Tag Archives: Grand Parade

Cape Town Station Square – unburied treasure

We haven’t quite yet begin to realise the future potential of the new Cape Town Station Square. Situated right in the middle of the Cape Town CBD, the construction of the new Square was initially driven by the need for a public evacuation area, so that the CT Station can conform to international transport safety…

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March for school libraries and equal education

On Human Rights Day, over 10 000 people marched in the Cape Town Central City as part of the national campaign for school libraries and equal education. A full report of the march and the national campaign can be found on the Equal Education website. Shaen Adey took…

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Public spaces and places in the city come of age on Human Rights Day weekend

A large part of our time at the Cape Town Partnership and CCID  is spent on finding ways in which our public spaces can be used by and for citizens of this city. The multiple events taking place this coming Human Rights Day weekend point to a coming of age in…

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Sm(art) opening

I thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the opening of the Spier Contemporary 2010 Exhibition at the Cape Town City Hall last night. The event was well attended and a great success. Well done to Tanner Methvin and the Africa Centre for pulling it off.

This is what I said at the…

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Mandela’s release February 1990

Twenty years ago, on 11 February 1990, I watched Nelson Mandela’s release on a small TV in our rented house in Isidingo Road in Yeoville, Johannesburg. I had moved from Cape Town to Johannesburg in 1989, with my wife Nike Romano to work for an NGO called Planact. I remember getting highly irritated with…

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East City – two good, one bad

I toured the East City precinct in the Cape Town Central City yesterday – and saw two amazing projects, and one disaster.

I first went to the City Hall to see the installation of the Spier Contemporary biennial Arts Competition and Exhibition, set to open on 14 March.…

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Cape Town Central City: Reclaiming people’s spaces (part one)

When Jan Gehl, world-renowned architect who focuses on ’life between buildings’ visited in 2004, he described pedestrians in Cape Town as a ‘hunted race’. He was right. Thanks to grievous urban planning errors in the 1970s, a six-lane race track called Strand Street intersects with an eight-lane monstrosity called the Heerengracht, creating…

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