By Daily Maverick,
Heres a significant vote of confidence in Johannesburg: Wits is investing R341-million in a new cultural precinct designed to open the university to the city and help breathe new life into Braamfontein.The Wits Cultural Precinct will be developed over five years.
It will transform the universitys southeastern edge into an arts, culture and lifestyle hub, linking Wits more directly to the surrounding city.It will integrate the Wits Art Museum, Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts, the beautiful Chris Seabrooke Music Hall, a state-of-the-art Digital Arts building and expanded facilities for the Wits School of Arts.
Later phases envisage consolidated music facilities – potentially including a home for a symphony orchestra – new exhibition spaces, fine arts facilities and an expanded Wits Theatre complex.But its not intended to feel like another closed university campus.
Restaurants, coffee shops, bookshops and public spaces are part of the plan, creating a destination that will draw Joburgers into an area of Braamfontein desperately in need of investment and footfall.
The majority of the estimated cost will be funded through a donation of shares by Wits alumnus and Sabvest CEO Chris Seabrooke, with Wits contributing the balance.Wits Cultural Precinct Artist Impression. (Photo: Supplied)The arts have an extraordinary ability to bring people together and to change the character of a place, says Seabrooke.
Our hope is that this investment will enable Wits to create a precinct that belongs not only to its students, staff and academics, but to Johannesburg.Wits Vice-Chancellor Zeblon Vilakazi says the university sees its fortunes as inseparable from those of Joburg.We cannot separate the future of the university from the future of this city, he says.
The cultural precinct is about opening Wits to Johannesburg.The precinct will sit within an existing cultural arc stretching through the Joburg Theatre, Market Theatre, Sci-Bono, Tshimologong and Constitution Hill.In a city accustomed to stories of decline and disinvestment, R341-million going into culture, public life and Braamfontein is news worth celebrating.
The Wits Cultural Precinct will be developed over five years. (Photo: Chanté Schatz)
