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South Africa Travel + Tourism Guide: The Peterson Memorial Museum, Soweto

The Peterson Memorial Museum: A symbol of courage

Jenny Hunter Blair

A turning point in South African history happened on the 16 June 1976.

A 12 year old schoolboy was shot by the police. His name was Hector Peterson. Another 350 Sowetan youths shared the same fate. While 15,000 of them fled, their homemade banners discarded.

The Hector Peterson Memorial Museum in Soweto, outside Johannesburg, was built in memory of the slain children. The museum was named after the first youth shot dead.

Initially architects Mashabane Rose bought the land, closed some of the roads and built the museum next to the existing square at a cost of R24 million.

Photographer Sam Mzina took a heart-wrenching photo of a young boy- bleeding profusely in someone's arms. It moved the nation. The boy was Hector Peterson. He became a youth symbol for the struggle.

He was shot 600m from the site of the museum – on the corner of Vilakazi street and Orlando High School in Soweto. The museum was sited to overlook the square, and gestures towards the busy taxi route and shooting site.

The connection of the shooting site and the site of the museum is emphasised by a 'line of indigenous grass' which scythes across the landscaped memorial precinct. This continues as an avenue of trees right up to the shooting site.

© Thomas Macmillan
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

A slate stone wall reinforces the link. The enormity of the wall and relentless formality is suggestive of apartheid's brutality. Each slate stone is a reminder of each apartheid victim.

"The building is very monumental from the exterior but different inside. The black slate on the outside walls, the tar, the pavements, the surface around the museum, represents the colour of the people in the area," says architect Jeremy Rose.

The planes and angles meet in a modernist design with flat refined lines. The exterior shape is a direct consequence of the narrative. Red face brick with flush joints and carefully located expansion, were used to match the texture and colour of the small red brick Sowetan houses – which surround the square.

The contextual building is a legacy to the deep impact that the Sowetan students' protest had on South Africa.

Both the memorial stone - an engraved red granite stone, a symbol of the courage of the youth, and a memorial to the dead students - and the square forms an integral part of the design of the museum.

The route through the museum spirals around a central void – empty and austere – remembering the missing and untold stories and the many individuals affected by apartheid. The clean lines allow the story to unfold.

The only source of colour in the building is the red oxide roof sheeting that dominates the landscape.

Nelson Mandela opened the museum on the 16 June 2002. The anniversary of Peterson's death, and the others who died with him.

Hours:

Mon-Sat: 10am to 5pm
Sun: 10am to 4pm

Hector Peterson Memorial Museum
8288 Maseko Street
Orlando West
Tel: (011) 536 0611

#Note - alternative spellings of Hector's surname are Pieterson and Petersen.

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