Abstract:
White settlement in the Pretoria region started in 1855, and this small market town on
the periphery of the British Empire played an increasingly important role in South
African politics as the capital of the Transvaal Republic and then as the administrative
capital of the entire country after 1910. As the site of significant structures such as the
Union Buildings and the Voortrekker Monument, for many years Pretoria symbolised
apartheid rule and bureaucracy. Pretoria has therefore generally been seen as a
conservative seat of power with strong Afrikaner affiliations. Moreover, although it
housed many significant industries such as Iscor, Pretoria never attained the status of
industry and commerce usually accorded Johannesburg. This article investigates some
of the ways in which Pretoria was represented as both the attractive ‘Jacaranda city’
and as the seat of monolithic power and government in the pre-1994 years. Postcards
are commonly produced for tourists and the so-called leisure class, but also serve to
foster civic pride and ownership for the residents of cities. Postcards have helped to
construct Pretoria’s identity by means of practices of representation than either select
and showcase, or ignore and elide certain aspects of the city and its peoples. Despite
small shifts in the visual language by which Pretoria has been represented, many postapartheid
postcards perpetuate the clichés and fail to reflect the ‘reality’ of the city.
