Museum
Iziko Bo-Kaap Museum
Eighteenth-century Cape Dutch house with a curved Baroque gable, restored as a museum of Cape Malay life.
0:00≈ 2 min
Location
0:00≈ 2 min
About this audio guide
This guide to the Iziko Bo-Kaap Museum in Cape Town traces an eighteenth-century Cape Dutch house built by enslaved and free Muslim craftsmen whose names rarely made it into the property records, sealed against Cape Town's rain with a paste of whale oil and molasses. It follows the swooping Baroque gable and split boenonder door that mark its facade, and the 1970s restoration that stripped away later additions to bring back yellowwood floors and Kaapse klippe cobblestones. Look up at that gable, a shape reworked here by builders who had never seen Amsterdam.
This audio guide was created using AI.