Sans Souci:
Soweto, Johannesburg
In the absence of a budget and local capacity to re-build the famous Sans Souci Cinema in Soweto, Johannesburg, the content rather than the container was realised.
The cinema began in 1948, was destroyed in a fire in 1994 and subsequently pillaged for building materials resulting in an evocative ruin used as an informal public space by the local youth. Our brief from the Kliptown Our Town Trust was to re-imagine the Sans Souci as a cultural public space.
Through a series of workshops and events the remains of the cinema were animated as a space of cultural event and meaning over a period of several years. A film festival, dance outreach project and several performances were held during this time. These events employed the ruin as an urban armature and were curated together with the community.
Through our practice as architects in a need-based context in which resources are scarce, we have had to discover, for ourselves, the value in the directness and immediacy of informality. By harnessing informal processes we are finding new ways in which to make positive and interactive public spaces. Rather than abandoning our clients in the light of limited budgets we have pooled human resources through combined networks in order to realise our mandate of creating a public space for cultural programmes.
Carried out in collaboration with Lindsay Bremner.
