At a glance

Type

Public non-profit contemporary art museum

Period

Grain silo built 1921; converted and opened as museum 2017

Style

Industrial adaptive reuse; Thomas Heatherwick Studio conversion

Location

Silo District, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town · 33.9084° S, 18.4204° E

Overview

Zeitz MOCAA opened in 2017 as the largest dedicated museum of contemporary African art in the world, filling a long-perceived gap in the global museum landscape. The museum is housed in the historic grain silo complex of the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, a 1921 industrial structure transformed by Thomas Heatherwick Studio through the insertion of a dramatic atrium formed by cutting tubular voids through the silo tubes. The V&A Waterfront receives around 24 million local and international visitors per year, making Zeitz MOCAA one of the most accessible major art institutions on the continent.

History

The grain elevator silo complex at the V&A Waterfront was built in 1921 and served Cape Town’s harbour grain trade for decades before falling out of use. In 2013 the V&A Waterfront and Jochen Zeitz announced an agreement to convert the silos into a museum to house Zeitz’s collection of contemporary African art alongside a broader public mission. Thomas Heatherwick Studio was commissioned for the conversion, a technically complex project involving the removal of material from within the silo tubes to create gallery volumes and a cathedral-like central atrium. After four years of construction the museum opened in September 2017 to international acclaim.

What you see

The Heatherwick conversion created nine floors of gallery space distributed across 80 rooms, with the towering cylindrical atrium at the building’s heart forming one of the most architecturally striking interior spaces in Africa. The permanent collection of over 100 artists from the African continent and its diaspora spans painting, sculpture, photography, video and performance documentation. Specialist centres within the museum are dedicated to photography, film, costume and textiles, and to the work of individual artists through dedicated suites. The external silo structure with its original grain-handling machinery elements remains legible from the waterfront promenade.

Cultural significance

Zeitz MOCAA marked a turning point in the global visibility of contemporary African art, providing institutional infrastructure at scale that had not previously existed on the continent. Its combination of a world-class private collection with a public non-profit mandate and an architecturally iconic home has established Cape Town as a primary destination for the international contemporary art world. The museum’s presence in the V&A Waterfront also anchors the Silo District as a cultural quarter within one of Africa’s most visited tourist destinations.

Practical information

Address: Silo Square, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town, 8001. The museum is open daily; check the official Zeitz MOCAA website for current hours, admission prices and exhibition schedules. The rooftop hotel (The Silo Hotel) occupies the upper floors of the same complex.

Getting there

The V&A Waterfront is 3 km from Cape Town central station; MyCiTi bus route 104 connects the station to the Waterfront in under 15 minutes. City Sightseeing Red Bus and Blue Boat tours include the Waterfront as a stop. Metered parking garages are available within the Waterfront precinct. The Silo District is signposted from the main Waterfront entrance.

Sources & resources

• Wikipedia — Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa
• culturalheritageonline.com — more Cape Town heritage sites