Inherit value : POPUP skills training centre, Salvokop

Abstract

This dissertation responds to the problem that intervention on historical architecture generally represents a loss of value to the existing building and new programme. It investigates the relationship between the alteration of historical architecture and the introduction of new intervention which reflects current users, time and programme through cultural production. Historical architecture is static and rejects the notion of change. Interior design opts to alter the existing to ensure new inhabitation in changing times. Cultural production is the process by which products are designed to relate intrinsically to their user group culture and identity. The study links all three factors through the design of the People’s Upliftment Programme skills training centre in Salvokop (2011 POPUP), in a building which was constructed in 1909 as the chief engineer’s office (1909 CEO) for Pretoria’s railway line. The project seeks to identify a balance between retaining the identity and character of the existing (“historical ideal”), and explicitly reflecting the energy of the skills learners and skills training programmes which have subsequently occupied the building.