinctive forms of cultural citizenship, which affirm the distinctive cultural identity of citizens and assert claims for the recognition and protection of that identity" (2003:8). On the global level, these universal rights and responsibilities enable the "metacultural operation by which habitus is transformed into heritage and by which local or national heritage is transformed into world heritage" (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2002:2). Since 1994, five world heritage sites have been declared in South Africa: St. Lucia Wetland Park, Robben Island, and the fossil hominid sites of Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, Kromdraai, and environs (known collectively as the Cradle of Humankind) all in 1999; Ukhahlamba/Drakensberg Park in 2000; and Mapungubwe cultural landscape in 2003.

Debates around the preservation of cultural diversity are further located within the local-global nexus. For the benefit of international tourists, so-called traditional cultures have been displayed after 1994 in timeless, discrete, and often anachronistic packages in the discourse of the ubiquitous cultural village (Jansen Van Vuureen 2001; Rassool and Witz 1994; Goudie et al. 1999) such as Lesedi near Johannesburg, Shangana in Mpumalanga, and Shakaland in KwaZulu-Natal (Hamilton 1998) (Fig. 1). These sites tend to blur "the line between entertainment and education and ... replace real-life survivals with simulacra of an original that never was" (Samuel 1994:259). As Bruner and Kirshenblatt-Gimblett note: "Tourism gives tribalism and colonialism a second life by bringing them back as representations of themselves and circulating them within an economy of performance" (1994:435).

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Since 1994, the South African government's program of reconciliation, inclusivity, and nation-building has been augmented by the national governmental department of Arts, Culture, Science, and Technology's Legacy Project of 1996, which was designed to promote commemorative spaces especially for previously marginalized peoples or groups. Following the unveiling on December 16, 1998, of a monument to the role of Zulus in the Ncome Battle (Blood River), the Ncome Museum was opened in 1999. To commemorate the women's anti-pass march on Pretoria in 1956, the Women's Monument, in the form of a grinding stone by artist Wilma Cruise, was inaugurated at the Union Buildings on August 9, 2000. The Samora Machel Monument, which marks the site of his plane crash at Mbuzini, was unveiled on January 19, 1999. In the Eastern Cape, the Nelson Mandela Museum, which opened on February 11, 2000, is being developed to include three elements: a museum in Umtata, a youth center in Qunu, and a visitors' center in Mvezo. Similarly, Chief Albert Luthuli's house in Kwa Duduka, KwaZulu-Natal, is being restored as an institute that promotes culture. The Freedom Park project at Salvokop in Pretoria, which was launched by President Thabo Mbeki on June 16, 2002, includes plans for a Garden of Remembrance, a memorial, and a museum incorporating the prehistory of South Africa. A Khoisan project has been initiated with input at national, provincial, and local levels to protect Khoisan heritage. Finally, the Constitutional Court, the first phase of the Constitutional Hill project in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, was opened on March 27, 2004.

Since 1994, Johannesburg, the commercial heart of South Africa, has also entered a radical new phase in its history (Fig. 2). To realize the vision of making Johannesburg a world-class city, there has been a major injection of public funds, at all levels of government, into large-scale regeneration and economic development projects. The Gauteng Provincial government, via its economic arm, has dedicated R3.5 billion to eleven economic infrastructure programs. Five of these are cultural heritage and tourism projects, including the World Heritage site of the Cradle of Humankind and Dinokeng, northwest of Johannesburg, a game reserve that is being developed with the pay-off line: "All of Africa in One Day." The other three sites are Constitution Hill, Newtown, and Kliptown. The development of these heritage and cultural tourism sites in and around Johannesburg reflects international changes in city economies "from places of production to places of consumption" (Rogerson 2002:131).

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Constitution Hill, a R492 million mixed-use urban development managed by the Johannesburg Development Agency, is a Legacy Project funded by three levels of government: local (the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council), provincial (Gauteng), and national (the Department of Justice). Built in 1893, the Old Fort functioned as a prison for most of its history, accommodating both routine victims of apartheid legislation, such as the Group Areas Act, and high-profile prisoners from the defiance campaign of 1952, the Treason Trial of 1956, the Sharpeville uprising of 1961, the Soweto revolt of 1976, and the several states of emergency during the 1980s. In 1995, the wretched history of the site was transformed by the historic decision of the Constitutional judges to make it the home of South Africa's new Constitutional Court. In addition to the Court itself, the 95,000 square meter (24 acre) precinct comprises space for various constitutional commissions, a public square, commercial and retail rental space, up-market residential apartments, and leisure and entertainment facilities, as well as the significant heritage components of the various prison buildings. A team of local consultants, Ochre Media, was appointed to develop and market the site as a heritage, tourism, and business destination. Ochre Media consulted with Ralph Appelbaum, an American "celebrity designer" (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2002:7), and brought in Lord Cultural Resources of Canada to assist with the planning and implementation of the various components, including exhibitions, operations, and marketing, for the opening of the Court on Human Rights Day, March 21, 2004. Ochre Media plans activities in the site such as public art events; lekgotlas (assemblies) where people would meet to debate matters relating to the constitution; public programs; and installations. The installations in Number Four, formerly the prison for "native" males, include video projections of former prisoners' memories of their incarceration; sounds of prison life; digital projections of powerfully evocative images across floor, walls, and ceiling; and potent objects of prison life such as blankets, cooking utensils, and restraints. Significantly, the curators avoid the trap of "conflating a sense of the actual historical site with the techniques for producing this effect, [where] ... heritage production is represented as indistinguishable from ... the historical actuality" (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1998:7). The installations aim neither to be didactic nor to reconstruct the site with supposed historical accuracy, but rather allude to the role of "the imagination and sexuality in inverting the restrictions of prison life" (Le Roux 2004:42).

The Hill has been conceptualized as a space of contradiction (Stark 2001). Metaphors associated with its geographical location on a watershed ridge have underpinned the discourse of developing the site as a heritage and tourism destination. The remaking of the prison as a place of freedom, of inverting the site from one that is hidden and dreaded to one that is open and accessible, has been implemented in various ways: in the architectural brief for the Court, in the planning of programs for the activation of the site, and in the branding of the site within a tourist discourse. Thus, the Court was designed by OMM Design Workshop/Urban Solutions, a Durban-based consortium of architects who, in their architectural design report of 1998, developed the court logo of "justice under a tree" and rejected the traditional classical language of official Western buildings: The Great African Steps that lead up to the hill between the full length of the glass-fronted western facade of the Court on the left and the enclosing walls of Prison Number Four on the right combine the tropes of access, journey, elevation, and contradiction (Fig. 3).

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The fort ramparts were the first part of the site to be opened to the public, in August 2002, with an exhibition for delegates to the World Summit of Sustainable Development (Fig. 4). From the vantage of the ramparts, visitors can view the high-density living and inner-city decay of Hillbrow to the east, the city center with disused mine-dumps beyond to the south, the office park development of Braamfontein to the west, and the wealthy suburbs to the north. Thus the viewing platform has been transformed from the surveillance mode of the prison into the gaze of the tourist. From this vantage point the visitor is encouraged to take in the contradictions of both a society in transition and the site itself, which has been branded "the history of our future." The integration--symbolically, economically, spatially, and socially--of the precinct, which has come to be known affectionately as the Hill, with the harsh realities of the surrounding areas is the real challenge of this major regeneration and urban heritage project. Put another way, "the making of the Court cannot remain a representational act" (Le Roux 2004:44).

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Newtown Cultural Precinct is a second heritage tourism-related project that is funded by the province and the city and delivered by the Johannesburg Development Agency. The area is being developed from the base of existing cultural facilities: Museum Africa, the Market Theater, Kippies jazz club, and several performing arts, visual arts, and music organizations (Fig. 5).

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The R300 million urban renewal program comprises several components: over 200 housing units in five developments catering for different income levels; the Metromall shopping area and the newly upgraded taxi rank; and, most famously, the functional link to the north, the Mandela Bridge. In addition to facilitating physical access to Newtown, the 284m (932') cable-stayed bridge was conceptualized as "a landmark structure of international note" that would function metonymically like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Statue of Liberty in New York, and the Sydney Harbor Bridge, and "put the city on the map" in the same way as these famous structures (Fig. 6; www.man delabridge.co.za/gallery/albums.php).

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The Mandela Bridge also functions as a fulcrum in the broader band of innercity cultural and heritage institutions, conceptualized by Carolyn Hamilton as the "Cultural Arc" that sweeps from Constitutional Hill through Braamfontein and the University of the Witwatersrand over the Bridge to the Newtown Cultural Precinct.

Driving southwest from Newtown on the way to Soweto, one passes the bizarrely contradictory sites of Cold Reef City (the private enterprise theme park and entertainment complex built in the 1980s), and the Apartheid Museum next door. The Apartheid Museum opened its doors in November 2001 although there has been no official opening as such. The existence of the Apartheid Museum, which would be identified as a "museum of conscience" (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2002:9-10), is directly linked to the gambling casino in Gold Reef City. According to the Lotteries Act of 1997, a casino is required to have a clear social responsibility program and Akani Egoli, the company which owns Gold Reef City, was awarded the gaming license on the strength of its commitment to build a "struggle" museum. The building, designed by an architectural consortium comprising several leading architectural firms, including Mashabane Rose (which also designed the Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto), has attracted wide critical acclaim. However, with entrance fees of R25 (as opposed to many governmental museums, which have free access) and an exhibition mode that is particularly "text heavy" and entirely in English, the museum did not initially attract wide local attendance. A 2002 survey indicated that 57% of its visitors came from overseas and only 19% of visitors identified an African language as their home language (Sharpe 2003).

Further to the west on the eastern ridge of Soweto is a third project, the Greater Kliptown Project. The oldest part of Soweto, Kliptown was established in 1904 when the Johannesburg Town Council evacuated Burghersdorp, later Newtown, on the outbreak of bubonic plague, and settled the Indian, colored, and black residents in segregated tent towns. At the heart of Kliptown lies Freedom Square, which takes its name from the Freedom Charter adopted when the Congress of the People gathered there on June 26, 1955. The Charter, the African National Congress's liberation manifesto, forms the basis of the Bill of Rights of South Africa's new Constitution, hence there is a link between this site and Constitution Hill. Kliptown presently comprises a mix of formal and informal housing, while on the south side of Freedom Square is a commercial area made up of medium and small enterprises and informal traders (Fig. 7). The Greater Kliptown Development Project includes major redevelopment plans in the areas of infrastructure (housing, services, transport), environment (upgrading of open land along the Klipspruit river), and economic growth and empowerment. Ochre Media consultants, who were engaged to develop the heritage, education, and tourism components of Constitution Hill, have been employed to develop these aspects of Kliptown as well. While the Greater Kliptown Project developers aim to establish Kliptown as a prosperous, desirable, and well-managed residential and commercial area and a major national and international heritage site, the plans for the redesign of Freedom Square as the Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication (Fig. 8) have been criticized for eradicating "much of Kliptown as it now exists, in favor of a formal architectural arrangement of monumental squares and colonnades" (Bremner 2004:25). There is a danger, therefore, that Kliptown might be transformed into what Edensor describes as a "purified space," a space that is "strongly circumscribed and framed," that imposes a sense of social and spatial order, rather than heterogeneous spaces that are less strongly defined, "with blurred boundaries, in which activities and people mingle, allowing a range of encounters and self-governance and expressiveness" (1998:42-3, citing D. Sibley).

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While there is a real sense of energy and optimism about the re-envisioning of Greater Johannesburg into a desirable urban tourism destination, notes of caution have been sounded about aspects of the programmed regeneration and economic development projects. Bremner (2004:25) argues that there is "a growing alignment of power, an eradication of mess, and a singularity of vision." It will be telling to look back over time and evaluate the extent to which a relatively small number of developers, urban designers, architects, curators, and heritage consultants directed the newly envisioned cultural capital of greater Johannesburg and its surrounds.

[This article was accepted for publication in June 2004.]

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