Reconnecting Through Heritage: Supporting the Matjieshut Project, South Africa
As part of the project Investigation on the First Indigenous Peoples of South Africa’s Built Environment and Dwellings in Baviaanskloof , the Endangered Wooden Architecture Programme (EWAP) was pleased to support the construction of a Matjieshut at Nelson Mandela University. The Matjieshut is the traditional dwelling of the First Peoples and the oldest form of vernacular architecture in South Africa. These dwellings are still in use only in limited part of South Africa, and the knowledge of how to build them is rapidly disappearing. This decline is the result of a long history of segregation and repression that began with the arrival of settler colonists in South Africa. This initiative builds on the wider research into First Nation dwellings led by Associate Professor Magda Minguzzi, in coordination with Gaos (Chief) Margaret Coetzee of the Inqua People, documenting one of South Africa’s most endangered architectural traditions. Leaders of the First Indigenous Peoples during t...
