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Sir Herbert Baker
was appointed
as the
architect of this 275m long building and had it
built in the English monumental style from light
sandstone.
Meintjies Kop was chosen as the site for his
design which was inspired by the Acropolis of
Athens. This site was a disused quarry and the
existing excavations were used to create the
amphitheatre.
The design consisted of two identical wings,
joined by a semicircular colonnade forming the
backdrop of the amphitheatre. The colonnade was
terminated on either side by a tower.
Each wing had a basement and three floors above
ground. The interiors were created in the Cape Dutch
Style with carved teak fanlights, heavy doors, dark
ceiling beams contrasting with white plaster walls
and heavy wood furniture.
Baker
used indigenous materials as far as possible. The
granite was quarried on site while Buiskop sandstone
was used for the courtyards. Stinkwood and Rhodesian
teak were used for timber and wood panelling. The
roof tiles and quarry tiles for the floors were made
in Vereeniging.
The Union Buildings, which was completed in 1913,
has an illustrious past, being built to commemorate the
unification of South Africa under British rule. The
two wings at the sides represent the Boerish
(Afrikaans) and the English part of the population.
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The Union Buildings name comes from the time of the Union
of South African, which was only changed in 1961 to
the current name, the Republic of South Africa.
Andries Francois du Toit (1813-1883) was the
original owner of the land on which the Union
Buildings were built. He was also Pretoria’s first
magistrate and was responsible for the layout of the
city. He sold his land, called Arcadia, to Stephanus
Jacobus Meintjies (1819-1887), after whom the hill
is named.
Pretoria
Station,
South Africa House in London's Trafalgar
Square and Rhodes House in Oxford were also designed by
Herbert Baker, as well
as numerous houses in the Johannesburg suburb of
Park Town.
In May 1994 the Union Buildings were chosen as
the place where South Africa's first
democratically-elected president, Nelson Mandela,
was inaugurated.
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