Schubart Park: A South African Experiment in State-Sponsored Social Housing Concepts and the Urban Renewal of Pretoria Cover Image

Schubart Park: A South African Experiment in State-Sponsored Social Housing Concepts and the Urban Renewal of Pretoria
Schubart Park: A South African Experiment in State-Sponsored Social Housing Concepts and the Urban Renewal of Pretoria

Author(s): Cornelius Van Der Westhuizen
Subject(s): Architecture, Welfare systems, Rural and urban sociology, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
Published by: Historický ústav SAV, v. v. i.
Keywords: mass-housing; post-war modern architecture; social housing; South Africa; welfare-state system;

Summary/Abstract: Schubart Park (1965-1976) was a South African state-sponsored mass housing project, initiated by the Nationalist government (1948-1994) and the city council of Pretoria, in the zeitgeist of post-war housing solutions. This scheme was partly influenced by British legislative practices and inspired by various international examples of welfare-state responses to urban housing crises. This paper investigates the timeline of a South African mass-housing experiment, forming an ambitious and wide-ranging urban renewal vision for the western quadrant of the historical centre of Pretoria, and one of the very few government-sponsored mass housing estates in South Africa during the 20th century ever fully realised.

  • Issue Year: 56/2022
  • Issue No: 3-4
  • Page Range: 279-287
  • Page Count: 9
  • Language: English