Ou Raadsaal Ou Raadsaal The Ou Raadsaal (English: "Old Council Hall") is a historic building in Pretoria, South Africa, located on the south side of Church Square. The Ou Raadsaal housed the Volksraad, the parliament of the South African Republic, from 1891 to 1902. The Ou Raadsaal was commissioned in the late 19th century by the South African Republic as the new seat of government in Pretoria, and was designed by Dutch architect Sytze Wierda in a Renaissance Revival style. The contract for construction was granted to John Johnstone Kirkness, a builder from the Orkney Islands with a prolific building career in
Ou (ligature) Ou (ligature) Ou (Majuscule: , Minuscule: ) is a ligature of the Greek letters ο and υ which was frequently used in Byzantine manuscripts. This ligature is still seen today on icon artwork in Greek Orthodox churches, and sometimes in graffiti or other forms of informal or decorative writing. The ligature is now mostly used in the context of the Latin alphabet, interpreted as a ligature of Latin o and u: for example, in the orthography of the Wyandot language and of Algonquian languages of Western Abenaki to represent , and in Algonquin to represent , or . Today, in