“I was excited to join contractors this week in removing the old decals from the windows of the Civic Centre’s Tower Block to make way for fresh versions of the much-beloved murals of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and President Nelson Mandela.
These iconic artworks invite us to enact the values of these two great South Africans while going about our daily lives by building and maintaining a free, fair, prosperous, and non-racial city and country. I hope the murals will inspire Capetonians to commit and re-commit ourselves to these values.
The restored twelve-floor-high window murals will see the two figures — both of whom are recipients of Cape Town’s highest civic honour, the Freedom of the City — once again greet motorists as they make their way into the city. The project will take roughly one month, weather permitting, to complete.
The City will retain the existing artwork of the murals, rather than having it redesigned. This will allow us both to preserve the iconic imagery and minimise the cost of the project.
The conceptual design of the images was undertaken by Dreamfuel Media, who specified that the clothing of the subjects in the artwork should contain various imagery of special significance to Cape Town and South Africa. The image of Madiba was based on a photograph by Matthew Willman and the image of Archbishop Tutu draws on a photograph by Andrew Zuckerman.
Madiba’s shirt contains images representing some of the city’s most iconic features, including the Bo Kaap, penguins at Boulders Beach, Table Mountain, a minstrel at the Kaapse Klopse, and the King Protea. Archbishop Tutu’s shirt contains imagery invoking the anti-apartheid struggle as well as the core political values of non-racialism, freedom, togetherness, and peace.
The concept designers selected Cape Flats-born artist Linsey Levendall to illustrate the concept. His resultant artwork invokes a sense of hope and optimism about our country’s future, healing from the wounds of the past, and celebrating the beauty of its diverse people and environment.
The restoration of the Civic Centre’s decals is just one element of an ongoing process of renewal in the city. These projects — which include the restoration of the Strandfontein Pavilion in Mitchells Plain and the reconstruction of the Muizenberg beach huts — will see public buildings and space in Cape Town become city treasures in which every resident can feel a sense of hope and pride.
STATEMENT BY CAPE TOWN MAYOR, GEORDIN HILL-LEWIS
