Good Hope Centre, Exhibition hall and conference center in Cape Town, South Africa.
Good Hope Centre is a defunct exhibition hall and conference centre on the corner of Sir Lowry Road and Christiaan Barnard Street in Cape Town's Foreshore. Designed by Italian engineer Pier Luigi Nervi, it has an arch with a tie-beam on each of its four vertical facades and two diagonal arches carrying two intersecting barrel-like roofs. These roofs are built from precast concrete triangular coffers with in-situ concrete beams at the edges. The hall offers 4,500 square metres of floorspace.
Designed in 1976 by Italian engineer-architect Pier Luigi Nervi, the Good Hope Centre was inaugurated in 1977; Murray and Stewart was the main contractor and KFD Wilkinson and Partners acted as local agents for Studio Nervi. Its precast concrete roof cross-vault was the largest in the world at the time of construction. The building later became defunct as business moved to the CTICC, and in 2015 it was announced it would be leased as a temporary film studio.
The building's name comes from the Cape of Good Hope, and its precast concrete cross-vault was the largest of its kind in the world when built. Since the 2010s it has barely been used as a venue and has fallen into disrepair, and in 2015 it was announced it would be leased as a temporary film studio to raise funds and boost employment.
The hall is on the corner of Sir Lowry Road and Christiaan Barnard Street in the Foreshore, near the CBD and District Six. It is a defunct venue, so it is not open for events; the City has leased it monthly and plans to redevelop the precinct. The building is listed as a Grade 3B heritage resource.
The roof's triangular coffers were cast in precast concrete, with in-situ beams along the edges; the main contractor Murray and Stewart published a postcard showing 18 tower cranes on its Cape Town sites in 1976. The building is listed as a Grade 3B heritage resource.
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