Mandela Rhodes Building, Early 20th-century architectural building in City Bowl, Cape Town, South Africa.
The Mandela Rhodes Building occupies a corner plot at the junction of St George's Mall and Wale Street in Cape Town's City Bowl, near St George's Cathedral. Herbert Baker's 1903 design uses Cape Dutch Revival forms, and the facade is clad in granite quarried on Table Mountain.
Herbert Baker designed the building, completed in 1903, as the headquarters of the newly founded De Beers mining company; it was then called Rhodes House after Cecil John Rhodes. In 2003 De Beers chairman Nicky Oppenheimer gave it to the Mandela Rhodes Foundation, which made it its seat and gave it its present name.
The building has been the headquarters of the Mandela Rhodes Foundation since 2003, when Nicky Oppenheimer, then De Beers chairperson, donated it. The foundation runs the Mandela Rhodes Scholarship for postgraduate study in South Africa. The name pairs Nelson Mandela with Cecil John Rhodes, after whom the building was first called Rhodes House.
The building occupies a corner lot at the junction of St George's Mall and Wale Street in the City Bowl, near St George's Cathedral. St George's Mall is a pedestrian route, so the corner is reached on foot rather than by car. The granite cladding comes from Table Mountain.
The granite cladding comes from Table Mountain, tying the 1903 building to the city's geology. The Italian Wikipedia article notes this detail, which visitors can spot in the stone facing at the corner of St George's Mall and Wale Street.
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