Heritage and the post-apartheid city: Constitution Hill, Johannesburg

Abstract

This article examines the development of Constitution Hill on the site of the Old Fort prison in Johannesburg, South Africa. Constitution Hill is the location of the new Constitutional Court and has two main purposes. First, as a heritage site it attempts to address the divisions that characterise contemporary South African society by acting as a physical manifestation of the human rights ethos around which much of post-apartheid South African public discourse revolves. Second, it was conceived as a developmental node to encourage urban regeneration in Johannesburg’s inner city. However, while the Court and related heritage areas have been established, tensions regarding the site’s different purposes have remained and resulted in its incomplete development.

Keywords:

• South Africa
• Johannesburg
• prison
• heritage
• development
• post-apartheid

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Nuffield Foundation for funding their 2007–2008 project ‘Post-Conflict Settlement, Heritage and Urban Regeneration in South Africa and Northern Ireland: the Redevelopment of the Old Fort and Long Kesh/Maze Prisons’, from which this paper is drawn, and the editor and anonymous referees at IJHS for their comments.