Independence Memorial Museum, History museum in Windhoek, Namibia.
The Independence Memorial Museum is a five-story triangular glass building on Robert Mugabe Avenue in Windhoek, planned with four equal walls of 40 metres reaching at least 40 metres in height. Its facade of light rectangular panels is flanked by dark vertical towers edged with round porthole-like openings, and a glass-fronted elevator stands at the front. A bronze statue of Sam Nujoma holding the Constitution of Namibia stands on a stone-block pedestal before broad stone steps.
The museum was inaugurated on 20 March 2014 by President Hifikepunye Pohamba, the 24th anniversary of independence. Planning began for a 2010 opening, but the date slipped repeatedly; the facade was finished in August 2011. It was built on the site of the Reiterdenkmal equestrian statue, removed in 2013 and relocated to the Alte Feste courtyard.
The site is known in Otjiherero as Orumbo rua Katjombondi, "a place of horror". In 2011 the opposition party SWANU proposed renaming the museum "Genocide Remembrance Centre", a motion that failed on procedural grounds. The fourth-floor restaurant, NIMMS, displays and sells Namibian ornaments, clothing and books.
The museum is centrally located in Windhoek and easy to reach on foot from most parts of the city center. A visit generally takes one to two hours, though those with a strong interest in the subject may want to allow more time.
The building was designed by a North Korean architecture firm, which gives it a look rarely seen in southern Africa. It stands directly between two German colonial-era buildings from the early 20th century, placing very different chapters of history side by side.
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