Icon June 2010 Africa

AfricA Nestled between the sea and Table Mountain, Cape Town Stadium has one of the most dramatic locations of any in the world. You can already picture the sumptuous helicopter footage that will no doubt feature in next month’s TV montages of this World cup city. Yet the new pride of Cape Town has a divisive history. It is emblematic of the tensions a city must suffer to host a one-month sporting spectacle – the marketing power that comes with briefly being the home of football begets years of upheaval, compromise, investment and under- investment, promises and U-turns, hopes and letdowns. It also illustrates the power FIFA has over matters of major urban infrastructure. Words Justin McGuirk Photography David Southwood 110 icon June 2010 AfricA The stadium is the largest construction centre of blacks and using highways as against the liberal argument that you need project ever undertaken in Cape Town, segregation barriers. In that sense, some to take things to the people – in some costing more than 4 billion rand. However, see the choice of the Green Point site as a respects that would only reinforce the the controversy surrounding it was not to do positive decision, because it will bring people apartheid plan of the city.” with the cost or the design but the location. out of the townships to a part of the city that The World Cup was a huge opportunity for It sits in the rich, white neighbourhood of they have no connection with – exactly what the city, not just as a marketing tool to help Green Point, and rich, white Cape Townians residents of Green Point feared. Then again, drive its tourism industry but as a catalyst watch rugby and cricket, not football. It was it is not clear how many township residents for a programme of urban improvement natural that the right-wing NIMBYs would will even be able to afford a ticket to any of that could have sought to undo some of the be against building a stadium there, but then the World Cup matches. apartheid legacy of disconnectedness. After so were the liberals. They argued that the What is extraordinary about the choice of 20 years of under-investment, this was a stadium should be located in a township, site is that it was more or less dictated by chance to boost the city’s civic confidence among the people who play and love football. FIFA. Both then South African president and turn Cape Town, as Makeka puts it, into Furthermore, it would have been both a Thabo Mbeki and the mayor, Helen Zille, “more of a city and less of a town.” symbolic and very real investment in the were against it, preferring to enlarge one The city was slow to react to South Africa’s townships to locate a new stadium in, say, of the existing stadiums at Newlands or winning of the bid, but the injection of Athlone. Green Point, by contrast, didn’t Athlone, which proved impossible. But FIFA’s government money combined with the need the investment, was too far from the inspection team, led by former German salutary effects of an immovable deadline fans and was home to a litigious community captain Franz Beckenbauer, had their hearts eventually shook it out of its torpor. Cape up in arms about the destruction of its views set on Green Point, and FIFA chief executive Town airport, the third largest in Africa – and its golf course. Now, of course, those Sepp Blatter had only to remind the which also bills itself as “Africa’s premier residents are selling or renting properties politicians that if a 65,000-seat stadium tourist and VIP destination” – was expanded with special premiums on a stadium view. couldn’t be found in Cape Town then one of with a new terminal. Meanwhile Makeka has “Cape Townians are suspicious of modern the coveted semi-final matches could easily been busy upgrading Cape Town train design because modern design destroyed be moved to another city. station, turning it into a modern transport Cape Town in many ways,” says Robert Silke, “I’m actually happy that the hub and trying to democratise a layout that an architect with Louis Karol, the local stadium is located where it is once segregated whites and blacks with practice that built the stadium with German because it’s quite a subversive separate concourses. But he doesn’t feel that giant GMP. In the early 20th century this was way of converting a part of town his brief was suitably ambitious. At less than a picturesque Victorian city, one of the most that was elitist,” says young local 500 million rand, the station will have cost socially integrated in Africa, but under architect Mokena Makeka (see page 062). less than an eighth of the stadium. “That’s a apartheid it embraced modernism and its “You wouldn’t ordinarily find people from statement of priority. It’s a pity considering implicit hygiene metaphors, “draining” the Athlone coming to Green Point. It goes that in terms of legacy the station will be Previous pages Cape Above The newly paved Right An informal football Town Stadium viewed Grand Parade in front of pitch in the Khayelitsha from Table Mountain Town Hall, with bus stops township in the foreground 112 icon June 2010 AfricA used far more intensely than the stadium June – winter in South Africa, and so out of informal traders from in front of the ever will be,” he says. of season – they are sure to thrive in the train station. He bemoans the, admittedly Another bone of contention for Makeka is normally risky opening year. But one universal, neutralisation of public spaces that the station and the stadium are not even wonders how many will stay in business into coffee shop forecourts. Makeka agrees: linked by a dedicated form of transport. The once the fans have gone home. “Let’s be frank, the city could be far more city has laid out an ambitious plan to expand Many feel that as far as the public proactive around its unused spaces, the Bus Rapid Transit system, but nobody investment in the city is concerned the whether it’s spaces beneath highways or believes it will ever be delivered. Although World Cup has been a missed opportunity. public open spaces. They could be far more phase one is currently being rolled out, the “It’s our responsibility to accommodating of the informal market next four phases are likely to be dropped represent Africa to the world. reality, which contributes up to half the jobs after the World Cup for lack of funding. Nations need narratives and this in the area. The product that we are going to Meanwhile, the private sector has also is the best narrative you could get,” get does not speak to what it could have been been in overdrive. The city is home to dozens says Edgar Pieterse, director of the African in terms of a really integrated city. I think of new hotels. Able to charge triple rates in Centre for Cities at the University of Cape it’s partly to do with lack of resources and Town. Given the transformative potential of people in the right places, making the wrong that narrative, he sees the actual changes decisions – which I think is the history of occurring in the city as pragmatic at best. South Africa in many respects.” “They didn’t use the World Cup as a chance As for the stadium, the key question, as for a social programme,” he says. “They always with one-off sporting spectacles, is could have asked, what does it mean to build one of legacy. It is still unclear whether in the a new South African culture? How do you long run the stadium will be used for rugby – get people of different classes and races to a far more lucrative sport in South Africa – or interact? Because there’s no better metaphor football. The French management company, for the body, for youth, for national identity Stade de France, will pay a third of its profits than a World Cup.” back to the city but there is no guarantee that As a counter-example, Pieterse points to that will shore up the deficit. “Nothing will Johannesburg, where the World Cup was justify spending 4 billion rand, but it was a used to drive the regeneration of Bertrams, a calculated investment in the national image,” dilapidated suburb, and where there was far says Silke. At a speech at the stadium in more investment in transport infrastructure. February, his boss, Louis Karol, put it more In Cape Town he is left decrying what he calls bluntly: “Even if only two games are played “cultural displacement”, citing the removal here, it will have been worth it.” This image View of Green Above left The Point, with Cape Town construction foreman Stadium rising in 2009 at the stadium site It is claimed the stadium is on the site where the first football was kicked in South Africa, in an 1864 Winchester Rules match between British army officers and the civil service. officers British army Rules match between Winchester Africa, in an 1864 in South was kicked football the first where It is claimed the stadium on site rgin A M www.designingsouthafrica.com project: Africa the Designing South This article is part of 114 icon June 2010.

Load more