eThekwini Council Chamber
Career
Student - Masters Thesis
Location
Durban, South Africa
Year
2017
Civic
Status
Unbuilt
Power and Symbolism through Civic Architecture - Reimagining the Durban City Hall.
The aim of this thesis was to explore the appropriateness of Colonial civic buildings as an inherited architectural legacy in the context of democratic governance in South Africa today. The findings of this research indicated that the architecture of the building has historically been used to legitimate notions of white superiority and exclude certain groups along lines of race. Today this dynamic of exclusion has continued, with the envelope of the building mediating between the public and those in power along elitist lines of class and affluence rather than race. In lieu of these findings the proposal was to design a new council chamber for the eThekwini Municipality within the Durban CBD in order to more effectively facilitate engagement between local government and the general public through the traits of democracy enshrined in the South African constitution: transparency, engagement and openness.
The design objectives were to create a Council Assembly that would connect processes of democracy with the public in an effort to increase awareness and engagement between the public and government at a local level.
The proposed architectural intervention was to be both structurally and symbolically integrated with the existing colonial heritage (both buildings and monuments) to achieve the objective of 'reframing' as described in the research document.
The iterative process began with a simple curved form and parallel floor/roof. The floor was then sunken to differentiate between the assembly and public gallery spatially. Walls flare outwards and the roof rises to provide natural light and views, creating a connection with the exterior amphitheatre separated by expansive glazing.
