In 2011, Zahira Asmal conceptualised a placemaking project for Johannesburg’s Park Station that linked various historical and contemporary spaces in the Park Station precinct. An extensive proposal was ultimately presented to the Executive Mayor at the time, Parks Tau, with the vision of incorporating the placemaking concept into his ‘Corridors of Freedom’ initiative. The aim of this initiative was to create economic opportunities along transit corridors across Johannesburg.
While the Park Station precinct has been developed over the years, the collective memory of the historical and unutilised 1932 concourse has largely been lost. Few even know that it exists. But The City believed (and believes) that it could be an incredible place.
From Colonial to Afropolitan
The idea was to rescript the old station and surrounding public spaces: from a previously exclusionary travel experience to an Afropolitan statement of economic and cultural thriving. In 1932, when the Park Station precinct was first opened, most Johannesburg commuters experienced daily indignity, dispossession and police brutality.
Decades later, a very different – and healing – reality is possible, with Park Station acting as a link between generations, meaningfully integrating the past in the present, for the benefit of the future. The station could similarly mark the everyday connections between South Africa, the rest of the continent, and the African diaspora. It is the potential site of a ‘grand arrival’: a safe, warm, culturally rich welcome to all those who visit – and move to – Johannesburg.
The programmatic brief for the project envisaged a variety of activities to improve the day and night-life of the precinct, including an African market of goods and services; performance spaces; nodes of learning; and a retail offering, including a continental canteen.
People welcome each other over food, music, and art – expressions of themselves that they share with others. We wish to create a place for trading and learning. A place for symbolism and performance. A place to gather, to pause from constant movement. A place to just be urban.
– Zahira Asmal
In 2013, the Executive Mayor gave the green light to begin the project, and The City began work with the City of Johannesburg, the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) and the Passenger Rail Association of South Africa (PRASA) as well as a team of Johannesburg built environment and cultural professionals. The plan was to enhance the utility of the public spaces around the station and along Eloff Street, employing the power of innovative design to meaningfully and positively change the way commuters experienced the city.
Neighbourhood engagement
As part of the research and planning process, a series of engagements with the users of the space in, and around, Park Station was conducted by The City team. Commuters expressed a desire for safe and inclusive public space, convenient cultural offerings, as well as public seating. The City’s Park Station project directly responded to these needs. The City also collected ‘words of welcome’, in the languages of those using and moving through the Park Station precinct, which were planned for use in the programming aspects of the project.
A Public Pavilion
For a key feature of the proposed development – a bold statement of welcome to all African nationals arriving in Johannesburg (especially in the aftermath of xenophobic tensions in the city and across South Africa) – The City proposed a local-global collaboration with a world-renowned, award-winning African architect, Sir David Adjaye. Given his Ghanaian heritage, David’s very involvement was a poetic symbol of inclusion. His design of what was to be called Sunsum pavilion, was to be located on the concourse next to the Gautrain station on the northern section of the Park Station precinct.
Inspiration for the design was drawn directly from the 1932 building’s rhythmic arches, and its monumental aesthetic that was conceived to articulate the romance and grandeur of colonial travel. At the time, the opportunity was exclusionary, so the pavilion is an antidote: it rests on the idea of invitation.The pavilion also explores the idea of new and old by creating a dialogue between contemporary design and the historic vaults of the station building. It was conceived as ‘a giant piece of architectural furniture’, from which to reflect on the moods of the surrounding city.
The pavilion speaks to a process of immersion. Almost immediately, you encounter the crowds, taxis and street traders that are so much a part of Johannesburg culture. The station has embedded in it a very painful history of exclusion and strife, but fundamentally it is actually a space where an incredible range of people can engage and interact, and that’s what made it a fascinating place to me.
– Sir David Adjaye
Notes on Park Station
Park Station is inner-city Johannesburg’s major transport hub – the largest transport node in southern Africa. The site of the station has been an essential nexus point in the city since train tracks were first laid on the Witwatersrand, connecting disparate mining towns along the reef. It has since grown with Johannesburg, reflecting political ideologies, ‘modern’ transport trends and new spatial configurations. Today, the larger Park Station complex blurs into the surrounding city, its edges redefined by street traders, formal retail extensions and movements and crowds. The Rea Vaya bus network, Gautrain, regional and international bus services, local and inter-city train services, taxis, and pedestrians converge here, stimulating the inner city. Park Station is, and always has been, Johannesburg’s arrival and departure point, the first and last experience of the city for many visitors.
It is estimated that about one million people move through the precinct every weekday, and millions of rands change hands in small retail transactions and cross-border trade. Park Station is busy, congested, and noisy. In many ways, it is the bustling centre of a thriving – but largely unregulated – economic network that spans most of the continent. It’s clear, then, that the precinct has the potential to profoundly connect Johannesburg to the rest of the continent, and, indeed, the world.
Making Africa at the Guggenheim
In 2015, the Guggenheim invited The City to participate in the Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design exhibition in Bilbao. Making Africa showcased works from a diverse range of creative fields. The City chose to present its Park Station project at this exhibition, with reportage and a model of the pavilion designed for commuters by Sir David Adjaye.
Epilogue
In 2015, the Park Station project was paused. A riveting narrative of the process between 2011 and 2015 can be found in the presentation Welcome to Johannesburg delivered by Zahira Asmal.