The University of Cape Town (UCT) announced on Thursday that it is to launch a competition for the design of a new facility to honour democratic South Africa’s primary founding father, and first democratically elected President, Nelson Mandela. The facility will be called the UCT Nelson Mandela Memorial Centre and School of Public Governance.
The competition will be formally launched on Thursday, June 18, and is endorsed by the South African Institute of Architects. It is being implemented in partnership with the African Union of Architects and will be open to architects from all across the continent.
The new centre will combine memorialisation, civic engagement and, not least, public leadership education. The cost of the complete project, embracing the memorial centre and academic facilities, along with the associated landscaping, is estimated to come to about R600-million.
“The project seeks to honour Nelson Mandela’s legacy not through a traditional monument but through a competition founded on the belief that the best ideas can come from anywhere and anyone, and that places of lasting significant begin with imagination,” highlighted UCT. The intent is, rather, to create a living memorial to President Mandela.
