Creative City of Pretoria: The Dark Side of Creativity

Abstract

Though fast becoming a very popular tourist attraction center, Pretoria is primarily the seat of power of the South African government and where the office of the State President is located. Amongst other edifices, the iconic historical monuments, the Union Buildings located in Pretoria, are cultural spaces capable of qualifying Pretoria as the creative city of ‘peace.’ Conceived in 1910, the buildings were erected to commemorate the “Union” of the South African people during the apartheid era. Many of the artefacts in the Union Buildings represent South African history and culture of the past and they awaken national consciousness of the present. This paper is a critical appraisal of Pretoria as a creative city with magnificent and metaphorical architectural designs of buildings; and more importantly, the paper interrogates the continued relevance of the Union Buildings and the numerous visual art works therein as a unification site in post-apartheid South Africa.