Iziko Slave Lodge (49 Adderly Street, corner of Wale Street, Cape Town) — this Cape Town museum was originally built in 1679 as the slave lodge of the Dutch East India Company. Today, has become a permanent museum of slavery. The Iziko Slave Lodge documents the Cape’s role in the Indian Ocean slave trade route, […]
House of Parliament (Parliament Street, Cape Town) – when the Union of South Africa was established in 1910, a compromise was reached, where the country’s legislative capital would be at Cape Town, while Bloemfontein would be its judicial capital, and Pretoria would be its administrative capital. Even after the country’s transition to democracy, the country’s […]
Ditsong National Museum of Natural History (432 Paul Kruger Street Pretoria) – formerly know as the Transvaal Museum, this building contains large collections of Plio-Pleistocene fossils, (including hominids from Sterkfontein, Swartkrans and Kromdraai in the Cradle of Humankind), as well as late Permian therapsids (mammal-like reptiles from the Karoo). In addition the museum holds very […]
District Six Museum (25A Buitenkant Street, Cape Town) – this museum pays homage to the former residents of the 6th municipal district (a.k.a. “District 6”) who went through an extreme form of gentrification during the height of the Apartheid era. In February 1966, it was declared a “white area” under the country’s Group Areas Act, […]
Constitution Hill (11 Kotze Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg) – this is the seat of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, established on the site of the Johannesburg Fort (built as a fortress in 1898 and later converted to one of the country’s most notorious prisons – popularly known as “Number Four”). There, political prisoners were sent, […]
Cape Town Diamond Museum (The Clock Tower, Waterfront, Cape Town) — Diamonds are the world’s most desirable treasure – and the oldest, with origins over three billion years ago. South Africa’s contribution to that history changed the world diamond industry forever. The Cape Town Diamond Museum pays homage to this extraordinary story, with insight and […]
Apartheid Museum (Northern Park Way and Gold Reef Rd, Johannesburg) — The Apartheid Museum, close to downtown Johannesburg, focuses on the notorious system of racial discrimination that became synonymous with South Africa from 1948 (when the white-minority National Party was voted into power) until 1994, the year in which the country held its first fully […]
Afrikaans Language Monument (Gabbema Doordrift Drive, Paarl Mountain, Paarl) – located 45 minutes east of downtown Cape Town (via N1), and built in 1975, this monument was designed by architect Jan van Wijk. It acknowledges the influence of a variety of languages (such as Dutch, Malay, Malay-Portuguese, Arabic, French, German, English, and the indigenous Khoi […]
Absa Money Museum (187 Fox Street, Johannesburg) — Situated in the stylish Absa Towers West building in the heart of the cultural metropolis that is the Johannesburg CBD, the Money Museum is home to the most complete collection of South African numismatic items in the world. When one thinks of money, coins, banknotes, credit cards […]
- 1
- 2