Mandela House, Johannesburg, South Africa

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❖Mandela House, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2025[open in full screen]

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8115 Orlando West, Corner of Vilakazi and Ngakane Streets, Soweto. An address which is woven into the South African fabric of history, heard in the whispers of the winds that sweep across the highveld to the clatter of cutlery at nearby restaurants in Soweto where history lovers re-live the life and times of Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

Built in 1945, Mandela house was commissioned as part of a Johannesburg City tender for new houses in Orlando. Whilst tiny in structure (Madiba mentioned that ‘the bedroom was so small that a double bed took up almost the entire floor space’) its testimony of truth on the family’s immense struggles for a free South Africa is indelibly large.

That night I returned with Winnie to No. 8115 in Orlando West. It was only then that I knew in my heart I had left prison. For me No. 8115 was the centre point of my world, the place marked with an X in my mental geography."

VR Photographs by dipl. ing. arch. Branislav Kovachevich, Melbourne, Australia,
VR panorama by urbansquares.

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❖..c l a s s i f i c a t i o n ... s y s t e m..❖
more about evaluation method		more about types of squares
sociability	6	ceremonial	x
uses & activities	6	religious	x
access & linkages	9	social	x
comfort	6	residential	x
image	6	courtyard	x
tourist value	8	with park	x
total	41	street	x