Space and race : South African "native townships" as corruptions of suburban ideals for political ends

This thesis is about reconciling three main pairs of ideas. First, it is about architecture and apartheid, and the ideological role which architecture plays within a particular political system. Second, it is about the attitudes of individuals involved in designing and building the townships, and the reconciliation of the apparently contradictory ideas of the provision of welfare in the form of housing with the exploitation of labor in the form of separate development. Third, it is about the ideals of the white Anglo-American suburbs (housing the whites) and how townships (housing the blacks) differ from them as a city form . The crux of this thesis is that the white suburban ideal was taken and corrupted to become the black township in South Africa, because of a combination of politics, (post-colonial) philanthropy and fear. The historical reasons for the formation of the townships are to be found in the relationships between the races beginning with the earliest European settlers in the country. The first conflicts were over the right to the land. With industrialization came urbanization and the formation of the policy of apartheid: legislation requiring the separation of the races. Anglo-American suburban ideals were used by the planners and architects who put the government's policy into practice. They built townships based on these ideals in an effort to transfer their values to the black people. They worked as technocrats, implicitly accepting the policy of apartheid and relying on "science" and middle-class suburban ideals to achieve their goals. The ideologies of apartheid have resulted in the political nature of space in South Africa, and theories of urban ideology can be applied to understand the complex situation. The result can be seen in the townships as corruptions of suburban ideals for political ends.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

1989

Author dc:creator

• Margoles, Conrad Henry

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Lawrence Vale.

• Architecture.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/79004

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/79004