Overview
    Identifiers
    Inventory Number
    2627BB9
    Site Name
    Nelson and Winnie Mandela House, Ngakane Street, Orlando West, Soweto, Johannesburg
    Site Category
    Record Administration
    Author
    sahrisprojectmanager
    Last modified
    Thursday, May 2, 2024 - 16:43
    Archaeology Recordings
    Identifiers
    Inventory Reference
    Recording date
    Primary?
    Yes
    Built Environment Recordings
    Identifiers
    Inventory Reference
    Primary?
    Yes
    Classifications
    Building type
    Associated People
    History of use
      Location
      Location
      Mapping
      -26.238531, 27.908806
      Gauteng
      • City of Johannesburg
      Land Parcel Details
      Type of land parcel
      Street Address
      Land Parcel Reference
      Ngakane Street
      Orlando West
      Soweto
      Administration of Protections
      Administration Description

      Date: 2021-05-07
      Approved for Grade 1 Status
      Action Status: Accepted
      Site Action: Grading

      Grading
      Grading
      Grade I
      Grading Date
      GradingComment

      Grading by: South African Heritage Resources Agency

      Statement of Significance

      Nelson and Winnie Mandela House (Mandela House) has strong ties to the anti-apartheid activists of Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela but the house in itself carries weight as a site and symbol of an issue that has continuously come to plague South Africa, the housing crisis. The creation of the township Soweto was to accommodate the growing urban community within Johannesburg. With a history of land dispossession and Acts that were established to control the movement of Black people, colonialism and apartheid created a problem in which populations moving to urban areas were confronted with the issue of lack of housing: At the height of the influx of African workers to the cities in 1944, the state did not build any houses for Africans, causing a severe national housing crisis that was most concentrated on the Reef, the area, stretching west and east from Johannesburg, where goldbearing rock was discovered at the end of the nineteenth century. The houses that the State did deliver were not decent housing: It was threaded through by dusty, unpaved roads along which were erected monotonous ranks of identical, small, temporary, single storey “matchbox” houses (predominantly between 40m² and 44m² in size) lit by candles and oil lamps, where cooking was done on paraffin and coal stoves.10 South Africa has a long history of land dispossession but under apartheid, particularly the Group Areas Act and influx control, the urban landscape came to be racialized and the only group offered security were Whites. Therefore, Mandela House stands as a testament to the present day need to look at the spatial geography of apartheid that still exists in South Africa’s urban areas as well as the delivery of not only housing but decent housing that does not bring back memories of the ‘match box’ house. The housing crisis however is not only limited to South Africa but to the world at large as it continues to come to terms with globalization and urbanization. The Mandela House therefore as a site that was built to address the need for housing in Johannesburg 1930s bring up an international question of the value of a house. The Mandela House does also raise the opportunity and exploration of township tourism and the value that it can add back to communities.

      Grading
      Grade II
      GradingComment

      archiveimport Grading by: South African Heritage Resources Agency

      Declaration
      DeclarationName
      Declaration Type
      Declaration Description

      The property together with the former house of President Mandela, now known as "Mandela House", being Erf 8115, Orlando West Township, Registration Division IQ, Gauteng, in extent 394 (three hundred and ninety-four) square metres.
      Deed of Transfer T2562/1998, dated 19 January 1998.

      Gazette Date
      Gazette Number
      19719
      Notice Date
      Notice Number
      126
      Archive Status
      National monument
      Media
      Images uploaded directly to Site
      Images uploaded to linked Site Recordings