{"id":8262,"date":"2013-08-01T08:52:59","date_gmt":"2013-08-01T08:52:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=8262"},"modified":"2013-08-01T10:08:12","modified_gmt":"2013-08-01T10:08:12","slug":"mandela-on-table-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=8262","title":{"rendered":"Mandela on Table Mountain?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The giant green carbuncle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If today were April 1 instead of August 1, a proposal for a 60m-high monument to Nelson Mandela plastered on to the sheer cliffs of Table Mountain in Cape Town like a giant green carbuncle might be explicable and good for a laugh.<\/p>\n

\u00a0But that idea is being punted, apparently seriously, by a Dutch design firm on behalf of an obscure Rotterdam-based organisation, \u201cMandela on the bike foundation\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Concept designs for the 12-storey sculpture that includes a restaurant, conference centre and exhibition area \u2013 all in the shape of Mandela\u2019s face a-la-Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse memorial in the US \u2013 were posted on a dedicated website last month, timed to coincide with Madiba\u2019s birthday.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The proposed monument honouring Madiba \u201cwill teach next generations about the man who gave his life for justice and show his heritage\u201d, according to the design firm, WHIM Architecture.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The project team says the size of the building \u201csuits the visibility and accessibility on the mountain overlooking Cape Town and its coastline\u201d, although the sheer cliffs shown in most of their drawings do not appear to belong to Table Mountain.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The designs were also posted on a Facebook site, and on Monday the project team reported that they\u2019d received \u201ca few comments\/questions about our proposal\u201d that they wanted to respond to.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWe are thinking of a monument, that is highly visible within the city and shows the beauty of the existing city and its landscape\u2026 Of course we see the beauty of Table Mountain, and we respect this. Table Mountain should maintain its natural beauty. The sketch design is a first visualisation on how we think we can create something monumental for Nelson Mandela but also for Cape Town.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe further development of the project should be done in close collaboration with the (local) government, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the inhabitants of Cape Town.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked to comment, Table Mountain National Park manager Paddy Gordon said \u201cI nearly fell off my chair\u201d when seeing the images.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs custodians of this international iconic site, we could not even begin to consider this proposal. In terms of the mountain\u2019s legal status as a national park and World Natural Heritage Site, let alone its Natural Wonder of the World award, a development of such huge proportions would never be allowed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThough we agree that the nation owes a huge debt to Madiba and that we need to honour his contribution for generations to come, we hope to support a very different approach to achieve this. Besides, I\u2019m convinced that Madiba himself would not wish for his beloved Table Mountain to be maimed in this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille replied diplomatically via her spokesman Solly Malatsi: \u201cThe city will weigh the merits of the proposal once we\u2019ve seen it.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were mixed reactions on Facebook, with Judith Egberink commenting \u201cnice!!\u201d while Amanda van Zyl McCarthy wrote: \u201cTable Mountain is NOT Mt Rushmore!….do not even think of messing up our mountain!\u201d and Philip Zietsman said: \u201cWhat a k*k idea! Shudder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Architect and design consultant Pierre Jordaan was short and sweet with his ironic response: \u201cNice … go f&*%k up your own mountain.\u201d – IOL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If today were April 1 instead of August 1, a proposal for a 60m-high monument to Nelson Mandela plastered on to the sheer cliffs of Table Mountain in Cape Town like a giant green carbuncle might be explicable and good for a laugh. \u00a0But that idea is being punted, apparently seriously, by a Dutch design … Continue reading “Mandela on Table Mountain?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,123],"tags":[728,4581,12250,4582],"class_list":["post-8262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","category-world","tag-cape-town-university","tag-mandela-on-the-bike-foundation","tag-south-africa","tag-table-mountain"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/tablemoundela.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8262"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8284,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8262\/revisions\/8284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}