Questioning modernity and heritage: The case of the River Club development in Cape Town, South Africa

Abstract

The proposed construction of the controversial Amazon African headquarters at the River Club site in Cape Town encompasses several issues related to modern heritage, colonial practices, sustainable development, the nature-culture divide, and the Anthropocene. Although approved by the City of Cape Town and the provincial government of the Western Cape, with plans for residential and business units, activists, researchers, environmental organizations, workers' unions, and social justice coalitions associated with indigenous Khoe and San groups oppose the development on the grounds of the symbolic and historical importance of the site earmarked for development. The paper aims to explore the significance of the site, analyze the ensuing confrontations and contestations and examine how the site represents spaces of public history, urban spatial construction, and memory. The focus of the paper will be the complex interplay between social, cultural, ethical, and political forces, and their intersection with legal and institutional policy processes at different levels of the state and the local. Ultimately, the paper challenges the claim of the City of Cape Town, the provincial government, and the developers that their version of historical progress is equitable and fair, and raises a broader question about Eurocentric ideas of emancipation, aesthetics and notions of history, heritage and development.