Turnhalle (Windhoek)

Built during the era of Imperial Germany's colonisation of South West Africa, it has been through a variety of uses, most prominently as the venue for the 1975–1977 Turnhalle Constitutional Conference, an attempt to quell armed resistance waged by the People's Liberation Army of Namibia against South African occupation.

The Turnhalle housed the Tribunal court of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) until disbandment in 2012.

Soon after the foundation of modern Windhoek in October 1890, a posh suburb developed on the slope of the hill opposite the city's railway station.

The first Turners club, a German gymnastics association influenced by the suggestions of Turnvater Jahn, was founded in 1899.

After Namibian independence in 1990, the Turnhalle was used as a conference venue, and for the National Council of Namibia, until that body moved to Tintenpalast.

[7] From 2005 to 2012 the SADC Tribunal, the highest policy institution of the Southern African Development Community, was housed in the Turnhalle building in Windhoek.

On 18 November 2005 the Tribunal was inaugurated and the members were sworn in by Peter Shivute, Chief Justice of Namibia of the Namibian Supreme Court.

[10] In one of its first cases, Mike Campbell (Pvt) Ltd and Others v Republic of Zimbabwe[11] the Tribunal ruled in 2007 and 2008 that the government of Zimbabwe could not evict farmer Mike Campbell from his land, and that farm seizures per Amendment 17 of the Zimbabwean constitution amounted to de facto discrimination against her white citizens.