Brian Latouf

Human existence is rapidly becoming digitalized - code and computers are ubiquitous in our everyday lives. Digital and virtual technologies are redefining how we work, live and, more specifically, create. With exponential global growth of digital art, culture, and entertainment industries - Africa is being left behind. The continent’s inability to take advantage of the industry’s tremendous potential results from unequal access to technology and a lack of infrastructure.

For Johannesburg to benefit from the socio-economic benefits of African representation in the digital creative realm, its residents need to be empowered and provided with the necessary tools to capitalize on the digital “renaissance”. Johannesburg has an extensive history of disconnection, whether through apartheid spatial planning, segregation, discrimination, or the current inequality, poverty, and lackluster infrastructure. This project seeks to rectify some of the injustices of the past by establishing a center for developing and innovating the future of Africa’s vibrant and diverse creative communities - and connecting them to the world.

The program occupies and extends the Old Park Station in Newtown and reinforces the ambition of connecting the city to the digital future. Newtown is Johannesburg’s proclaimed cultural precinct and has long been an epicenter for traditional arts, culture, and entertainment. It has a history of both extreme exclusion as well as unparalleled inclusion. In recent years, however, Newtown has been undergoing an identity crisis and losing its grip on its cultural importance. These conditions place the aspiring cultural precinct as the prime location for this project, which aims to redefine arts, culture, and entertainment in the digital era while bringing purpose back to the cultural precinct in reaching its goals of being at the forefront of Africa’s creative industry.