"The aim of this lecture is to shed light on the Good Hope Centre in, Cape Town. An exceptional building designed by the famous Italian engineer and architect Pier Luigi Nervi (1891-1979). He was internationally considered as one of the masters of 20th-century reinforced concrete structures. The first contacts between Nervi and the City of Cape Town started in 1964, but the project was approved in the following decade and was inaugurated in 1977. It offers various outstanding features. On the one hand, the Good Hope Centre is one of Pier Luigi Nervi’s last works, featuring some of his most famous building techniques and architectural forms: i.e. the precast concrete roof, which was at that time the largest concrete cross vault in the world! On the other hand, the building had also a social and political value: when it opened to the public, it was supposed to be open to all races, raising the issue of discrimination in the entertainment field and the problem of multiracial audiences (what newspapers called “theatre apartheid”). Conceived by Pier Luigi Nervi at the end of his glorious career, in collaboration with his son Antonio, his office and local architects Colyn & Mering, the Good Hope Centre can be considered a remarkable example of Italian design from the 1960's and 1970's. Its shape was at the same time, modern and also linked to the greatest Italian architecture of the past. The Good Hope Centre’s roof is, in fact, part of a long-lasting process of reinterpretation of the cupola, a building typology that characterized the history of Italian architecture from the Pantheon to Brunelleschi, from Michelangelo to Borromini, etc."
-A lecture by Micaela Antonucci and Gabriele Neri
Member for Economic Growth, James Vos: "This redevelopment will breathe new life into a strategically located part of the inner city, protect our heritage, unlock investment, and generate jobs." He is a well respected member of -'Mayco'- which is a Mayoral Committee in South African local government. Member for Economic Growth, James Vos (link in FURTHER READING)
