Abstract
A library is never just a building. In Kwa-Ndebele, where for many years land was legislated against belonging, and where we are still living through the material afterlife of apartheid, 31 years into democracy, a library becomes a quiet act of repair. It is a way of saying: we are still here, and we are still learning. This paper reflects on a 2024 design studio held in the former Bantustan of Kwa-Ndebele, South Africa, where architecture students were invited to ask: what else can a library be? Titled “A Library and…”, the brief challenged students to move beyond the singular and design civic hybrids that respond to the layered needs of rural life. In the absence of performance space, social infrastructure, or archives of memory, the rural library could not stand alone. Students designed speculative institutions: a library and a theatre, a library and a wash house, a library and a ritual site. Each project was rooted in research, guided by lived realities, and infused with imagination. To complete the sentence “A library and…”, we turned to the writings of Bernard Tschumi. His ideas on cross-programming, trans-programming, and dis-programming offered conceptual tools to disturb fixed spatial expectations. His provocations helped students ask what architecture is, and what it might become. This paper is a reflection on spatial repair, pedagogical risk, and designing for dignity. It explores how building in the rural is not about filling a gap, but about holding space, carefully, curiously, for something new to take root.
Presenters
Nomalanga MahlanguLecturer, Architecture, University of Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Rural, Architecture, Bantustan, Kwa-Ndebele, Library, Post-Apartheid, Spatial-Justice, Cross-Programming
