Abstract

Isivivane, Freedom Park: A critical analysis of the relationship between commemoration, meaning and landscape design in post-apartheid South Africa

Highlights

  • Prior to 1994, in the vast majority of South African landscape designs, the value and meaning of public places had been seriously neglected and had no meaning for most of the population

  • The data shows that Isivivane is a place with which the vast majority of the participants identified, both individually (71% of participants mentioned that they could relate to the space and derive meaning from its character and form, and 81% indicated that it is a place of sacred and spiritual associations) and collectively

  • 64% agreed that Isivivane is a place with which all South Africans can identify

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Summary

Introduction

Prior to 1994, in the vast majority of South African landscape designs, the value and meaning of public places had been seriously neglected and had no meaning for most of the population. “Slowly, the scene was set in the years after 1994, for the role of landscape architecture, and its application in design to take on a new significance as it grappled [with] these issues” (Barnard & Young, 2009: 6). Within this formative context, the idea of a so-called ‘Freedom Park’ was first mentioned by the President Nelson Mandela when he stated: “[W]e shall have a people’s shrine, a Freedom Park, where we shall honour with all the dignity they deserve, those who endured pain so we should experience the joy of freedom”.1. In 2003, the President Thabo Mbeki stated that the Freedom Park “Legacy Project is the most ambitious heritage project to be undertaken by the new democratic government ... an ambitious and noble task” (Noble, 2011: 213)

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