How International Style Modernism Came to Dominate in Apartheid Architecture in 1960s South Africa

A review of Hilton Judin, Architecture, State Modernism and Cultural Nationalism in the Apartheid Capital, part of the Architext series, edited by Thomas A. Markus and Anthony D. King, London: Routledge, 2021, 244 pages (ISBN: 978-0-36751-944-5). Judin's book captures a significant moment in South Africa's architectural history: the building boom that accompanied the economic surge of the 1960s. He explores how International Style modernism was harnessed in the design of monumental state buildings in Pretoria, the country's administrative capital and the heartland of Afrikaner nationalism, while simultaneously being used to corral Black residents into segregated dormitory townships on the city's periphery.