On a Saturday in mid October 2015, a group of Johannesburg Heritage Foundation members gathered in Rissik Street in front of what older Johannesburg citizens knew as the Johannesburg City Hall. Today the building is the Gauteng Legislature. We met on the City Hall steps, standing on what was once the historic market square, laid out in Johannesburg in 1886. It is a space that has seen vast transformations, buildings have come and gone, ideas about city centre layouts have altered. Once the Market Square was the heart of the City and had the distinction of being the largest market square in South Africa. It was the place of commerce, an actual market, ox wagons carrying farm produce outspanned here.
An old postcard of Johannesburg's Market Square
In my lifetime the City Hall Steps was the space for pigeons and protests, evangelists thundering forth from the Rissik Street frontage, in the shadow of the solid sandstone walls. This was the point where royalty and dignitaries given a proper civic welcome by the mayor. I grew up in Johannesburg and for me the City Hall was the most important, overwhelmingly impressive building in the city. It is a place and space filled with memories of a lifetime. The location of the City Hall in the space bounded by Rissik, Albertina Sisulu (Market), Helen Joseph (President) and Simmonds Streets.
[[{"fid":"541","view_mode":"media_adaptive","fields":{"format":"media_adaptive","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Gauteng Legislature - Main Facade...
