Texture and memory – The urbanism of District Six

Abstract

District Six has become an icon of the dispossession and injustice of apartheid. Since it was declared a white group area, its residents scattered to distant, isolated townships on the Cape Flats and its buildings flattened, it has lain for the most part undeveloped. It remains to this day a shameful and visible scar on the face of Cape Town. However, as progress is made in resolving land claims arising from the forced removals, Cape Town is beginning to look forward to a time when District Six will be redeveloped. And so the question arises: how, and in what form, and according to what processes, should development take place? The old District Six is gone forever, and cannot be rebuilt. But how can we ensure that the new District Six will have the vitality and sense of identity that are so strong a memory of the original? To begin to answer these questions, it is useful to try to understand the development processes that created the old District Six, and how the physical form and spatial elements of the area contributed to the creation of its special urban qualities. In 1995 the Urban Housing Research Unit of Cape Technikon undertook a research project exploring issues of urbanism in old District Six. The project culminated in the "Texture and Memory" exhibition at the Cape Technikon in December of that year. In June 1996 the exhibition travelled to the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University, where it was displayed at a conference entitled 'Africa's Urban Past'. The accompanying conference paper "The Urbanism of District Six" was published in various journals.