Nobel Square for SA's laureates
Karen Pretorius
9 March 2004
The Nobel Square Project at Cape Town's V&A; Waterfront is on track, with statues of South Africa's four Nobel peace laureates - Chief Albert Luthuli, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk - due to be unveiled on Reconciliation Day, 16 December 2004.
Ten sculptors from around the country have been recommended to the Nobel Square Project Committee - tasked with working on the design of the sculptures and the layout of the surrounding area - and were on site in Cape Town last week for a briefing session.
The artists have to submit their proposals by 7 April, with the winning proposal due to be announced at the end of April.
The Western Cape provincial government has set aside R4.4-million for the project, including funding for public consultation and the launch event.
Project leader Frank Kilbourn said the committee was looking for something that embodied peace, "the central theme that brought all of the laureates
together".
Addressing the media on Friday, Western Cape Premier Marthinus van Schalkwyk said the Nobel Square was a national project, located in the Western Cape, with the potential to make a lasting contribution to reconciliation and nation-building in the country - and to become a major tourist attraction.
Nelson Mandela, speaking at the launch of the project in December, described the Nobel Square as a gesture celebrating and promoting reconciliation. "We need to celebrate ourselves and our achievement as often as we can", said Mandela, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with FW de Klerk in 1993.
Tutu, the 1984 recipient, said at the launch that the real heroes of South Africa were the so-called ordinary people. "What happens here is not a tribute to the four of us, but to the people of South Africa", Tutu said.
Also present at the launch was Albertina Luthuli, the daughter of the country's first Nobel laureate, the late Chief Albert Luthuli. Luthuli was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960, but due to the situation in the country he could only travel to Norway the following year to receive it.
"How he would have loved to have lived to vote and witness the birth of the new South Africa in 1994", Luthuli said.
De Klerk, like his fellow laureates, said credit should go to those they represented. "May this monument remind us to be aware that the new South Africa has given us something precious", De Klerk said.
The project has the blessing of the Nobel Institute in Norway.
The Nobel Prize, established in 1901 by Alfred Nobel, is awarded annually and recognises excellence and contributions in the five categories of peace, literature, physics, chemistry and medicine.
Source: BuaNews
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