Considerations as to personal and group identity seem to be everywhere these days, in the national
news, in the latest pop/rap video and with respect to the very clothes that we choose to wear.
Significantly, in post-apartheid South Africa, topical questions of ‘identity’ are driven from the
racial politics of our past, and are mobilised toward our need to symbolise a new inclusive space of
belonging. This paper looks at ways of representing and re-imagining collective identities through
architectural design – that is design as process and product alike. The paper opens by introducing our
political and social context before moving to consider more theoretical questions of subjectivity and
of collective identity. Where after, the paper considers how architecture might contribute to questions
of identity via three related lines of enquiry: 1) democratic judgement and creative process; 2) public
space, both political and architectural; 3) and lastly, tectonic materiality and cultural memory. In so
doing, the paper develops its discussion in dialogue with the work – amongst others – of Hannah
Arendt, Paul Ricoeur and Couze Venn.
Dit wil voorkom of persoonlike en groepsidentiteit deesdae oral is: in die nasionale nuus, in the
nuuste pop/rap videos en in terme van die klere wat ons kies om te dra. Baie belangrik is die aktuele
vraag oor ‘identiteit’, wat aangepor word deur die radikale politiek van ons verlede en ingespan
word om ons behoefte om ‘n nuwe ruimtelikheid van behoort, te simboliseer. Hierdie artikel kyk
na wyses waarop kollektiewe identiteite uitgebeeld en heruitgebeel work deur middel van ontwerp
in argitektuur – dit is, terselfdertyd ontwerp as proses en produk. Die artikel spring weg met ‘n
inleiding oor ons politieke en sosiale konteks voordat die fokus verskuif word na teoretiese vrae
oor subjektiwiteit van die gemeenskaplike. Daarna beskou die artikel hoe argitektuur moontlik ‘n
bydrae lewer tot vraestukke oor identiteit deur na drie verwante rigtings van ondersoek te verwys: 1)
demokratiese oordeel en die kreatiewe proses; 2) publieke ruimte, beide polities en argitektonies; 3)
and laastens, tektoniese materialiteit en kulturele onthou. Deur dit te doen, ontwikkel die artikel ‘n
bespreking in dialoog met onder meer die werk van Hannah Arendt, Paul Ricoeur en Couze Venn
