Square in Pretoria
Description:
100x100mm cardboard squares of the inner city of Pretoria around Church Square
The Nolli map of the inner city was later cut into nine different squares – set next to each other, to make up Church Square and Stanza Bopape and WF Nkomo Streets on either side.
Story behind the squares:
Take your square of the city home…we love the urban topography around the inner city – and hope that our series of products will inspire you to re-imagine and rediscover the magic of the inner city. This series “Square Pretoria” could be coasters or small artworks. They depict the area around Church Square. View our blog soon for more information on this series.
For those of you wanting a bit of bed-time reading :):
Church Street, now Stanza Bopape Street (east) and WF Nkomo Street (west), is approximately 12km long. One section is considered to be the longest straight street in South Africa. The streets in the centre of Pretoria are wider than other streets – so as to allow an oxwagon with a full span of 16 oxen to make a U-turn if necessary!
The idea of a grid as a system for planning can be traced back to the Ancient Romans. When the Romans set out to build a new city in a land that they had conquered, they would typically start out with a strategic center point from which they would establish two main roads, a Cardo (North- South) and a Decumanus (East West). These two streets served as the main two streets that would then expand into a grid. The Pretoria grid was apparently based on the grid used in the Karoo town of Graaff Reinet, both originating in the Roman colonial urban system to create place through order in nature. However, unlike the Roman idea of conquering the landscape, the grid adapts to the Apies River, so that Pretoria is a city in nature.
Unit Price:
R45 for one, or R135 for three, for the whole street, R400