VIRTUAL ISTANBUL HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

This research explores how Johannesburg’s Art Deco buildings, built between the 1920s and 1940s, continue to shape South Africa’s urban heritage after Apartheid. It focuses on blue heritage plaques in the Central Business District, exploring their spatial and graphic marks from the colonial era. These buildings act as architectural palimpsests, embedding imperial ideologies through geometric friezes, motifs, and typography, while also allowing for post-colonial reinterpretation. The research introduces the concept of urban graphic heritage which includes signage, lettering, murals, and inscriptions that communicate the city’s historical, cultural, and political stories. Using an exploratory approach that applies narrative, semiotic, and visual analysis alongside Zeisel’s methodology of observing physical traces in the urban environment, the research systematically documents and interprets these graphic remnants. This approach reveals how spatial and graphic expressions of care, control, and civic identity were historically inscribed into Johannesburg’s architectural forms and how these continue to influence contemporary engagements with the urban heritage environment. Furthermore, it advances the concept of urban graphic heritage as a critical lens through which to understand how imperial ideologies remain materially and symbolically embedded in the city’s urban landscape. It highlights the enduring presence of colonial power structures in the visual language of the urban environment while highlighting how these structures are being actively reinterpreted in post-apartheid heritage discourse. By revealing the intertwined narratives of empire, resistance, and transformation, the research contributes to broader efforts to decolonise heritage interpretation and promote more inclusive spatial histories in post-colonial cities.