Ruins as Record: Reconstructing narratives on a former miners' compound in Germiston

Abstract

Post-apartheid South Africa contains within it the embedded and residual pain of an oppressive regime. Untold narratives are contained within its scarred landscape. Hidden amongst an overgrown landscape, dilapidated concrete and brick walls protrude, presencing forgotten narratives. Once a miners’ compound, owned by Simmer and Jack, these material fragments contain traces of the past. They are archives of erased memories and bodies. One walks amongst the grass-enshrouded ruins as an architect, archaeologist and archivist. Through the lens of architecture and archaeology, the ruins are not seen as static remnants of the past but as a means to understand the past lived experiences of the miners who inhabited the space. The absences among the ruins are a dynamic void within a spatiotemporal realm, bridging the past and the present. This liminal space allows the viewer to interpret the past in a continually evolving manner, allowing for the reconstruction of counter-narratives. The ruins tell a story of the everyday living conditions of thousands of miners on the Witwatersrand. The compound was a machine of oppression and control. In many ways, it acted as a panopticon; it made prisoners out of labourers. The compound barely had the bare necessities to keep the miners alive enough to work. They lacked basic amenities, freedom and were not given the chance to have a voice. Looking at the present-day context of the site, it is central to many industrial factories with blue-collar and precariat workers. They face various challenges in their everyday lives, such as commuting times, inadequate amenities and the need for representation. Their everyday lives are considered and are further explored in terms of ‘tactics’ and ‘strategy’ as written about by Michel De Certeau. Strategy is a system of control imposed on a group of people, and tactics are a way that the ‘everyman’ escapes the control in their daily lives. Looking at the past with the current context of the site raises the question: How can a site of control serve as a canvas for the reconstruction of forgotten memories and the inscription of present-day workers’ counter- narratives? This thesis looks at juxtaposing the site’s history by transforming it into a site that stimulates dialogue between the past’s traumas and the present-day workers’ counter-narratives. The architectural intervention gives control back to the worker, opposing the past conditions where workers were oppressed and controlled. The main programs include a workers’ centre and a counter-archive. This represents the narratives of the present-day worker and the forgotten narratives of the miners. It is an ever-growing archive of the past and the present. Additionally, there are exhibitions representing the everyday life of a mine worker; this leads to the representation of the modern day worker, which takes place amongst the ruins. This allows for the intertwining of new narratives with the old