South Africa’s Apartheid Museum

Johannesburg’s Apartheid Museum, assembled by a multi-disciplinary team of architects, curators, film-makers, historians and designers, takes the visitor on a powerful emotional journey into South Africa’s past, bringing to life the story of a state-sanctioned system based solely on racial discrimination.

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After a few hours at the Apartheid Museum you will feel that you were in South Africa’s townships in the 1970s and ’80s, dodging police bullets or teargas canisters, marching and “toyi-toyiing” with thousands of school children, or carrying the body of a “comrade” into a nearby house.

The museum has become one of Johannesburg’s leading tourist attractions, an obligatory stop for visitors and residents alike.

The museum, with its large blown-up photographs, metal cages and monitors replaying scenes from South Africa prior to 1994, is situated next to the Gold Reef City casino and theme park, five kilometres south of Joburg’s city centre

It is appropriate that the first museum on apartheid in South Africa should have opened in Johannesburg, where at the turn of the 20th century there was a sudden convergence of people of all races, from around the world, for various different reasons – mostly to do with war and gold.

The museum came about as part of a casino bid in 1996. Bidders were obliged to include a social responsibility project; the winning consortium said they would build a museum, and spent in the region of R80-million making good on their commitment.

The museum occupies approximately 6 000 square metres on a seven-hectare site comprising recreated veld and indigenous bush habitat containing a lake and paths alongside a stark but stunning building.