Johannesburg City Hall Complex (1912-14)

This guide to Johannesburg City Hall opens on its bomb-scarred front steps, damaged in a 1988 explosion at the height of apartheid-era violence. It traces the hall's construction between 1912 and 1914, and the decades its steps served as the city's real stage: evangelists preaching, pigeons gathering, and the Black Sash women holding silent vigils against apartheid law through the 1950s and 60s. You'll also hear about the organ inside, once billed as the largest on the African continent.