Summer
Show
2022
Show
2022
24
November
18:00 SAST
November
18:00 SAST
Museum of Perses
An Atlas of the Phantom of the Gold Rush
Suhail Bhyat
BArch Hons 2022
Supervisors:
Unit Leader: Craig McClenaghan
Unit Tutor: Ruby Mungoshi
Unit Assistant: Azraa Gabru
UNIT 21
Phantom Cartographies
Johannesburg is widely known as The City of Gold. It is also widely known as one of the most toxic cities. The result of the intense extraction of gold is a scarred landscape of solids and voids.
This project investigates two sites in Turffontein in the south of Johannesburg. Site A, a mine tailing and 75 meters below it an abandoned tunnel becomes the site of an unconventional museum that takes viewers from surface to the underground. Using a sequence of mirrors, the museum casts a light on the tunnel becoming a window into a past world. Site B is a mine dump: the result of the vast network. The toxic soil, left over from the mining era is now the base for garbage disposal.
Focusing on materiality, the project proposes a new building material consisting of the soil of the mine dumps as an alternative means of rejuvenating the mine dumps around Johannesburg.
This project investigates two sites in Turffontein in the south of Johannesburg. Site A, a mine tailing and 75 meters below it an abandoned tunnel becomes the site of an unconventional museum that takes viewers from surface to the underground. Using a sequence of mirrors, the museum casts a light on the tunnel becoming a window into a past world. Site B is a mine dump: the result of the vast network. The toxic soil, left over from the mining era is now the base for garbage disposal.
Focusing on materiality, the project proposes a new building material consisting of the soil of the mine dumps as an alternative means of rejuvenating the mine dumps around Johannesburg.
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