Pretoria_ Union Buildings

Situated on Meintjeskop in Pretoria, South Africa, the Union Buildings is the official seat of government, and home to the offices of the President of South Africa. The Draft Act of Union of 1909 envisaged Cape Town as the seat of Parliament, and Pretoria as the administrative center (Britannica, 2022). It was for this purpose that the precinct was conceived. 

Designed by Sir Herbert Baker and completed in 1913, the architectural masterpiece consists of a semi-circle design with two wings at either side. These wings represent the union of the then divided English and the Afrikaners (SAHO, 2022).

​​​​​On 9 August 1956 the precinct played host to an Apartheid-laws protest by the Federation of South African Women. It was led by South African anti-apartheid activists, Helen Joseph, Sophia Williams de Bruyn, Lillian Ngoyi and Rahima Moosa, with approximately 20 000 women of all races, chanting "Wathint' Abafazi, wathint' imbokodo!" translated to "strike the women, strike the rock". The women undertook a procession to the Union Buildings to hand over a memorandum to JG Strijdom, the then Prime Minister of South Africa (SAHO, 2022).

On 10 May 1994, the inauguration of Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first democratically elected president after the end of Apartheid, took place at the Union Buildings, which was viewed as the seat of political power. The inauguration proclaimed the beginning of a new Democratic era in South as well as the sealing of the international community‘s acceptance (TPY, 2022).

https://www.britannica.com/event/South-Africa-Act

https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/union-buildings-pretoria

https://tpy.nelsonmandela.org/pages/part-i-democratic-breakthrough/setting-the-agenda/inauguration