ABSTRACT
In the 1960s white nationalist consciousness was reaching new aggressive heights for Afrikaners beginning to attain economic and social advancement. Pretoria was a capital eager to demonstrate its modernity and confidence to the nation and world. Early apartheid state buildings in the capital became the most iconic visible manifestations of the commanding power of the Nationalists. Architecture had more than symbolic value representing as it did the vast ambitions and attempt at total administrative control of the growing bureaucratic state. It played a role in reaching these ambitions as a will to nationhood that was all consuming and politically expedient. Evolving expressions of Afrikaner cultural nationalism and identity were evident as a new generation of architects took up the challenge of finding form to their beliefs and aspirations. Rather than confining themselves to a colonial heritage or rural Afrikaner traditions, architects embraced the International Style that had sprouted across the globe with the technologies of the steel and glass curtain wall of economic efficiency well suited to expansion and opportunism under capitalism.
