Portrait of a city : a narrative of discovery, creation and reflection
This study forms part of the discourse that critiques the current state of colonial museums in a post-colonial, post-apartheid city. The project focuses on a proposed urban vision for the precinct of Joubert Park in Johannesburg and responds to themes of memory, identity, reflection, art and public space. In the process, strategies are investigated to enhance identity in the area using the Johannesburg Art Gallery as a starting point. The gallery is integrated into the public realm, making it more accessible and transparent to its context by introducing pavilions and art installations to the park. These pavilions perform a variety of functions with the main design taking the form of a photographic urban archive. The pavilion archives the city and the people of the park by harnessing one of the current skill sets of the park photographers who are present on site. The project takes the form of a working camera using the principals of pinhole and wet plate photography to tangibly capture and display the happenings and changes of the site and the people who frequent it, over time. Once the pavilion has archived the desired changes in the city it will be dismantled and relocated to a new site to begin its life cycle once more. The movability of the structure acts as a critique on the static nature of buildings situated in cities that are always in flux. By introducing an architecture that allows and facilitates public activity while using people as the subjects for the creation of art by documenting a changing city, the scheme hopes to enhance the public realm by encouraging a collective identity to form.
UCTD, Memory, Photography, Joubert Park, Art Gallery
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations