Nobel Square is a public square in the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront neighborhood of

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. It opened in December 2005 and includes sculptures of the country's four

Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...

winners, Albert Lutuli, Desmond Tutu,

F. W. de Klerk Frederik Willem de Klerk ( , ; 18 March 1936 – 11 November 2021) was a South African politician who served as the seventh and final state president of South Africa from 1989 to 1994 and as Deputy President of South Africa, deputy president a ...

, and

Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa f ...

. The square was the brainchild of Ebrahim Rasool, Premier of Western Cape from 2004 to 2008, and his predecessor Marthinus van Schalkwyk. Supported by the government of the Western Cape, the project was launched after consultations with Lutuli's family and the still-living Prize winners, who attended the unveiling with Lutuli's daughter and the Norwegian Ambassador to South Africa. The statues, slightly taller than the four people depicted, are arranged in a

semicircle In mathematics (and more specifically geometry), a semicircle is a one-dimensional locus of points that forms half of a circle. It is a circular arc that measures 180° (equivalently, radians, or a half-turn). It only has one line of symmetr ...

with their backs to

Table Mountain Table Mountain (; ) is a flat-topped mountain forming a prominent landmark overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa. It is a significant tourist attraction, with many visitors using the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway, cableway or hik ...

. Quotes of each figure are inscribed on the ground in front of them. A fifth sculpture, entitled "Peace and Democracy," represents the role of women and children in the anti-apartheid movement. All four sculptures are

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

and stand on a 386-m²

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

surface. A competition invited ten artists from around South Africa to submit proposals, with Claudette Schreuders's entry inspiring the four sculptures of Nobel winners and Noria Mabasa's idea selected for "Peace and Democracy."

References

{{coord , -33.906583, 18.419722, display=title Statues in Cape Town Squares in South Africa Outdoor sculptures in Cape Town