Nice office building on Diagonal St, presumably by the Chicago School, I'll have to look it up when I get home. Oh hang on, I am at home.
Sunday, 20 June 2010
Around Central Johannesburg
At dusk everywhere just goes dead, presumably that's when it gets a bit more scary.
Around Central Johannesburg
This seems to be the main bus station, although it's the only time I ever saw any buses. God knows where they all go. The main means of public transport is the minibuses which clog up the slow lanes all over town
Around Central Johannesburg
Saturday, 19 June 2010
Soccer City, Ellis Park and Mandela-exceptionalism
Let’s compare the two football stadia in Johannesburg and see what they tell us about South Africa.
Soccer City is in the middle of a new exhibition space on a reclaimed site on the edge of town, it cannot be seen from the city or indeed from anywhere further than a mile away. Ellis Park is in the middle of an industrial area, or post industrial area with empty lots, workshops, motorway run-offs, warehouses and an atmosphere of decay and irreversible decline
From Soccer City you can see nothing but the inside of the stadium, it’s a cauldron of World Cup-ness, it contains only the best football and the neatly choreographed messages of the sponsors. It’s a World stadium’ it could be anywhere. From Ellis Park you can see the Johannesburg skyline, and glimpses of the world around, it’s firmly rooted in the city, it’s part of the fabric, the warp and weft of that part of the city. Even though they’ve paved or turfed over some parts to make it look nice for we visitors who like everything to look neat.
Soccer City is a perfect, architect designed shape, floating above the earth; it has no history, no past at all. It exists for the present; it speaks only of the future. Ellis Park has been built upon and re-developed messily over the years, and has a history of its own, it’s a place where nation-shaping events have taken place it’s a place where people have been, it lives in the memory here.
So Soccer City is the dream of a united South Africa, it’s a self contained bit of bling for the nation. It says 'If we can build something that looks this good, then surely we must be good too'. It’s a continuation of ‘Mandela-exceptionalism’. Mandela was a one off, a piece of magic that pulled the nation together. He’s never criticised and is uncriticisable, he looked good, he was good, he is still front page news here. And as he declines South Africa looks for something to replace him, to continue all that ‘Rainbow Nation’ fairytale stuff. And he’s not going to be replaced by building proper houses, or by providing healthcare and education for the kids here. What they want the feel good factor, the sense of unity, the sense that South Africa – and by extension Africa – is respected. They achieved this once through Mandela but now the only way is to ‘look good’ on the World stage. And this is nothing against the government – the people you meet here are immensely proud of the way they are staging this event and that people have come and seen and enjoyed their country.
So this means Soccer City. Uncriticisably beautiful, but hermetically-sealed, a mirage glowing in the dusk, with specially built TV studios at just the right angle to make it look its best for people watching on the telly.
Meanwhile around the old-fashioned brutalist architecture of at Ellis Park you can see the day-to-day South Afroca: (Cliché alert) grinding poverty, low expectations and a sense of wasted opportunity. There’s a frustration - surely there must be? - that all the shiny pockets of infrastructure don’t actually translate into progress that is fast enough. Mandela is beyond criticism, of course he is, but his legacy not only inspires the nation, it oppresses it too.
Soccer City is in the middle of a new exhibition space on a reclaimed site on the edge of town, it cannot be seen from the city or indeed from anywhere further than a mile away. Ellis Park is in the middle of an industrial area, or post industrial area with empty lots, workshops, motorway run-offs, warehouses and an atmosphere of decay and irreversible decline
From Soccer City you can see nothing but the inside of the stadium, it’s a cauldron of World Cup-ness, it contains only the best football and the neatly choreographed messages of the sponsors. It’s a World stadium’ it could be anywhere. From Ellis Park you can see the Johannesburg skyline, and glimpses of the world around, it’s firmly rooted in the city, it’s part of the fabric, the warp and weft of that part of the city. Even though they’ve paved or turfed over some parts to make it look nice for we visitors who like everything to look neat.
Soccer City is a perfect, architect designed shape, floating above the earth; it has no history, no past at all. It exists for the present; it speaks only of the future. Ellis Park has been built upon and re-developed messily over the years, and has a history of its own, it’s a place where nation-shaping events have taken place it’s a place where people have been, it lives in the memory here.
So Soccer City is the dream of a united South Africa, it’s a self contained bit of bling for the nation. It says 'If we can build something that looks this good, then surely we must be good too'. It’s a continuation of ‘Mandela-exceptionalism’. Mandela was a one off, a piece of magic that pulled the nation together. He’s never criticised and is uncriticisable, he looked good, he was good, he is still front page news here. And as he declines South Africa looks for something to replace him, to continue all that ‘Rainbow Nation’ fairytale stuff. And he’s not going to be replaced by building proper houses, or by providing healthcare and education for the kids here. What they want the feel good factor, the sense of unity, the sense that South Africa – and by extension Africa – is respected. They achieved this once through Mandela but now the only way is to ‘look good’ on the World stage. And this is nothing against the government – the people you meet here are immensely proud of the way they are staging this event and that people have come and seen and enjoyed their country.
So this means Soccer City. Uncriticisably beautiful, but hermetically-sealed, a mirage glowing in the dusk, with specially built TV studios at just the right angle to make it look its best for people watching on the telly.
Meanwhile around the old-fashioned brutalist architecture of at Ellis Park you can see the day-to-day South Afroca: (Cliché alert) grinding poverty, low expectations and a sense of wasted opportunity. There’s a frustration - surely there must be? - that all the shiny pockets of infrastructure don’t actually translate into progress that is fast enough. Mandela is beyond criticism, of course he is, but his legacy not only inspires the nation, it oppresses it too.
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