A City Imagined

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the re-conceptualization of Pretoria Central Business District (CBD), grounding the hypothesis within Paul Kruger Street. The author aims to provide a newfound approach to this historical connection, transforming the interpretative experience of the urban environment as a stage from where the city operates as a place of fantasy, covet, and imagination. The project will demonstrate how the inception of a Virtual Landscape can renew perceptions of the city and pave the way towards a new paradigm. Grounding the Virtual Landscape within a real world scenario, the final phase of the dissertation aims to position this ideology of the imagined landscape within a real world context. The Virtual Landscape aims to inform the grounded design proposal, adding to the experience of place and time. The user’s understanding of place cannot be separated from time. The motivation behind the dissertation exists as a critique on the city of Pretoria, where the in situ experience of place is thin, and the experience is swiftly forgotten. The findings from the investigation of the Virtual Landscape constructed the hypothesis as a contributor to the thickening of the place that extends beyond the veneer. The research question originates from the theory of the Virtual Landscape, questioning whether this theory can be applied within contemporary landscape architecture design. The hypothesis is introduced on five sites in Pretoria on a framework level as representations of the Virtual Landscape. One site is selected and tested against the process of the Virtual Landscape from its influences, the Virtual Landscape, representations of the Virtual Landscape and the material landscape (design proposal). The final stage of the dissertation investigates the technical resolution of the design proposal.