How International Style Modernism Came to Dominate in Apartheid Architecture in 1960s South Africa

Abstract

A review of Hilton Judin, Architecture, State Modernism and Cultural Nationalism in the Apartheid Capital, Routledge, The ARCHITEXT Series, Thomas A. Markus and Anthony D. King, eds. London and New York. 2021. Judin’s book captures a significant moment in South Africa’s architectural history: the economic surge of the 1960s and its attendant building boom. He explores how International Style modernism was harnessed in the design of monumental state buildings in Pretoria, the country’s administrative capital and the heartland of Afrikaner nationalism, while simultaneously being used to corral black residents into segregated dormitory townships on the city’s periphery.

Keywords

• apartheid architecture
• international style
• state buildings
• Pretoria