55 - SAIA

Transcription

55 - SAIA

771682 938004
JOURNAL OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS
HERITAGE
771682 938004
9
PICASSO HEADLINE
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JOURNAL OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS
ARCHITECTURE SOUTH AFRICA
JUNE/JULY 2012
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JUN|JUL
2012
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CONSERVATION/CONSERVATIVISM
Editor
Julian Cooke
julian@claarchitects.co.za
Cover Picture
Santa Rita, San Paulo
by Thorsten Deckler
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IN ARCHITECTURE, AS IN EVERY FIELD, CONSERVATION provokes controversy. On one hand, an understanding of history is absolutely
necessary to people’s individual and collective identity. How we value family
heirlooms, granny’s ring and the house where we were born! And how much
effort we put collectively to looking after the customs and places of our history
– and showing them off to outsiders! In a country where a large part of our
history has been ignored or destroyed, it is very important to dig it up, make it
visible, honour it and conserve it – for our collective identity. Even apart from
the issue of identity, there is no doubt that one of the great joys of existence is
to live among the depths of cultural history. The new may excite and fulfil a
sense of achievement, but on its own it is shallow – as any experience of a new
town will show. Accessible historical layering, with its opportunities for education, comparison and interpretation, makes for urbane living. And especially
fine things that encourage us and fascinate us with their demonstration of the
greatness of human capacity.
But conserving cultural capital does not mean being conservative about
it. Conditions change – traditional customs, needs and ways of using space
become irrelevant. Culture changes and if it is prevented from doing so, as
happens in every conservative, authoritarian regime, one of the most essential parts of being human, to be always searching for the new, the better,
the more appropriate, is stifled.
The dualism between the imperative to conserve and to change makes
every alteration to old fabric of our cities controversial. A balanced position
is essential – of which the first vital component is neutrality. The other’s
heritage is as valuable as mine; a building of a style that does not appeal,
is as important as my favourite. In the 1960s we were taught that Victorian (apart from the Crystal Palace) was eclectic and despicable, and many
fine buildings of the era were demolished. Today, Victorian is admired and
post-war New Empiricism is despised. Thus we battle with heritage officials to let us put a dormer in a 1900 roof where the architect would have
been quite happy to do so himself, but are witness to the philistine defacing/refacing of buildings such as Roy Kantorowich’s Broadway on the
Foreshore, an exemplar of the New Empiricism.
The second component is authenticity. To keep a façade intact and
entirely gut and renew the interior, is to conserve history in a meaningless way: it is to suggest that the meaning of exterior and interior are not
profoundly connected. When valuable old buildings are altered or added
to, old and new must be seen in relation to each other, in dialogue. Carlo
Scarpa got it right. He believed that many of the same questions that concerned the builders of the past remain today – it is merely the answer that
changes. His work exemplifies an effort to make a dialogue with history,
to accumulate an intimate knowledge of historical ideas and to reinterpret them in ways appropriate to our time and technology. This way, every
generation can add to the deep narrative of history in its own way, while
conserving the ways of previous generations.
EDITOR’S NOTE | JUNE/JULY 2012
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EDITOR’S NOTES
01 CONSERVATION/CONSERVATIVISM
Julian Cooke
NOTES AND NEWS
05 AN ARCHITECTURAL LINE OF THOUGHT
Basil Brink
06 LETTERS: ARCHITECTURE TODAY
Andrew Makin and Jo Noero
HERITAGE
08 HOUSE ZEEMAN, PRETORIA
Architect: Earthworld Architects
12 FREE STATE LEGISLATURE (4TH RAADZAAL),
BLOEMFONTEIN
Architect: The Roodt Partnership
Anton Roodt
18 JOHANNESBURG PUBLIC LIBRARY – PAST, PRESENT
AND FUTURE
Architect: Jonathan Stone
B Hart and KA Munro, University of the Witwatersrand
23 ST CYPRIAN’S GIRLS’ SCHOOL
Architect: Noero Wolff
Jo Noero
30 WERDMULLER CENTRE
Ilze and Heinrich Wolff
HISTORICAL/REFEREED ARTICLE
38 VOORTREKKER MONUMENT, WINBURG
Architect: Hallen & Dibb, Durban, 1964-8
Walter Peters
TECHNICAL
48 OZMIK HOUSE, PRETORIA
Jacques Laubscher
PERSPECTIVE
51 SLUMDWELLERS
Nic Coetzer
END PIECE
55 THE ‘HERITAGE EFFECT’
Noëleen Murray, University of the Western Cape
CONTENTS | JUNE/JULY 2012
CONTENTS
TREL000268_ClearG_Arch_SA.indd 1
2011/08/25 12:35 PM
BY BASIL BRINK
A RECENT RE-READING of previous issues of Architecture South Africa
uncovered Nic Coetzer’s Perspective
piece ‘Sitting on the fence’ (January/
February 2010:59), in which he asserts that an architect’s line on plan sets
things apart, and recalls walking on top
of segregating vibracrete boundary fences as a youngster. Coetzer’s perspective
on the segregating nature of an architect’s line sparked memories of my first
year in Archi School at UCT in 1970.
The late Roelof Uytenbogaardt and
Dennis Playdon (now Professor of Architecture, Temple University, Philadelphia) were our first year studio masters,
and I used to approach whoever was free
for guidance in my attempt at the design
of a camp in the Cape Peninsula’s Silvermine Nature Reserve. Both Roelof and
Dennis had Parker fountain pens. After
removing the gold cap and placing it on
the back of the pen for balance, they
would begin to draw flowing black lines
at times interspersed with regularlyspaced dots, which I came to realise
represented contours and columns. Roelof would include a conceptual section
while saying ‘...always design in plan and
in section’, making his beautiful lines,
charged with implicit meaning, easier for
a spoon-fed matriculant like me to make
sense of.
Co-inspirers of the class of ’70 were
Derek Revington (now an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario),
Shirley Blumberg (neé Katz, a founding
partner of Kuwabara, Payne, McKenna
and Blumberg Architects, Toronto), Charl
Roux (a Cape Town-based architect) and
the late Wilhelm Hahn, who taught at
Wits Archi School and the University
of Texas. However, the class (I believe
I was the only exception) thought itself
less fortunate to have Michael Rosenz-
weig (now an internationally renowned
composer, conductor and jazz musician)
along for the first-year ride. Michael did
not endear himself to his classmates
when he ‘borrowed’ their erasers or compasses without returning them during
Dean Anderson’s drawing assignments in
the studio.
Prophetically for the RDP houses
to come, Michael referred to ‘Patterns
Generated by Houses’, in counterpoint
to Christopher Alexander’s architectural ‘bible’, Houses Generated by Patterns. To the added chagrin of the class,
Michael remained unfazed by the general antipathy towards him. He played it
by ear (brilliantly on guitar), and accompanied the pennywhistles of the Kwêla
Kids on flute. Fortunately for us, Michael
did not take the Pied Piper route by
leading antagonistic architectural student ‘rats’ to the sea across the windswept Cape Flats.
Roelof singled out Michael’s threedimensional conceptual diagram of the
camp for high praise. Michael’s fettucini
of multi-coloured paper ribbons exploding out of a geometry-defying balsa wood
frame, with some of the balsa members
extending into distant space, was prescient of Deconstruction.
Wilhelm and Derek competed to
produce ever more beautiful site analysis studies – some thought these pastel
drawings to be works of art, while others (the jealous ones?) called the fruits
of their competitive production ‘analysis paralysis’. Wilhelm, who took Art
as a matric subject, introduced me to
the 1968 English edition of Paul Klee’s
1925 Pädagogisches Skizzenbuch (Pedagogical Sketchbook), one of fourteen Bauhaus
Books edited by Walter Gropius and
Laslo Moholy-Nagy.
Coetzer’s call for ‘dotty-mania’, where
architects double-check opportunities
for connections between the incrementally progressing dots forming the ‘segregating’ line, made me reach for the
Pedagogical Sketchbook. In her introduction to the book, Sybil Moholy-Nagy
amplifies Klee’s ‘Theoretical Instruction’
on the line:
‘The line, being successive dot progression,
walks, circumscribes, creates passive-blank
and active-filled planes. Line rhythm is measured like a musical score or an arithmetical
problem. Gradually, line emerges as the measure of all structural proportion, from Euclid’s
Golden Section ... to the energetic power lines
of ligaments and tendons, of water currents
and plant fibers.’ (Moholy-Nagy 1968:9)
As Roelof and Dennis did at times,
Klee takes his ‘active line on a walk,
moving freely, without a goal. A walk
for a walk’s sake. The mobility agent is
a point, shifting its position forward.’
(Klee 1968:16)
Klee accompanies his active line with
free-flowing complementary forms or
has the line circumscribing itself. Introducing the concept of the imaginary and
invisible line, Klee conceptualises an
imaginary main line with two secondary visible lines moving, oscillating and
dancing around it (Klee 1968).
Moholy-Nagy (1968:63) expands on
the ‘line in action’, which she believes
to be the beacon that guides Klee
through his adventures in seeing, in
a concluding note:
‘Line as planar definition, as mathematical proportion, as co-ordinator for the path
of motion, as optical guide, as optical reason,
as psychological balance, as energy projection, as symbol of centrifugal and centripetal
movement, as symbol of will and infinity, and
finally line as symbol of colour mutations and
kinetic harmony.’
Coetzer commenced his piece by
asserting that ‘Architects are great segregators. Each line drawn on a plan is an
NOTES AND NEWS | JUNE/JULY 2012
AN ARCHITECTURAL LINE OF THOUGHT
emphatic statement of boundary. What
is inside and what is out, what is included
and what is excluded ... Even the many
architects who tried and continue to try
... to overcome the segregated spatiality
of apartheid face the conundrum of using the segregating line as the means to
achieve this. (Coetzer 2010:59)
Should architects be called on to draw
each ‘segregating’ line with extreme caution? If they decide to abandon their
attempt to do so because this constrains
creativity, should they then guiltily or
ashamedly flagellate themselves in the
privacy of their studios? Is it not more
likely that the truly segregating line
nestles cosily on the drawings of other
built environment professionals? For
example, the railway line expressly
aligned by an engineer to form a barrier
between races then, or different income
groups now, remains an instrument of
segregation. The town planner and land
surveyor’s layout and boundary lines of
remote ‘townships’ then, or RDP housing estates now, contributed significantly
to the making of the apartheid city then
and continue to segregate now.
Coetzer’s assertion that the line sets
things apart opens up a new opportunity for architects who did the bidding of
the apartheid regime from 1948 to 1994.
They can now attempt to exonerate
themselves and regain the high ground
LETTERS: ARCHITECTURE TODAY
Andrew Makin: designworkshop : sa (see J Noero,
Architecture SA March/April 2012)
A KEY ATTRIBUTE of being alive is
change. In a lifetime, this means adaptation, responsiveness, growth and maturation. In epochs, it means evolution. Evolution is the energising potential of species
– thrilling, fuelling and focusing.
2007 was the first year that more than
50% of the world’s population lived in
cities. What’s really stunning about this
fact is that it is the first time in the history
of life, since we were amoebae perhaps,
that this has happened: it is the first time
that the majority of us live in a habitat we
have made, rather than one from which
we have evolved.
For all of life, change in habitat is a
primary driver for evolution. Things
that influence this habitat are therefore,
by accident or purpose, now primary
influencers of our evolution. This is
us. There has never been a better time
to be an urbanist and architect. The
question of education is of what kind
of habitat we think the human species
will best evolve in going forward from
this immeasurably significant moment;
which habitat will enable the progressive
ARCHI T E C T UR E | SA 6|
achievement of our infinite potential?
This potential is what makes us human.
The question of urban and architectural practice is exactly the same, but
with the opportunity and responsibility
of implementation. Every project is research into this question. Behind every
project is the question, not of what it is,
but what it will do. Its being is in the
service of its purpose.
Urban and architectural education and
practice should focus on the immense inherent intelligence accumulated over the
lifetime of life itself, and on doing what
we do, not what other people do, like advertising agencies. We are the agency of
habitat. Urbanists and architects should
only bear this name if we are experts at it.
No one else is. If we do it right, if there is
significant, measurable, meaningful and
real progress from what we do, there will
be no end to the demand for us.
RESPONSE
Jo Noero
My difference with what you say is
that you seem to confuse architectural
of political correctness by grasping their
newly discovered life-line: ‘It wasn’t me,
it was the line’s fault. As an architect,
I had no choice. I had to use the line – it
is the most useful “tool” in my “toolbox”.
The line is guilty. It sets things apart,
segregates and divides, not me. Do you
really think...’ and so on. If this excuse
fails to convince, could these architects
introduce ‘I have dotty-mania!’ as an insanity plea?
REFERENCES
Klee, P. 1968. Pedagogical Sketchbook. London:
Faber and Faber paper-covered edition.
Moholy-Nagy, S. 1968. ‘Introduction’ and ‘A
concluding note’, Pedagogical Sketchbook. London: Faber and Faber paper-covered editions.
action with political engagement. I believe that one of the greatest blunders
recently is people’s confused understanding of the limits of architectural
action. Please don’t confuse this with
supporting the idea of architecture as
neutral or of acting unethically as an
architect. Architectural ethics resides
in the nature of the brief accepted and
acted upon by the architect. Beyond
that architecture is inanimate and cannot possess either an ethical or moral
dimension. That it can possess symbolic meaning, easily lifted by the actions
of new actors on its spaces, can be seen
clearly in the Union Buildings.
I believe that you are asking too much
of architecture to take on the kinds of
roles that you ask for it and for the architect. Architecture is the art and science of
building and has natural built-in limits.
We need to recognise these limits and act
accordingly, but always within an ethical
framework of action.
The failure of modern architecture could be said to reside in the inability of most architects to know
how to make ethical decisions, which
has led to the awful cities and spaces
that we occupy in our everyday lives.
(This response
shortened.)
has
been
considerably
Architecture19_next.indd 1
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HOUSE ZEEMAN, PRETORIA
ARCHITECT EARTHWORLD ARCHITECTS
PROJECT ARCHITECT ANDRÉ EKSTEEN
Clients Daan and Liza Zeeman were charmed by this early 20th-century
Baker School residence, and even though it presented some major functional
problems, they saw the potential and immediately purchased the property.
THE PROJECT WAS to add a main
bedroom (en suite), re-design the
kitchen and add an outdoor living area.
Apart from some minor alterations
done previously, the conversion of the
old service entrance on the west into
a bathroom, and the conversion of the
garage into a guest room, the house
was in its original condition.
A major problem that presented itself
was the isolated kitchen that merely
ARCHIT E C T UR E | SA 8| 9
served as a service space in the back
of the house. It was also cold, with no
solar access. For the clients, who are
enthusiastic entertainers, this was the
complete opposite of what they regarded
as the most important requirement for
their new home. They made it very
clear that they didn’t want to change the
existing structure, as it represented all
they loved in terms of the lifestyle they
had become used to, living in an historic
home on a farm just outside Pretoria.
A subtle re-interpretation was required.
The basic scheme was to convert the
existing main bedroom into a kitchen,
and add a new main bedroom and
a veranda, which would also become
a unifying element linking the old
and new structures.
A ‘floating concrete block’ that
doesn’t touch the original structure was
added to become the main bedroom.
HERITAGE | JUNE/JULY 2012
Utilising frameless glass walls reduced
the materiality of the links of the new
work to the existing structure.
The site was sub-divided in the 1980s,
leaving little ‘breathing space’ for the
building. Corners were opened up to
enhance the link to the outside, thus
realising the latent potential of the garden
to become an extension of the home.
A timber veranda, slightly overlapping
the existing structure, is bolted to it, and
the veranda projects into the garden,
drawing in the natural landscape. The
timeless quality of the building is further
enhanced by the honest use of natural
materials. Stan-dard lengths of laminated
saligna, bolted together, minimise waste
and improve recyclability. The ‘bedroom
box’ was cast with self-compacting
concrete, which provides an extremely
smooth finish and reduces maintenance
considerably.
The subtle, and yet contemporary
intervention will enhance the timeless
quality of a beautiful structure, while
providing the much-needed existential
interface the clients required.
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FREE STATE LEGISLATURE,
BLOEMFONTEIN
BY ANTON ROODT
Ina Oosthuizen/ROODT
ARCHITECT: THE ROODT PARTNERSHIP
The fourth Raadzaal was recently comprehensively refurbished over
a 12-month period. The internal finishes were damaged by water leaks, rising
damp and, in one instance, fire. Furthermore, in order to function as the Council
Chamber of the Free State Legislature, certain adjustments were necessary that
inter alia include new air-conditioning, audio-visual equipment and furniture.
A BRIEF HISTORY
In 1882 the Volksraad of the Free State
Republic decided to advertise their intentions to erect a new Government
House, as well as a Council Chamber.
The ensuing architectural competition
drew no less than 50 entries from England, Holland, Austria, Germany and
the USA. A local architect, Francis Lennox Canning, practising in Queenstown,
won both competitions.
It was only in 1889 that the economic
climate improved to the extent that
Canning was contacted in connection
with the drawings for the proposed
new Raadzaal. The political scenario in
the Free State had changed during the
intervening period and a new President,
FW Reitz, took the place of Sir JH
Brand, who had passed away.
The surviving copies of Lennox
Canning’s drawings showed an extremely
simple plan, symmetrical along the eastwest axis. The west-facing entrance is
emphasised by a grand portico leading
into a centrally placed, circular lobby,
surmounted by a dome. The Council
Chamber is a rectangular space of
approximately 15m x 30m. On the
east side of the building a number of
offices and meeting rooms are arranged.
The Raadzaal itself is an impressive,
lofty space – somewhat dark as was the
fashion of the day – with stained glass
windows on the north, south and east
façades. The north and south façades
of the building are emphasised by large,
10m-high sandstone columns. The
building is constructed with red clay
bricks and sandstone in combination.
The volumes and massing of the building are strong and simple, with a domed
portico creating an elegant and dignified
appearance on Pres Brand Street. As
with many other historical buildings
in this street, the fourth Raadzaal is
also situated in a park-like landscape.
The building has a distinct character
with calm and quiet interiors. The
spaces are generous, beautiful and aweinspiring. The building plan, however,
is inflexible. This has meant that little
or no changes to the accommodation
were or could be made over the years.
The building is furthermore noteworthy
for its consistent use of ornament, as well
as the high standard of craftsmanship
that was employed on some of the
finishes of the building. The furniture
was especially designed for the building
by the architect.
In 1907 the government architect
Taylor designed an addition to the east
of the fourth Raadzaal in a similar style
and constructed with sandstone. This
was to accommodate the Legislative
Council of the Orange River Colony.
CONSERVATION STRATEGY
The conservation strategy is firstly based
on developing a shared understanding of
the building, and included the following
activities:
• Documentary evidence, mainly based
on archival sources
• Gathering physical evidence by
means of surveying
• Co-ordinating and analysing evidence
• Assessing cultural significance
Hereafter, a number of conservation
goals were formulated based on the
typical areas of change that buildings
experience throughout their lifetimes
(Brand in Roodt Partnership, 2007).These
are: site, structure, skin, services, space
plan and stuff. Based on the gathered
evidence, a set of policies relating to
these areas of change were formulated,
to allow Public Works and building users
to deal sensibly with matters relating to
each. For example, the roof structure
and roofs should remain unaltered, but
quarterly inspections to clean gutters and
downpipes should be undertaken. Water
is probably the most important enemy
of any building, particularly in this
case, where there are numerous hidden
gutters, downpipes within roof space,
and so on.
One of the most important factors
ensuring the ongoing maintenance,
refurbishment and restoration of the
structure is the fact that it has been the
seat of government almost continuously
since its completion in 1892. With the
proposed new legislature building at
the site of the Ramkraal Prison near
Batho, the building will lose its original
function and therefore some of its
cultural significance. Finding a suitable
adaptive re-use will be vital in ensuring
its continued survival.
SCOPE OF WORK
Prior to the refurbishment programme,
the building was only partially occupied by the legislature, and the ancillary
rooms and spaces were not used after
office space was rented elsewhere in the
city. There was a lack of maintenance,
especially of gutters and downpipes,
which are easily blocked by pigeondroppings. In combination with rainwater, this caused severe water leaks that
damaged fragile ceilings, mouldings and
especially the purpose-made furniture.
After dealing with the rainwater drainage system and waterproofing, the rest
of the building fabric and its contents
were tackled. A major undertaking
was the repair of the wood graining –
a paint technique that imitates exotic
wood finishes. An artist, Johan Badenhorst, executed this work. He had previously worked as a set painter for the
erstwhile PACOFS. The damaged furniture was inspected by an expert, Alta
Kriel from Cape Town, who recommended specialist Kroonstad cabinetmaker Hans Ekkehard for its repair and
restoration. All surfaces were redecorated and a special carpet was made for
the Debating Chamber. State-of-theart audiovisual equipment was installed.
A number of committee rooms were
created using contemporary furniture
and lighting. Externally, the stonework
was cleaned comprehensively with
high-pressure water hoses by Gordon,
Verhoef and Krause. The aim was not
to remove the patination, but rather
to deal with atmospheric pollution.
CONCLUSION
This project demonstrates how valuable cultural capital can be. The building was refurbished and functionally
upgraded to contemporary standards
for a fraction of the cost of a new facility. Old buildings need more love
and care, but in many ways have more
to offer than their younger but more
frivolous successors.
REFERENCES
Roodt, A.J. 1990. Die Argitektoniese Bydrae
van Francis Lennox Canning – 1884–1895.
Unpublished M.Arch Thesis. Bloemfontein: UFS
Roodt Partnership, 2007. Bloemfontein:
‘Revised Report on the Fourth Raadzaal’.
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JOHANNESBURG PUBLIC LIBRARY
– PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
In 2012 the City of Johannesburg proudly reopened its City Library, a heritage
building that has been redeveloped and reshaped by the Johannesburg architect,
Jonathan Stone. The result is a thoughtful re-conceptualisation of the older 1935
Johannesburg Public Library by Cape Town architect John Perry.
ARCHITECT JONATHAN STONE
BY B HART AND KA MUNRO, SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND
THE JOHANNESBURG LIBRARY,
located on the old Market Square site between President and Market Street, in a
very short time after its opening, had become a beloved, if somewhat prematurely
conservative institution. Many Johannesburg citizens will remember its pleasures,
the spacious reference library, newspaper
room and children’s section. The institution was an odd combination of Library,
Geological and Africana Museums, and
it housed the Library Theatre, for many
years the City’s premier theatre.
EARLIER LIBRARY HISTORY
A Johannesburg public subscription library dates back to 1889 and the council
took over the old Kerk Street Library in
1924. Finally, in 1929, there was a discussion about building a new library. The
City Council decided to go the route
of a competition so as to attract the best
South African architectural talent. Fortysix schemes were submitted. John Perry,
an established Cape Town architect, was
placed first, Gerard Moerdijk was the runner-up, and third were the Wits University architects Cowin, Powers and Ellis.
John Perry was extremely good at winning competitions. He was the architect,
through competition, for the first two
residences at the University of the Witwatersrand and for the Johannesburg Magistrates Court. Clive Chipkin considers him
to have been conscious of the tempo of
the time, one who understood the importance of patronage.
His design was in tune with and responsive to what a conservative City
Council thought a dignified civic library
ought to look like, an example of ‘pared
down classicism’, effectively based on
American Renaissance architecture of
the early 20th century.
THE PERRY DESIGN
The new library building needed to be in
a spatial conversation with the Edwardian era Johannesburg City Hall across
the new Library Gardens. The design
achieves a certain grandeur through the
three triumphal arches with the trio of
entrance doors, above the gentle rise of
steps facing the gardens. The high arched
windows throw light into the generously
proportioned peristyle foyer, with its
veined marble-clad columns, which gives
access to the Reference, Children’s and
Lending Libraries. The hidden treasure
of the 1935 library, however, lies in the
grandeur of the inner atrium, with its
biscuit-coloured, light facebrick walling,
allowing natural light into the interior li-
3
FROM CONSTRUCTION TO FINAL
CIVIC TRIUMPH
4
brary rooms through clerestory windows.
Perry, in the opinion of Clive Chipkin,
paid more attention to appearance and
the impact of his design than to the practicalities such as an adequate lift, disability access or toilets. Attention went into
detailing such as fine German silver door
handles with the city’s coat of arms, wood
work around doors and skylights, the
wrought-iron banisters on the staircases,
the delicacy of the lighting and of course
the grand Corinthian columns with their
key pattern design, in an art deco idiom,
around the plaster acanthus leaves.
JOHANNESBURG/NEW YORK
COMPARISONS
Perry, it would appear, also drew inspiration from the JP Morgan Library in New
York City, which housed the wealthy
philanthropist’s personal collection, designed by the American firm McKim,
Mead and White, leading exponents of
the American Renaissance Style in the
first decade of the 20th century. They
borrowed and highlighted the ornament, design and proportions of Italian
renaissance architecture in their work
and the Morgan Library was regarded
as McKim’s masterpiece.
5
Perry’s design gave the citizens of Johannesburg a durable and classic building with exterior walls of warm Free State
sandstone. Included are eight large sculptured figures, by Moses Kottler, of eminent men in literature, philosophy and
science, not dissimilar to the sculptured
reliefs of the Morgan Library. The building was however an anachronism in time.
Johannesburg in the thrusting, growing
years after 1933, was a dynamic, innovative, astounding Art Deco city with new
internationalist buildings that looked to
a different New York for inspiration – the
Lewis and Marks building (1935-37),
a near neighbour of the new Library, by
Kallenbach, Kennedy and Furner, used
the stepped architecture of skyscrapers,
echoing New York’s Rockefeller Centre
and RCA building (1932).
Between the classically styled Wits
University Library (1935, Emley and
Williamson in collaboration with Cowin
and Power) and the Johannesburg Public Library, generations of Johannesburg
citizens imbibed the view that classically
inspired architecture and libraries were
synonymous. Chipkin commented, ‘Perry’s modern classicism was regarded as
particularly appropriate for civic archi-
Perry was appointed the architect of the
new Library in March 1931. He was Cape
Town-based and never relocated, instead
using Johannesburg architect, AJ Marshall, as the resident architect and Merryfield, his assistant and later his partner,
to attend local committee meetings.
There were countless problems during the construction phase. Then City
Librarian, Samuel B Asher (librarian from
1911-1936) did not enjoy a harmonious
relationship with Perry and associates.
RF Kennedy, a later chief librarian, in
his history of the Library, ‘The Heart of
the City’, refers to the Architect [Perry]
as ‘much maligned’ and the Librarian
[Asher] as known for ‘his impossible insistences’. Kennedy refers to key problems in design and planning. However,
he commented with pride in the 1960s,
that ‘The Library building on Market
Square is still ... one of the finest buildings in Johannesburg’.
The construction for the new building
was undertaken by Berryman and Sons.
‘White only’ labour was used, a policy
from the all-white government to address
the high levels of white unemployment
during the great depression. In 1933 a decision was taken to add an additional upper storey to accommodate the Africana
Museum. Air-conditioning was a novel
and welcome feature for the stacks and
the reference library, with dust managed
through a then-sophisticated vacuum
cleaning plant. A lift was not part of the
original design and had to be squeezed
in. The new building was finally occupied in January 1935.
1
2
3
4
5
Library across the Library Gardens
Existing reading room
Entrance foyer
Detail of capital
External sculpture
2
tecture – weighty, clean-cut and beautifully detailed with a fresh, recent (if not
modern) look.’
interest of the Carnegie Corporation
was in the software capabilities of a new
library, with the city finding the funds
for the bricks and mortar renovations.
CELEBRATING THE PAST IN THE
NEW DESIGN
From a panel of approved professionals,
the practice of Jonathan Stone (and his
wife Jane) was selected for the project.
His Johannesburg presence has made
the relationship with and meeting of the
requirements of the City, the Library
and the Carnegie Corporation far happier than the relationship that Perry and
Asher enjoyed.
Stone considers the building a ‘tour
de force in material and workmanship’
but notes that, over its 75-year life-span,
certain elements needed repair. His
approach has been to conserve, preserve
and respect the heritage of the past, retaining the 1935 library with its careful
attention to the detail of the sculptured
wood, marble and sense of civic presence, while at the same time being bold.
He comments, ‘The long-term life of
the building should take precedence
over the term of a single person.’
REPAIRS AND RESTORATION
6
PARKING GARAGES AND
BURROWING DEEPER – THE
1970s
In the 1970s the construction of the
vast parking garage under the Library
Gardens opened up the opportunity to
expand the stacks deeper underground.
Two floors of underground parking were
added with additional basement floors
solving the problems of space for a few
more decades. In the 1990s the Geology
Museum and the Africana Museum made
the move to Newtown and became the
core of Museum Africa in the old Market
buildings, allowing the library to occupy
its entire building for the first time.
JOHANNESBURG WELCOMES THE
CARNEGIE PARTNERSHIP
The first decade of the 21st century
brought pressure to the library in the
number of users and the growing holdings of books. The Carnegie Corporation
of New York partnered with the Johannesburg Public Library in 2001, providing grants for reading projects, extending
library services to disadvantaged communities, computerising and digitising
to improve information availability. The
granting of $2 million for the specific
Model City Library project boosted the
total budget of R68 million, spread over
three years, to redevelop the library. The
The early stage of the project was essentially the restoration of the building
‘from the top down’. Insensitive additions
to the original skylights were removed
with high performance glass installed to
reduce heat loading on the inside of the
building. The repair and restoration of
the copper roof proved to be a challenge.
On-site training, the teaching of old skills
to new craftsmen and experimentation
eventually led to the invisible roof being
a ‘job well done’.
STRUCTURAL CHALLENGES
The existing building has a courtyard. The
requirement for additional floor area and
new services is accommodated here in a
new structure. New floor slabs supported
by four corner towers have been inserted.
These structural towers (rather like table
legs), allow the new addition to span the
7
space between theatre and library. The
essential new services are now housed
here. The new structure is independent
from the existing framework of the old
building, a sensible decision from both
a conservation and structural perspective.
The constrained space within the old
building created great difficulty. Conceptually the boldness of vision of Stone was
to take the existing foyer and to ‘pull it
up’ through the building, transforming
it to do things that the foyer missed doing in the past. The space is opened up
to the inner atrium, accessed by a striking, dominant escalator, with part of the
original multiple storey volume being
retained. Its previously hidden, beautiful
brickwork is now exposed. At the top floor
of the extended foyer you are rewarded
spatially with a large clear span space and
clerestory windows let in natural light.
When dealing with structural and design
issues Stone seeks the most direct solution. He also wants the new interventions
to be different in structural, visual, material and conceptual ways to the existing
building. Thus, for example, an open
space frame construction has been used
for the roof, contrasting sharply with the
original classical design.
BUDGETS AND CONSERVATION
WORK – ‘LESS IS MORE’
Budget constraints created a particular
challenge in designing the new structure.
A large component of the budget had to
be allocated to improving and restoring
8
the existing building, leaving quite limited funds for the new work. Nonetheless,
a certain forced economy is good when
dealing with heritage buildings. ‘Less
is definitely more. It is interesting that
a modernist notion holds true when you
deal with conservation,’ comments Stone.
THE DESIGN STRATEGY
Stone comments that often an architect’s
mindset is about the ego-driven idea.
A conservation approach requires a quiet
voice and an appreciation that what you
are conserving is far more important than
a new intervention. Conservation reverses
the usual hierarchy in design. It requires
invisibility and a respect for the past.
The escalators make a strong statement,
but in bringing the inner treasured atrium
into the working space of the library, much
has been added and an older design enhanced. Stone has managed to repair and
conserve an important building in the city
of Johannesburg. He worked with the librarians to give a new understanding of
the modern library as a media and resource
centre with new spaces now allowing for
so much more computer connectivity,
media and physical accessibility.
The old library was a repository of books,
treasures, newspapers. That function and
feature still remains within the reference
library and the stacks. But new purposes
now consciously come to the fore in the
new design. The approach has been to
separate the old and new functions, keeping the book and storage space in the older
sections of the building and locating the
computer and media spaces in the new.
The design approach gets the user out of
the storage space and creates an interactive interface between the two.
CONCLUSION
As the City builds a new network of libraries and services, the library – the ‘Heart of
the City’ – beats to invigorate, inspire and
educate new generations. Books remain,
as the frieze above the entrance states,
‘the treasure house of the mind’ (Libri
Thesaurus Animi).
REFERENCES
Interviews with Jonathan Stone and Clive
Chipkin.
R F Kennedy: The Heart of the City (Juta and
Co. 1970).
Allister Macmillan (Editor): The Golden City
(1935).
Clive M Chipkin: Johannesburg Style Architecture
and Society, 1880s–1960s (David Philip , 1993).
Clive M Chipkin: Johannesburg Transition (Ste
Publishers, 2008).
Booklet ‘The Johannesburg City Library 2012
– A commemorative publication on the occasion of the re-opening of the Johannesburg
City Library’ (14th February, 2012).
Artefacts website – information on John Perry
JP Morgan Library Architectural Historyhttp://www.themorgan.org/about/historyArchitecture.asp
‘The New Public Library’ The South African
Architectural Record, September 1935.
Pamphlet, C Walker: ‘The William Cullen
Library 1934-2009’ (exhibition Celebrating
Darwin with Cullen, 22 November, 2009).
6 Juxtaposition of old and new
7 New escalator into space-frame hall
8 View of the interior of the new Michaelis
Arts Library – view to the west. Originally
the Geology Museum of the JPL
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1
ST CYPRIAN’S GIRLS’ SCHOOL
BY JO NOERO
ARCHITECT NOERO WOLFF ARCHITECTS
St Cyprians is a well-established Anglican school in Cape Town. Both the
setting of the school and the original buildings, which were designed by the
office of Herbert Baker, Kendall and Morris, are very special.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF the school
over the last 100 years has occurred in a
piecemeal fashion, and this has created
a rich mosaic of different building styles
and histories. Importantly, during this
period, the school resisted the temptation to re-organise the spaces in a rational
utilitarian modern manner. This has given rise to a set of spaces similar to those
found in a city where chance encounters
can and do occur. The paths of pupils
crisscross every day on their way to and
from classrooms, making a non-hierarchic
network of spaces and movement routes
that allow the youngest and oldest girls’
paths to crisscross again and again.
A campaign to re-imagine the school
was initiated in the early 2000s, and
has culminated in the construction of
a number of new buildings and spaces
within the school grounds. Importantly,
the school’s brief to the architects was
that, while they respected and loved
the older buildings, they did not want
to create a pastiche imitation of the old
buildings, but rather to establish a new
language of buildings that would mark a
break from the past while still respecting
that past.
Three key ideas formed the basis of
the design strategy, and these ideas affect
ways of thinking about heritage, and
ways of using history as a source of ideas
for making contemporary architecture.
1. PROGRESSIVE VERSUS
PATHOLOGICAL CONSERVATION
In his seminal book The Architecture
of the City Aldo Rossi distinguishes between two different attitudes towards
historic buildings. The first response he
terms Pathological Conservation – by
this he means an approach that seeks to
return the building to a state most closely
approximating its original condition.
This would include freezing the use of
1 View of proposed extensions and additions
to St Cyprian’s Girls School
2
3
the spaces and leaving them as originally
intended. I consider this approach to be
antagonistic towards the idea that architecture is a part of a living tradition. The
second approach is termed Progressive
Conservation, which sees architecture as
a dynamic process of tradition wherein
buildings are given new life by continually being re-adapted to suit new uses over
time, in response to new requirements
that society throws up. This means that
the buildings’ fabric will be adjusted and
contemporary uses and spaces inserted
and/or added to existing fabric. This was
the approach adopted at St Cyprian’s.
4
2. ARCHAIC SPACE
Following on from research into the
structure and nature of the traditional
city, Rossi also proposed that the works
of architecture possessing the greatest capacity to adjust to new and different uses
over time are those characterised by the
greatest geometric precision. For example, the Colosseum in Rome has effortlessly supported a wide range of uses over
2 000 years of existence, without having
changed the basic order of structure and
space of the building. I have termed the
spaces made by these kinds of buildings
Archaic Space. My interpretation of these
spaces is that they are marked by a strong
sense of platonic geometry, which is given special expression with regard to the
plan form. Because the school required
us to design, in some cases, sets of spaces
whose future uses were indeterminate, I
chose to make these kinds of spaces out of
very precise geometries – Archaic Spaces.
This is best illustrated by the Life Centre, which is intended for a number of
different uses, many of which have yet to
be determined; in a sense we were asked
to design a space for which no one single
specific purpose had yet been assigned or
would ever be assigned.
7
5
8
6
3. THIRD SPACE
The plan form is generated by the
use of platonic geometry and comprises
a circle within which is placed a square
and then a hexagon. At the centre
the space is resolved once more with
a square and a circle. In section the
building is proportioned as a square
with regard to height and width. This
strategy has produced a space of strong
spatial and geometric order, which has
already proved its versatility, its uses
including indoor hockey practice, a
student debating competition and an
examination centre.
In many schools, spaces are designed
with only utilitarian functions in mind,
which tends to have two consequences.
Firstly, the spaces shut out the creative
engagement of children in the use of the
spaces because of their singularity of use.
Secondly, it follows that the spaces don’t
allow for multiple or other uses. To deal
with this issue we created a set of spaces,
which we called Third Space. In a way
Archaic Space and Third Space are similar, in that they both seek to give space
over to multiple uses. The difference
is that Third Space is marked by being
part of a larger spatial network, wherein
the new space sits adjacent to or within
a larger space, while Archaic Space holds
itself within its own set of spaces.
The idea of Third Space is best
illustrated by the circular hub spaces of
the new Knowledge Centre in the old
gymnasium. These large-scaled timber
constructions, which sit alongside an
internal street running adjacent to the
2
Overall plan
3, 4
Site plans
5, 6, 7, 8, 9 New Knowledge Centre
new library, were made with no specific
purpose in mind, but were offered up to
the students to use as they wished. As a
consequence many different uses have
emerged, including impromptu theatre,
large and small meetings, quiet reading,
teaching and homework, among others.
What is clear is that the uses to which
the students have put the spaces have
been imagined or chosen by them, and
are beyond anything that the architects
could have imagined. This openendedness is key to the concept of
Third Space.
The following buildings have been
built or added to existing heritage
buildings at the school. These
9
10
11
12
interventions are part of a larger planning
study conducted by the architects at
the beginning of this process. The
planning process set out guidelines for
the future development of the school.
These guidelines were defined as a set of
performance criteria rather than cast as a
so-called master plan. In this way a great
deal of flexibility was created, which
nonetheless offered up a clear future
vision of the school in spatial terms.
NEW KNOWLEDGE CENTRE
This is located in the historic gym. The
existing structure remains untouched.
The new additions comprise prefabricated timber construction, which can
be dismantled in the future to return
the gym to its original use. An existing
open-air courtyard adjacent to the gym
has been enclosed with a translucent roof
and three large wooden hubs have been
placed within this space.
NEW IT HUB
This was built in the Tortoise Courtyard.
It is a two-storey circular building, faced
with glass mosaics that reflect the sky
and surrounding buildings, making the
new building almost disappear. The circular form was chosen to minimise the
impact of the new building in the courtyard, and to enable the teacher to view all
computer monitors from her desk. The
interior is designed like a space capsule
– the space is small and the equipment
has been carefully designed to fit.
The intention was to provide the pupils with a spatial experience different
to the ones they were used to in other
teaching spaces.
MOLTENO HOUSE
Extensions were conceived as a set of
new specialist spaces added to an existing
rectangular teaching block. The extensions weave between existing trees. In so
doing the value of the natural landscape
is given precedence over architecture
– this lesson is an important one, which
the school wanted its pupils to learn.
13
14
15
16
LIFE CENTRE
Life orientation has developed as a requirement of the national curriculum.
The subject encompasses a wide range
of skills including physical education and
development. While the subject matter
is expected to evolve, the school needed
a flexible space that could be used for
exercises during teaching periods, and
could double up as a sports pavilion and
rehearsal space after hours.
The new life centre is placed between
existing buildings and is circular in plan.
The facade consists of an inner layer of
sliding glass screens and an outer layer
of specially made breezeblocks. Thus,
a thermally efficient set of conditions is
achieved. The Life Centre consists of
two levels, which can be used together
or separately. Blinds ensure that it can
be used for drama and cinema as well
as hired out as conference space, among
many other potential uses. The circular
form negotiates between the awkward
geometries of the existing buildings and
the new building. The space inside the
building develops the idea of Archaic
Space, which has been generated by a
precise geometry in plan and section.
10, 11, 12
New IT Centre
13, 14, 15, 16 Molteno House
19
17
20
18
CREATIVE AND SCIENCE
CENTRES
These two classroom blocks have been
remade by retaining the outer shell of
the buildings and reworking the interior
spaces. I would consider this to be a good
example of Progressive Conservation.
OTHER WORKS
In addition to the above projects, the architects have been involved in remaking
the interiors of the existing classrooms
and other minor works at the school.
FUTURE PROJECTS
The last remaining major work to be completed is the new Activity Centre, which
is placed at the top of the site overlooking
the hockey field and is framed by Table
ARCHIT E C T UR E | SA 28|
21
Mountain behind. Borrowing from Architect Solomon’s original un-built domed
roof design for UCT’s Jamieson Hall, the
roof of the new hall is vaulted and the
soffit is lined with red clay bricks. The
soft, lazy curve of the vault is a perfect
foil to the craggy texture of the mountain
behind. A freestanding timber pergola
both adjusts the geometry of the hall to
the hockey field and acts as a scaling device at the front terrace. A set of ramps
and staircases create interlinked platforms that connect the hall and its spaces
to the lower campus.
Architects: Noero Wolff Architects
Civil and Structural Engineers: De
Villiers and Hulme
Quantity Surveyors: Riverside
Consulting
Mechanical and Electrical Engineers:
Clinkscales Maughn-Brown
Landscape: Byron Douglas Studio
Contractor: GVK-Siya Zama
PROJECT TEAM
Jo Noero, Evandro Schwalbach, Korine
Stegmann, Mias De Vries, Kylie
Richards
17, 18, 19, 20, 21 Life Centre
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1
2
WERDMULLER CENTRE: THE
SIGNIFICANCE OF FAILURE
In 1969 Roelof Uytenbogaardt was asked to design a shopping complex for
the South African Life Assurance Society (now Old Mutual) next to Main
Road in Claremont, Cape Town. This building, completed in 1974, would
become the most contentious building of his career and one of the most
controversial buildings of the 20th century in South Africa.
BY ILZE AND HEINRICH WOLFF
AT THE TIME, Old Mutual boldly
decided to associate itself with the
building by naming it after its chairman,
Brigadier Werdmuller. Now, after
nearly 40 years, Old Mutual is applying
for a permit to demolish the Werdmuller Centre.
Many sharply conflicting opinions
surrounded the project from the start;
many architects praised the architecture,
some criticised its excesses and, as time
passed, it became clear that the centre
was not a commercial success. Conflicting
views continued over the years, even
intensified, but today a new generation
of admirers and asset managers is
contesting the Werdmuller’s future.
What went wrong? Was the design
flawed or did its owners fail to manage
it appropriately? In considering the
problems facing the Werdmuller, we
have to establish whether the building
has failed its intended purpose or
whether the city and society failed
the Werdmuller.
We would like to present an argument
that an understanding of what the
Werdmuller signifies to the contemporary
generation could show a way forward for
this building.
A FAILED IDEOLOGY
In the 1969 proposal, Uytenbogaardt
claims that the building would serve
‘a hinterland of a well-mixed community
ranging from high income through
to middle and low.’1 He was not only
referring to customers arriving via the
train or Main Road, but also to the diverse
community of the Claremont area at the
time. The proposal was submitted and
possibly accepted by February 1969,
but by November 1969 Claremont was
declared a ‘whites only’ area under the
Group Areas Act. Evictions and removals
started early in 1970, mostly from an area
previously known as lower Claremont
and today called Harfield Village.
It was a popular area in which to reside
because it provided the mostly working-
class inhabitants easy access to the cheap
network of public transport and therefore
access to work and economic opportunities. In addition the lower Claremont area
had also developed into a self-sufficient
area with many people running shops
and family businesses with some family
businesses dating back to the turn of the
20th century.2
Claremont as a whole was always seen
as a major shopping district and as Joyce
Murray describes in 1958 in her book
‘Claremont Album’ (1958:63):
‘Claremont preens itself when outsiders
praise its wonderful shopping Centre. But the
people who live in Claremont have their own
special shops, often not the big showy stores
with huge shop-windows but little places
tucked away down a side street, recommended
perhaps by a neighbour who has dealt there
for years.’
She goes on to describe how (1958:64):
‘outsiders complain that the population
of Claremont is “so mixed”, not stopping
3
to think how much the character of the
Village owes to this variety. The different
races have learnt to live together here in
a civilized fashion: there is room for
all in this Market Place.’
But what impact did the forced
removals of an estimated 19 000 people
have on the Werdmuller Centre? For one
it reduced the amount of foot traffic to
the centre because not only was there a
decrease in the Claremont population but
also a decrease in visitors to Claremont.
Secondly, the Werdmuller Centre’s
idea of catering for a micro-economy
and small-scale traders – the souk idea
– could not happen because that part of
the population was not there anymore.
Conversely, a more upmarket shopping
centre like Cavendish Square thrived
partly due to the influx of the more
affluent whites moving into Claremont.
INCOHERENT PLANNING
Two planning aspects have had a direct
effect on the commercial marketability of
the Werdmuller Centre. The one is the
Claremont bypass, which was at the time
that the Werdmuller Centre was designed,
a plan by the City to relieve some of the
traffic congestion in Main Road. The
elevated bypass, which fronts the station
side of the building, was considered as
a design informant by Uytenbogaardt
as he included it in his 1969 proposal,
and in some of his conceptual sketches.
The question mark hovering above the
highway is testament to the uncertainty of
the proposed highway, but Uytenbogaardt
proceeded to design Werdmuller in part as
a response to the idea, perhaps captivated
by the heightened urban quality that the
duality could evoke.
The bypass, now called Claremont
Boulevard3 was opened in 2009, at grade
and not elevated. The City’s decades-long
inertia in defining that space caused the
building to be situated within – for most
of its life – an eerie urban wasteland.
In the proposal of 1969, Uytenbogaardt
cites that the design for the Werdmuller
Centre would take advantage of the fact
that the site is located at the fulcrum of a
wide range of transportation opportunities,
including depending on a ‘generous
public parking area to the north’4. It
is for this reason that the approved
design allowed for only 23 parking bays.
However, two years after the completion
of the building the City of Cape Town
released a plan – the Claremont Report
of 1976 – that would have a severe effect
on the Werdmuller Centre’s viability. The
report indicated a building on the land
previously dedicated to public parking.
Today, although a bus terminus occupies
the site, a large-scale parking area that is
required to meet conventional shopping
mall standards is not accommodated for.
THE LEGACY OF INNOVATION
At the time when the Werdmuller was
designed, indoor shopping centres were a
rarityinSouthAfrica.Mainroaddepartment
stores were more common, surrounded
by smaller scale shops connected via the
street. Shopping complexes with outdoor,
off-street circulation have only made their
appearance in South Africa in the previous
two decades. By the mid-sixties, the first
shopping malls were being developed
on the periphery of the major cities
with urban shopping centres following
in the seventies.
Since the clarity with which the mall
typology is understood today did not exist
in the late sixties, developers entered
into typological experimentation. For
instance, Old Mutual developed the
Werdmuller and Cavendish Centre at
the same time – two completely different
shopping typologies built within 100m of
each other. The typology of Cavendish
proved to be the more successful one.
It should also be noted that none of
the early shopping malls exist in their
original condition; not only did they
have cosmetic facelifts, but all of these
early buildings had adjustments made
to their circulation. These adjustments
optimise the commercial efficiency of
the architecture, eradicate problems of
the original design, and respond to urban
change. This is of great significance to
the Werdmuller debate, since no 1970s
mall would respond satisfactorily to
contemporary commercial and urban
demands without significant adaptation.
The typology of the Werdmuller
grafted itself on that of a souk – small
shops with narrow shop-fronts facing
onto a common passage. Unfortunately,
significant departures were made from
this typology; the concentration of shops
1 Advertisement
2, 3 Uytenbougaardt concept sketches of
the building
Heinrich Wolff
4
is not high enough, the shop-fronts are
too wide and the circulation goes up a
ramp (without assistance, people flow
like water in commercial buildings
– always down, never up). The multiple
internal circulation routes are also in
conflict with street-based circulation
around the Centre’s periphery. For all
its shortcomings, the Werdmuller has
a rare typology – so rare that Wessel de
Jonge (world-renowned expert on the
Modern Movement and co-founder
of Docomomo International) said that
he believed its typology was unique in
Modern architecture and valuable for
its multicultural reference. For many
of the Werdmuller’s supporters, the
free-flowing, intertwined spaces of the
building signify a resistance to racial
stereotyping of apartheid and the income
and class categorisation of commerce
that is the contemporary norm.
Today, the Werdmuller is still
appreciated for its spatial innovation,
without this extraordinary quality being
put to any meaningful use.
5
Heinrich Wolff
6
Dave Southwood
THE FAILURE OF PROFIT
One must appreciate that Old Mutual
exists to grow investments, but the
optimisation of profit has caused
substantial problems for the Werdmuller.
The trouble started before the building
was even built. After Uytenbogaardt
completed the design for the centre,
Old Mutual acquired the other half
of the same city block and asked the
architect to develop this portion as well.
Uytenbogaardt insisted that everything
should be redesigned, but Old Mutual
would have none of it. This presented a
substantial challenge to the design since
the first portion was designed around a
central spiralling ramp with shops on the
periphery, which produced blank edges
to the newly acquired portion of the
site. The final design dealt with the joint
between the first and second phases with
great formal skill, but the circulation of
the block was badly fragmented.
Old Mutual’s insistence that their
investments in buildings are primarily
SIGNIFICANCE OF FAILURE
By all accounts, neither the shopping
component nor the offices of the
Werdmuller worked well. The undulating
circulation routes of the building, which
are so celebrated, are simultaneously
part of the problem; the spatial order is
not legible and with the rise in urban
crime, its open, ‘democratic’ spaces have
become hard to defend.
Today, the Werdmuller is a sorry sight.
It is also in a state of purposeful neglect.
Old Mutual is turning away prospective
tenants and the building has received
no maintenance for quite some time. It
is hard to believe that any kind of space,
with a main road, a train station, a bus
station and a taxi rank on each of its four
sides respectively, cannot be made to
work. Or maybe this transportation hub
is used by a clientele base perceived to
be incompatible with the ‘vision’ of an
upmarket Claremont.
Do the shortcomings of this design
outweigh all other considerations of value
to the point where demolition becomes
the only option? Certainly not. The Castle
of Good Hope is useless as a defence
structure and yet our society pays large
amounts of money to maintain it. The
South African Breweries claim that Gawie
Fagan’s award-winning conversion of the
Ohlsons’ Brewery, a kilometre up the
road from Werdmuller, is not serving its
purpose. Does this fact constitute sufficient
grounds to demolish this important work?
Again, no. Problems of usefulness are
not sufficient grounds for demolishing
important works of architecture.
A clear understanding of the failures of
the Werdmuller is central to its future – so
too should we understand its achievements.
Systematic research should be done to
articulate these issues. The Barbican
Centre in London suffered many problems
similar to those of the Werdmuller, just at a
much larger scale. It was repeatedly voted
the ugliest building in London. Research
was conducted to establish the problems,
physical adjustments were made and today
The Barbican is an important cultural
centre in Europe.
THE FAILURE OF IMAGINATION
More than anything, the proposed
demolition of the Werdmuller signifies
a failure of imagination. The idea that
architects are not capable of inventing a
new life for this building is insulting. One
would have to find the right architect and
ask the right questions.
The current owner appears to be part of
the problem. If they cannot use or adapt
the building to serve their purposes,
they should accept that someone else
could. Pass it on to someone who wants
it. To destroy something valuable, merely
because one cannot imagine how to use
it, is unacceptable.
The V&A Waterfront has shown
leadership in this regard. The massive
grain elevator in the Clocktower Precinct
lost its usefulness long ago and presents
major physical and structural challenges
to adaptation. Many have tried their hand
at a solution over the years, but recently
the celebrated British architect Thomas
Heatherwick was approached to break the
impasse, and apparently is doing it well.
The Werdmuller has a generosity
towards the city and wonderfully
intertwining spaces, which are extremely
rare. Only a lack of imagination could
lead anyone to conclude that a blank site
would be a richer starting point than the
building as it stands today.
REFERENCES
Field Sean (ed) 2001 Lost Communities, living
memories – Remembering forced removals in Cape
Town, David Phillip Publishers.
Murray, J, 1958, Claremont Album, A.A.
Balkema.
Wolff, I, 2009, Werdmuller: artefact of an
ephemeral context, South African Journal of Art
History Volume 24, 75-86.
END NOTES
1 Quote taken from an undated feasibility
study named L.H.C 2, compiled by the office
of Roelof Uytenbogaardt, accessed from UCT
Manuscripts and Archives, Roelof Uytenbogaardt
Papers, BC 1264, H- Projects.
2 A full description and oral history of lower
Claremont as it was before the forced removals is
found in Sean Field (ed) 2001, Lost Communities,
living memories – Remembering forced removals in
Cape Town, David Phillip Publishers.
3 The Claremont Boulevard is a R22-million
project entirely paid for by the Claremont
Central Improvement District Company, a
private initiative that arose from the Claremont
Business Forum in the early 1990s.
4 See note 1.
4 Colonnade
5 Intertwined spaces
6 Spatial innovation not put to
meaningful use
financial assets is the origin of substantial
conflict in the urban environment. For
most of us, these ‘assets’ are not assets
at all; they are buildings in our shared
urban environment.
The conflict, between financial
interest for some and urban consequence
for all, is what is at stake here. The blank
street facades of internalised commerce
are a shocking legacy of urban malls and
the urban and economic consequences
of suburban malls are even more
devastating. Old Mutual has also been
reluctant to recognise that their assets
may be the heritage of others; Mutual
Square in Rosebank, Johannesburg
would be a prime example. This fine
building was demolished in spite of
substantial appeals to Old Mutual to
respect its heritage value. If an owner
finds it difficult to use a building for its
own purposes, demolition is certainly not
the only option; the building could be
adapted or sold in acknowledgement of
its heritage value.
In the case of the Werdmuller, it is
quite possible that the request for a
demolition permit has very little to do
with the building itself but rather the
seven floors of unrealised bulk that sit
above it. The profits that can be realised
from the Werdmuller’s destruction must
weigh heavily on the minds of the asset
managers who are considering the ‘value’
of the building. Old Mutual’s insistence
on profiting from the Werdmuller,
regardless of the consequence, is in direct
conflict with the repeated appeals that
the structure can be rehabilitated (for
whatever use and by whoever) to become
a rare and exceptional part of our city.
REFEREED ARTICLE
VOORTREKKER MONUMENT
AT WINBURG
THRESHOLD FOR A NEW GENERATION OF
COMMEMORATIVE ARCHITECTURE
Abstract — The Voortrekker Monument at Winburg in the central Free State resulted from an open architectural
competition held in 1964. To the surprise of many, it was won by an English-speaking architect from Durban, Hans
Hallen, who participated because he believed the jurors were able to judge a modernist design. With his abstract
entry of three-dimensional sophistication he set the threshold for a new generation in commemorative architecture
in South Africa.
This article aims to contextualise the nascency of the monument and to explore the generative ideas of the design
incorporated in the conditions of the brief including the role of the women in the trek. Finally its status as a precedent
and condition today is discussed.
CONTEXT FOR MONUMENTS TO THE
VOORTREKKERS
In 1931 the Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Organisationsi established the Sentrale Volksmonumentekomitee (SVK), a committee delegated the responsibility of all markers of Afrikaner
history (Ferreira, 1975:4–5). The most important of these was
the realisation of a national Voortrekker monument to coincide
with the centenary of the Great Trek, the migration of thousands of descendants of Dutch settlers (Afrikaners) during the
decade following 1835, dissatisfied with the policies of the British. Determined to search for freedom and independence in the
interior of the country, a number of parties under various leaders
set out northwards from the Eastern Cape in ox wagons.
A sub-committee with architect Gerard Moerdijk (1890–
1958) as advisor inspected all sites with a claim to trekker commemorationii. All except four were discarded because of their
inaccessibility (Ferreira, 1975:26). In the final round the choice
for the national Voortrekker monument fell between Pretoria
and Winburg which, with 14 votes to 12 respectively, the former
narrowly won, and the government confirmed as the most appropriate location (Ferreira, 1975:46).
The Pretoria design resulted from a public invitation for proposals from which the SVK chose the submission of a laager,
which Moerdijk was then briefed to combine with his own, a
building whose concept owes much to the Völkerschlachtsdenkmal at Leipzig, Germany, 1896–1913. The foundation stone was
unveiled on 16 December 1938, the termination of the re-enacted Great Trek (Eeufees) from Cape Town, a date coincident
1
1 Cut-away section of the national Voortrekker monument, Pretoria, by Gerhard
Moerdijk, 1938–49. Note the statue of mother and child on the axis of arrival and
the oculus in the dome with the ray of sunlight falling on the sarcophagus in the
basement. (Heymans, R. The Voortrekker Monument, Pretoria. VM Board of Control,
1986, p7)
2 Monument at Blood River in the form of a kakebeenwa, the wagon the trekkers set
out in, literally a jawbone wagon, because of the crescent-tilted shape to its side
elevation, which resembled the jawbone of an animal, by sculptor Coert Steynberg,
1947 (Afrikanerbakens, 2006: 119. Photographer: Hendrik Oosthuysen)
3 The routes of all seven Voortrekker leaders [Aldbridge, B (1973) Die Geskiedenis
van Suid-Afrika in Beeld. Cape Town: Struik, p105].
REFEREED ARTICLE | JUNE/JULY 2012
2
with the centenary of the Battle of Blood River, a turning point
in trekker conquest that was observed for most of the 20th century as the Day of the Vow, a public holiday. Eleven years later
the 40m cubic shrine was finally inaugurated when at noon on
the same date in 1949 the sun shone through the oculus in the
vaulted roof of the great hall and a ray of light illuminated the
inscription, Ons vir jou, Suid-Afrika, carved upon the sarcophagus in the basement, symbolising the Voortrekker heroes (Picton-Seymour, 1989:162).
While the Pretoria monument was under construction the
SVK in 1947 oversaw the realisation of another at Blood River
by sculptor Coert Steynberg in the form of a granite kakebeenwa,
the wagon the trekkers set out in, literally a jawbone wagon,
because of the crescent-tilted shape to its side elevation that
resembled the jawbone of an animaliii.
Winburg was the realisation of the promise of a minor (kleiner)
Voortrekker monument (Ferreira, 1989:117), the focus of this
article, upon the completion of which the SVK disbanded in
November 1968 (Ferreira, 1975:265).
However, by the time Winburg got its turn, the impetus of
national and cultural identity engendered among Afrikaners in
the decade following Eeufees saw the white South African electorate vote into power the National Party (NP), which stood for
Afrikaner domination and racial segregation – apartheid. Consequently, the 1950s were spent promoting the appointment of
Afrikaners into the armed and civil services and putting into
place the infrastructure for discriminatory legislation while
crushing resistance, e.g. the Sharpeville shootings. With the NP
government progressively firmly entrenched in power, it ignored the strong condemnation of the international community
and in 1961 broke free from the British Commonwealth to become an independent republic (Watson, 2007). This transformation ushered in a period of newfound Afrikaner consciousness,
and it is within this context that the monument at Winburg and
its design must be understood.
3
CONTEXT FOR THE WINBURG MONUMENT
Following an approach by the SVK the Provincial Administration of the (Orange) Free State accepted responsibility for
the realisation of the monument and established a dedicated
committee, the Vrystaat Voortrekker Monument Kommittee
(VVMK) under the chairmanship of the Administrator and provincial leader of the NP, the honourable JWSL (Sand) du Plessisiv (Ferreira, 1975:241–2). The VVMK meeting held in Bloemfontein in September 1963 set the ground rules, namely that the
monument would be non-utilitarian, should express the striving
for freedom and be located in the Winburg area (FSPA, VVMK
Minutes of 20 September 1963). Winburg was the first town to
be established in the Free State in 1835 and served as its capital. It also commemorates the Voortrekkers who in 1837 camped
there in the largest gathering of the Great Trek, constitutionally
and ecclesiastically united (Ferreira, 1975:244), before dispersing in various parties. Piet Retief led a party across the Drakensberg eastward into (KwaZulu-) Natal, to which destination the
parties of Gert Maritz and Piet Uys Retief later followed, while
those of Hendrik Potgieter trekked northwards and Louis Trichardt northeastward.
However, what sealed the choice of site on the farm Rietfontein, 2.5km south of Winburg, east of the national road (N1)
then in its planning stages, was the survival of a cottage, interesting for historical and architectural reasons. MT Steyn, the
last President of the Orange Free State Republic, revered for
the ‘courage and inspiration he radiated after the Anglo-Boer
SA War’, was born in the cottage on the farm of his uncle in
1857 (SESA), a stone building replete with brakdak and peachpip floors, which had been declared a National Monument, and
was now reconstructed and accessible to the public. It was due
to this heritage structure that the 85ha site was donated to the
Province by the Winburg municipalityv, which itself undertook
that its black township would ‘under no circumstances’ expand
in the direction of the monument (Ferreira, 1975:245).
REFEREED ARTICLE
CHOICE OF DESIGN BY COMPETITION
While some explanations were needed, the VVMK decided
upon the procurement of designs solely from architects and
in an open competition (FSPA, Minutes of 21 April 1964),
that is to say, one in which all members could participate as it
had the approval of the Institute of South African Architects
(ISAA). As is known, a competition is a good means to gather
designs from which to make a choice, but everything stands
and falls with the jury. Consequently, the choice of the design
is, in effect, already made when the jury is selected (De Haan
& Haagsma, 1988:13).
Advice on juror composition was sought from the Provincial
Architect who, in turn, approached the Orange Free State Provincial Institute of Architects (OFSPIA), which nominated Dr
Barrie Biermann (1924–1991), lecturer in Architecture at the
University of Natal in Durban since August 1952, and inaugural
head of the Department of Architecture at the University of the
Orange Free State (UOFS), Professor George Quine-Lay (FSPA,
VVMK Minutes of 3 June 1964), who on declining was substituted by architect Leon Roodt (1924–1995), then practising in
Welkom. Biermann was the first Afrikaner architectural scholar
and Roodt the incumbent OFSPIA President, 1964–6, and succeeded Quine Lay at UOFS in 1970. The Commission for the
Preservation of National and Historical Monuments, Relics and
Antiques nominated Prof JJ Oberholster, historian, academic at
UOFS, and Free State Commission member. After inspecting
the site, and confirming its appropriateness, the three-man jury
attended the VVMK meeting at which the committee resolved
to place its full confidence in the jury for the preparation of the
conditions for the competition, on its adjudication of entries and
selection of the winning design, points insisted upon by Roodt
(FSPA, VVMK Minutes of 23.6.1964, Point 4.6).
An invitation to compete was advertised in the journal of the
ISAA (SAAR, September 1964:27). Every entrant was issued
with a synopsis of the trek in the Free State and a brief. The
role of the women in the trek was to be acknowledged, the possibility of symbolically representing the five parties by streams
of water explored, and explanatory notes were to accompany all
submissions (Ferreira, 1975:247).
COMPETITION OUTCOME
The competition closed in Bloemfontein on 4 December 1964,
by which time it had attracted 36 entries, the majority by Afrikaans architects based in the Transvaal, more precisely in the region today known as Gauteng (FSPA). Surprisingly, none of the
returned Kahn graduates had entered, neither Uytenbogaardtvi,
Meyer, Theronvii, Gallagher nor Schlapobersky and, regrettably,
it is not possible to compare the design of the winning entry
within the context of the full complement as on adjudication,
all ‘models and drawings’ were returned to their authors (FSPA:
Letter Secretary VVMK to B Clark-Brown, 12 February 1965).
4
Nevertheless, according to the jury report (SAAR, August
1965:29-30) the biggest challenge was the search for an appropriate representation of symbolism as the designs varied from
‘sophisticated delicate structures to almost ru bonkig-dierlike
(crude bony-animalistic) proposals’, with much in between.
The report also mentions that few entries had used the topography of the site to inform their designs; most had reshaped it.
The jury looked for a strong visual appearance and evocative
character, richness in structural form and imagery, designs which
would distil the essential in the monumental, incorporated water
without being reliant upon it, and concluded that the successful
entries were designed in the spirit of the time and rebuked, perhaps in reference to the Pretoria monument, that any re-creation
of a monument of the past would be anachronistic and lack the
vitality of the original. These are the ideals of modernism, which
saw the first prize being awarded to Hallen & Dibbviii, a practice
based in Durban.
WINNING ARCHITECT AND CONCEPT
Hans Heyerdahl Hallen was born in Durban in 1930 to Norwegian parents. As his artistic talents came to the fore, his high
school art teacher advised on Architecture as a career, whereupon Hallen enrolled at the University of Natal in the inaugural
cohort, 1949-53. The Department was headed by Professor Paul
Connell, who in 1952 attracted two UCT PhD graduates to the
staff – Ron Lewcock and Barrie Biermann (who later served on
the Winburg competition jury). This complement laid the foundations for Hallen’s ascendancy as an architect.
Hallen’s design was informed by the landscape setting. He located the monument on the knoll on the 4525m contour, which
would allow it to be the natural focus of the site while allowing
for good visibility from the N1 in the position then proposed.
Visitors would enter from the west and park in a lot at the foot of
the monument before ascending the knoll by way of a meandering pathway, on the outside of a water chain.
5
SYMBOLISM OF THE WINNING DESIGN
6
4 Voortrekker Monument, Winburg. Site plan of winning entry by Hallen & Dibb,
1964 (BBAL).
5 Top: SW-NE Section showing from left: water chain at foot of the largest bowl;
spout discharging from the roof with oculus over the bronze tableau on floor and
the cut back at right with vertical baffles to angle daylight to fall directly on the
statue below. Bottom: Hallen’s plan of crescents defining a laager surrounded by
bowls into which the spouts of the roof would discharge. Note the water chain aside
the access path at bottom of image (BBAL; Composite image by author).
6 View up through the oculus into the shafts and the heavens above
(Afrikanerbakens, 2006: 119. Photographer: Hendrik Oosthuysen).
While not a condition of entry, Hallen submitted his notes of
explanation in Afrikaansix. These stated that the symbolism was
‘complex’ and cannot be described exactly (kan nie noukeurig omskryf word nie) but resulted essentially from the following: the
shafts were symbolic of the five main treks, each of which was
identified at the base by the surname of a leader; the cluster was
symbolic of the orderly community united in faith, which like
the spouts would water the land spiritually; the striving of the
trekkers was expressed in the cusped terminations to the shafts
while the roofed, protective space (beskutte ruimte) at the heart
of the composition changed the scale from the massive to the
intimate to speak of the role of the women in the trek (SAAR,
August 1965:30).
THE WOMEN IN THE TREK
Besides the symbolism of the protected space, Hallen’s entry
proposed the inclusion of a figurative statue of a woman embracing a child, visible on both plan and section. In the laager,
the whole family was drawn into military defence and attack,
accustomed to facing danger and privation. Loading the rifles
was complicated, so the trekkers used more than one gun,
The monument was conceived as a sculpture to be experienced in the round. Its generative idea was the laager, a circular defensive encampment of wagons arranged by trekkers as
a shelter while invading and conquering the land. As there were
five main trekker parties, Hallen literally ‘circled five wagons’.
However, these were not drawn as rectangles as their plan-form
would dictate, but as crescents reaching outward, a form that
had its origins in the tilted side elevations of the kakebeenwa, and
these were tightly assembled around a central space symbolic
of a laager. As if to make patent its defensive role, Hallen cut
a slit in the centre of each crescent, to resemble a loophole.
These crescents were then projected vertically as shafts
before being sliced at a steep vertical angle, the heights being governed by the largest tall objects in the Free State landscape, grain silos (email, 7 February 2012).
The five shafts to the cluster, of differing radii and heights,
were bonded by a low roof designed to harvest rainwater and
thus conceived as a cistern from which five spouts cantilever
between the shafts to decant into large, oval, brick-lined bowls
surrounding the group at the foot of each intercolumniation.
These bowls were reticulated to drain to the largest and cascade
along the water chain before being re-circulated by a pump embedded in the southern slope of the knoll, with additional water
supplied from the abutting Rietfontein dam. Like its Pretoria
counterpart, the roof was distinguished by a central oculus, but
in addition to throwing daylight on a bronze tableau to be inserted on the floor, it was here also to appreciate views up into
the heights of the shafts and the heavens above.
REFEREED ARTICLE
which the women would load while their
menfolk fired at advancing warriors.
To give cognisance to the indispensable back-up of the women, the statue
was to be formally positioned and illuminated in the following way. The plans of
the crescent-shaped shafts are arranged
externally tangential to an egg-shaped
interior, the symbolic laager, and the
axis is aligned roughly south-north, the
direction the trek took through the Free
State. The southern intercolumniation of
the shafts is widest and serves as the access from the path up from the parking
lot. Because the northern crescent-shaft
at the head of the egg-shape is not radially concurrent with the others, the axis
of entry terminates not on its slit but on
a solid side, ideal as a backdrop for a figurative statue, and reminiscent in its axial
placing of the Pretoria counterpart. To
emphasise this focus, the corresponding
section shows that the roof was here cut
short to allow for direct overhead daylighting angled by louvers.
DESIGN DEVELOPMENT
Having been instructed to prepare documentation for construction, Hallen requested the appointment of structural
engineers Michal S Zakrzewski and
Partners of Durban, whose magnum opus
was the Ocean Terminal, built 1958–62.
This motivation relied not only on the
ease for professional collaboration, but on
the experience the practice had gained
in building reinforced concrete maize
grain silos in the eastern Free State, for
which younger Polish émigré, Miloslav
(Milek) Masojada, had been resident engineer, and who was duly assigned to the
Winburg project. However, due to the
(towering, 24m+) heights and the crescent forms of the shafts, specialist input
on wind pressure was sought from Colin
Fleming, then lecturer in Civil Engineering at the University of Natal who subjected a model to testing in a wind tunnel
(email, 26 January 2012).
In the process, it was realised that the
shafts would have to be substantially
‘beefed up’ and that the stubs of the
crescents could not taper. To allow for
eccentric thickening, the outside diameter of the shaft had to become semicircular and the inside elliptical. Hallen
thus redesigned the stubs as rebates,
and recessed a half-round channel set on
the diagonal in the inside corner, much
like a flute between fillets in classical
architecture, and chamfered all corners
to allow for the removal of the shuttering without damaging the cast concrete
forms. Similarly, the detailing of the slits
in the centres of the crescents had to be
reconsidered from a simple cut on plan to
the shape of a double funnel with neck
in the depth of the wall, much like the
loopholes of ‘Rice-Type’ blockhouses,
but asymmetricalx.
In the preparation for construction,
the plan had to be distilled from artistic
to geometric principles. The irregular
pentagonal star-shape of the roof was laid
out from a point centred on the position
of the oculus and the coincident plaque
beneath. Three semi-circles were set
radially concurrent with this geometry,
the smallest (Uys) facing northwest and
the two facing east (Potgieter) and west
(Trichardt) respectively, which are
9
7
8
11
CONSTRUCTION
7 Details from left: vertical recess with slit, recessed surname of a trekker partyleader and the rebated stub to the shaft with half-round channel as a modern flute.
8 Tracing of plan showing shafts and pentagonal star-shaped roof by Hallen. Note
the layout with the radii of three half-round shafts concurrent with the oculus
and plaque on the floor, the northern and southern shafts radiating from a point
eastward, the wider aperture on the south beneath the most pronounced gargoyle,
and the distance in spacing between the outline of the roof and the northern halfround shaft (BBAL).
9 Detail of the space which the statue of the Voortrekker woman and child would
have occupied against the solid wall space left of the slit and symmetrical beneath
the brackets. The roof otherwise scribed to the shafts is here cut back to allow
for daylight to penetrate. Note the additional set of brackets beneath attached to
the roof, separated by shims from those projecting from the shaft. (Photograph by
Chris Jooste)
10 Detail of aperture for daylight to fall on the proposed statue.
11 Photograph from north-west (Afrikanerbakens, 2006: 118. Photographer: Hendrik
Oosthuysen).
Hallen enquired about the best silo-building contractors from
Masojada. After inspecting the joinery shop in which the timber shuttering would be manufactured, he was satisfied that
Welkom Construction (Pty) Ltd could carry out the project to
the standard required. Sole proprietor was the late Hans Weiss
who had trained as a joiner in Germany before immigrating to
South Africa in the aftermath of WWII (email, 28 March 2012).
On the advice of the VVMK the tender by Welkom Construction of R40 465.25 was awarded by the Provincial Director of
Works. With that, construction could commence under Hallen’s
supervision on 20 September 1967, almost three years after the
competition submission date.
Two months later, on the Day of the Vow 1967, CR Swart, inaugural and incumbent State President of South Africa, who coincidentally was born and schooled at Winburg and served as its
MP, 1941–59, (SESA) unveiled the perimeter ring to the bronze
plaque, some 1 200mm in outer diameter. When the inauguration took place a year later, on 10 October 1968, the central
bronze disc was inserted in the perimeter ring by his successor
State President JJ Fouche, former Administrator of the Orange
Free State (SESA).
The total development cost approximately R75 000, which
had been collected by public subscription on a Rand-for-Rand
basis (Ferreira, 1975:257). Interestingly, the engineer’s fees of
R4 833.26 exceeded those of the architect at R4 164.82 (Fer-
10
the largest and of equal size, while the north-eastern (Maritz)
and southern (Retief) semi-circles were set out from a point
on the axis of the eastern semi-circle, some 1 250mm from
the centre of construction where the two rays meet at an
obtuse angle of 165ºxi.
This shift in points of geometric ignition resulted in the widest opening on the south under the most pronounced spout,
which became the main access from the car park, and provided
the solid backdrop for the proposed statue on the inside of the
northern half-round, because the slit was not aligned with the
geometry of the pentagonal star. While the roof is scribed to fit
between the cluster of half-round shafts and supported on a set
of brackets off each with shims like bridge construction, it is
notched from the northern shaft to define an aperture for daylight to fall on the statue.
The shafts were designed for construction in 2 400mm lifts
with the aesthetic advantage of having the construction joints
scale the cluster. The slits in the centres of the semi-circular
shafts were accommodated in full-height recesses with the voids
taking up the central portion of each lift, but for that coincident
with the roof, which remained solid, and the ground floor where
voids begin from dado level upward. The termination of each
shaft was chamfered at a vertical angle of 30º, unusually from
the curved inside of the semi-circles up to the stubs, with the
exposed surface sliced radially horizontal.
12
13
14
reira, 1975:255) to which Hallen retorted that the project needed
no working drawings; he prepared and supervised all detailing in
the engineer’s drawing office (email, 21 February 2012).
GENEALOGY OF FORM AND MEANING
The controlling idea of the Winburg monument was the laager
with wagons, which transform as shafts to ascend dramatically and
terminate to evoke horns of draught oxen (Biermann, 1981:42),
while spouts penetrate from the low binding roof through the
intercolumniations. Yet, in this three-dimensional sculptural abstraction one senses a richness of references, some to works of Le
Corbusier, who died in 1965 as the design development of the
Winburg monument was underway, and some to Hallen’s own
works.
On graduating, Hallen spent 1956 in the employ of the Architects’ Department of the London County Council. This department had absorbed and modified ideas imparted from the Continent, e.g. Roehampton in which it made credible reinterpretations
of Le Corbusier’s Unité (Curtis, 1996:153) and, it was while in this
employ that Hallen gained experience in working with off-shutter concrete (email, 26 January 2012). Once in private practice in
Durban with Maurice Dibb from 1959, Hallen’s architecture developed along a ‘London’ trajectory and he distinguished himself
with a series of medium-rise apartment blocks on Durban’s Berea,
e.g. Stellenberg (1962), Drostdy and Musgrave Mews (1963) and
Riebeeck and Bellevue (1964), the last of which made extensive
use of reinforced concrete and was contemporaneous with the
Winburg competition.
In all his apartment buildings Hallen separated the staircases
from the residential blocks as discrete elements and explored their
sculptural forms with slit windows and often also with hooded
roofs. For example, the staircase at Riebeeck, (four flights around
an open well) is set diagonally to the building and the enclosing
side walls project as nibs in the outer corners of the landings to define slit openings, while the parapets echo the double-pitched roof
with ridge parallel to the axis of the building. This staircase could
be compared with the cluster of shafts and slits at Winburg.
Another comparison is Bellevue in which the landings are
semi-circular with slit windows in the centre of the half-round
perimeter walls, in the line of the well of the dog-leg stairs, and,
different from the executed building with flat roofs before following the profile of the flights up, the drawings show the roofs
to be splayed upward in one plane from the perimeter landing
wall (BBAL). These are the forms that terminate the sliced halfround shafts at Winburg, with which design Hallen was simultaneously engaged in.
But, the lineage might also be traceable to Le Corbusier, e.g.
to the upturned crescents on the rooftops of the Parliament
Building and the Governor’s Palace (unbuilt) in Chandigarh,
1951 onwards, which the master ascribed to bulls’ horns, or the
astronomical devices of Jantar Mantar, Delhi, of the early 18th
century, whom he is said to have admired enormously (Curtis,
1996:433).
The off-shutter finish of the Winburg monument and the
recessed lettering of the Voortrekker leaders’ surnames are
hallmarks of Le Corbusier. Whether the monument is deemed
a further metamorphosis of Hallen’s staircase compositions,
suffused with Corbusian elements, or the result of meticulously controlled geometric artistry, it set a new level of abstraction and three-dimensional sophistication in South African
commemorative architecture.
ADDITIONAL AND OMITTED WORK
Fortunately the monument was spared controversy, which so
often accompanies architectural competitions, but its strategic
vision was somewhat compromised. First, the N1 highway was
located further westward rendering the monument barely visible
to uninitiated motorists, but the scale derived from silos is patent
and confirmed in the landscape. Second, the pedestrian access
to the monument was moved northward, disengaging visitors
from the experience of the water chain at the foot of the bank
of the largest bowl, but, in fact, at the cost of the disabled as the
ramp was replaced with a staircase. However, this intervention
appears to have been embarked upon after completion and in
15
ignorance when funds for hard surfacing
of a path became available.
While under construction, the VVMK
resurrected an idea mooted before the
competition, namely to complement the
cottage with an open-air museum. Hallen
carefully studied the typologies of both
settler and indigenous vernacular architectures of the Free State, and proposed
that these line the brow of the natural
theatre of the site while keeping the
monument on the knoll as its focus. This
did not go ahead, but to accommodate
the crowds who would attend the inauguration and the annual Day of the Vow
celebrations, Hallen designed an openair auditorium. This was realised to seat
9 000 (Ferreira, 1975:260) in three banks
of parallel rows of low walls on the natural
gradient east of the monument, with any
spoil going towards the shaping of the
water bowls (email, 21 February 2012),
which in the execution became lined
with rubble. No photographs could be
12 The outer brass ring marked the commencement
of the project in 1967 and the inner disc the
inauguration in 1968 (Afrikanerbakens, 2006: 119.
Photographer: Hendrik Oosthuysen).
13 Spouts emerging as virtual cannons at the base of
the monument.
14 Staircase tower as a discrete element at Riebeeck,
208 Problem Mkhize (Cowey) Rd, Durban. Architects:
Hallen & Dibb, 1964.
15 Proposed open-air museum of indigenous and
settler vernacular typologies including the
hartbeesthuis and the kapstylhuis replete with
bakoond and kookskerm on the brow of the Winburg
site with the Voortrekker monument as its focus
(BBAL).
16 The protective inner space (beskutte binneruimte)
of the ’laager’ centred about the oculus and the
missing plaque.
found showing that water ever discharged
from the spouts into the bowls, nor from
the bowls down the water chain, but the
monument had to serve its purpose independently – which it does.
THE STATUE
Despite the careful integration of the
statue, strangely, the assessors deemed
its placing ‘arbitrary, unless it could be
brought into a sensible association with
the lettering on the bronze plaque’ (SAAR,
August 1965:30). This comment and the
symbolism of the ‘protective space’ might
have prompted a re-consideration.
At a meeting as late as 22 August 1967
when the tender for construction was
accepted, the VVMK resolved that Hal16
len was to put forward proposals with a
budget covering a maquette, artist’s fees
and so on. Yet, it was also resolved that
the matter be kept in abeyance until
the completion of construction including paving (Minutes of the VVMK, 22
August 1967). The souvenir brochure
issued at the inauguration almost a year
later re-confirms the incorporation of
a ‘work of sculpture of a Voortrekker
woman’ in the courtyard, as the space
was referred to (p11). Four months later
in February 1969, after the inauguration, the VVMK disbanded. Whether
the question of a statue ever resurfaced
could not be established but, certainly,
no statue ever inhabited the monument.
According to Hallen the item was
19
17
18
‘endlessly deferred until it was generally agreed that the
statue was not needed’ (email, 26 March 2012). The climax
of a visit to Winburg is thus not a sarcophagus like the Pretoria monument, but the beskutte binneruimte itself – the shaded, secluded and protective shelter that, at the heart of the
monument, should singularly communicate the role of the
women. This space, replete with the ‘descending benedictory light’ (Bunn, 1998:106) that naturally illuminates the tableau on the floor, and the view offered heavenward through
the oculus, collectively provide the monument with a sense
of immanence. However, after the theft of the plaque embedded in the floor one can only wonder what a statue in the
secluded interior might have had to endure.
THE NEW GENERATION OF MONUMENTS OF
COMMEMORATION
The assessors of the Winburg competition were taken by the
choice of crescent-shaped shafts (skulpvorme), which they submitted were at the apex of contemporary structural design.
They termed these the ‘modern equivalent’ of the orders of antiquity, round arches of Roman architecture, pointed arches of
Gothic and the steel frame of the 19th century, and concluded
that the ‘leap to such independent forms from the inevitable
concrete wagons and marble oxen in a static immovable laager
is huge’ and served to ‘immediately ... distinguish the submission’ (SAAR, August 1965:30). That was the breakthrough and
mould for the new generation of commemorative monuments
in South Africa.
But for the 1820 (English) Settlers’ Monument in Grahamstown (1966–74), which was designed as a utilitarian memorial
with cultural, educational and conference functions, the balance of monuments erected in the two succeeding decades
simply commemorated Afrikaner deeds. The next important
one of these was the Afrikaans Language (Taal) Monument
in Paarl, also the subject of an architectural competition, held
two years later in 1966 and won by Jan van Wijk (1926–2005).
17 Taalmonument, Paarl. Architect: Jan van Wijk,
1966-75. (Afrikanerbakens, 2006: 54. Photographer:
Hendrik Oosthuysen)
18 The abandoned water chain of precast elements.
19 The deserted open-air theatre of low parallel seating
walls east of the monument, also designed by Hallen.
Its concept is similar to Winburg, with a powerful symbolic form
that Van Wijk acknowledged owed a debt to Hallen (email, 28
February 2012), but it is more elaborate in its experience and command of the mountain-top site, which it meets with an organic
architectural response. Interesting too is that one of two honorary
mentions was accorded the entry by Barrie Biermann. Although
this design could not be located, obviously Biermann led by
example, being not only an assessor of taste but its promoter
as a teacher and designer too.
However, what began as a trickle of Afrikaner memorialisation
soon became a floodxii. While the Irish Monument by Jan van
Wijk, Johannesburg, 1973–5, might still be seen as a successor to
the abstract stimulus set at Winburg, the design of the Strijdom
Monument, Pretoria, by Interplan Architects, inaugurated in 1972,
even if freed from any obvious historical Afrikaner symbolism, is
a re-appropriation of a foreign example. It was termed a ‘Brazilian
influence blended with a new monumentality’ as it was literally
based on Oscar Niemeyer’s unbuilt monument to Ruy Barboza,
Rio de Janeiro, 1950 (Gerneke, 1998:218). However, this is not an
article of critique of Afrikaner monuments; rather, it aims to place
the significance of Hallen’s Winburg monument in its genealogical
perspective.
MONUMENT AND ARCHITECT TODAY
While in the New South Africa 16 December remains a public holiday as the ‘Day of Reconciliation’, the site at Winburg
appears to have long last witnessed any geloftefees ceremonies.
Custodianship remains in the hands of the provincial authorities and the site is inaccessible as the gates are kept locked
without any note of explanation. The water chain lies dry, the pump
room accommodated in the banks of the knoll is abandoned and the
outdoor theatre overgrown. To the uninitiated the maze of trenches
must look weird, but as these were dug open due to the theft of the
cables buried therein, the absence of the floodlights affixed to the
brims of bowls is of little consequence. But the theft of the central
bronze plaque is unconscionable and deeply lamentable.
Walter Peters, Professor of Architecture at the University of the Free State,
gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Hans and June Hallen; Milek and
Shirley Masojada; Michele Jacobs of the Barrie Biermann Architecture Library,
University of KwaZulu-Natal; and Johan Meyer, Professor of Mathematics and
Applied Mathematics, University of the Free State.
This work is based upon research supported by the National Research Foundation. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in
this material are those of the author and therefore the NRF does not accept any
liability in regard thereto.
REFERENCES
Barrie Biermann Architecture Library (BBAL), University of KwaZuluNatal, Durban.
Biermann, B (1981) Hans Hallen. Gold Medallist 1979/80. Architecture
SA, Winter, 40-47.
Bunn, D (1998) White Sepulchres: On the Reluctance of Monuments.
In Judin, H & Vladislavi, I Blank_ Architecture, Apartheid and After. Cape
Town: David Philip & Rotterdam: NAi, 93-117.
Curtis, W (1996) Modern Architecture since 1900. London: Phaidon.
De Haan, H & Haagsma, I (1988) Architects in Competition. London:
Thames & Hudson.
Ferreira, O (1975) ‘n Volk se Hulde. Doornfontein: Perskor.
Ferreira, O (1989) Die Voortrekkermonument, Winburg. In Afrikanerbakens. Auckland Park: FAK, 117-118.
Free State Provincial Archives (FSPA), Bloemfontein (PAW 28,
B231/1/1).
Gerneke, G (1998) ‘From Brazil to Pretoria’. In Fisher, R & Le Roux, S
with Maré, E. Architecture of the Transvaal. Pretoria: UNISA, 196-229.
Kostof, S (1995) A History of Architecture – Settings and Rituals. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Pevsner, N (1976) A History of Building Types. London: Thames & Hudson.
Picton-Seymour, D (1989) Historical Buildings in South Africa. Cape
Town: Struikhof.
Prysvraag: Voortrekkermonument Winburg (1965) South African Architectural Record, August, 28-30.
Souvenir Programme. Voortrekker Monument Winburg. Inauguration
10th October 1968. 16p.
Standard Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa (SESA)(1973). Cape Town:
NASOU.
Watson, W (2007) Brick by Brick – An Informal Guide to the History of South
Africa. Claremont: New Africa.
END NOTES
i In 1929 the Afrikaner Broederbond, a secret organisation founded
in 1918, spawned a public ‘front’, the Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge, an umbrella body to co-ordinate and guide the work of
Afrikaner cultural groups [Worden, N (1998) A Concise Dictionary of SA
History. Cape Town: Francolin].
ii Pietermaritzburg, Weenen, Danskraal at Ladysmith, Blood River,
Blijdevooruitzicht at Harrismith, Thaba Nchu, Winburg, Vegkop
at Heilbron, Potchefstroom, Pretoria and Ohrigstad (Ferreira,
1975:27-28).
iii In 1962 a modern place of worship was built in Pietermaritzburg
by architect Paul le Roux of Stellenbosch within the precinct of the
Church of the Vow, long in use as a museum.
iv After serving as mayor of Bloemfontein, 1949-50, and rising up the
ranks of the provincial National Party, sand merchant Mr JWJC (Sand)
Du Plessis was appointed Administrator of the Orange Free State in
1959, a position he held for a further term until 1969.
v With the prospect of incorporating a Voortrekker monument on
the site, the town clerk of Winburg sought the advice of Johannesburg-based town planner Max Kirchhofer. In his report following an
in loco inspection on 8 November 1963, Kirchofer waxed lyrical, ‘[...
at] Winburg one became conscious of the transition from the central
plains to the north-eastern plateau of the Free State ... [it was] one of
those rare instances in the wide-flung landscape of the highveld where
separate features gather into a close-knit, expressive, balanced group’.
It was a ‘...happy co-incidence that a site due to be developed for its
historical significance should be set in so well shaped a landscape’.
This was a bowl with a knoll at the confluence of two streams [of the
Laaispruit] flowing into the [Rietfontein] dam, which ‘lent itself admirably as the base for the monument, [and] would be the accent of
the whole layout’, and Kirchofer advised that the memorial site be
conceived in harmony with the strongly moulded landscape. The
‘overriding criterium’ (sic) he wrote, would be ‘exercise of control
over the use of the land within the topographical entity of the “bowl”,
in short that the landscape remains unspoilt [sic] as far as one can
see’ (FSPA, PAW 28, B231/1/1). It was agreed that this report could
be made available to entrants of the competition, but whether that
happened could not be ascertained.
vi Uytenbogaardt was busy with the technical development of the
NGK church at Welkom-West, 1963–4.
vii Having recently returned from the Kahn master class and accepted
a position at the University of Natal, Theron accompanied Hallen to
submit his entry in Bloemfontein (KZNIAJ 2-2001, 4).
viii Second prize went to EJ Bloem of Kroonstad; third prizes each
to Albert te Groen and Botha, Meyer & Lotter of Pretoria and James
Watson of Johannesburg; while the model by Beyers Hartmann
of Kroonstad came in for special mention as did the skilful documentation of Anton du Toit of Pretoria and the symbolism in the submission by LM Holzapfel, also of Pretoria.
ix The translation was prepared by Hallen’s Afrikaner wife, June, née
Meiring (email).
x See Peters, W (2003) ‘The Architecture of the Blockhouses of the
Anglo-Boer SA War, 1899-1902. Part 2: Rice Pattern’. Architecture SA,
July/Aug, 44-53.
xi While the names of the leaders on the shafts might suggest the
direction of the respective treks or the sizes of the parties, Hallen
dismisses any correlation between destination or size of trekker party;
the composition was driven by artistic considerations, he insists (email,
7 February 2012).
xii See Afrikanerbakens. Auckland Park: FAK, 1989.
xiii For the next two decades Hallen’s architecture was in the forefront, unassailably in (KwaZulu-) Natal, and he balanced practice with
leadership, serving as ISAA President-in-Chief 1974–5, receiving its
Gold Medal in 1980, and he was the first to represent ISAA on UIA. At
the prime of his career, Hallen immigrated to Sydney in 1987, aged 57,
in retrospect, as the miracle of the New South Africa was coming into
focus. Regardless, he later quipped philosophically: ‘Buildings stand
still, people move’ (KZNIA Journal, 2/1997, p8).
The late architectural historian Spiro Kostof concluded that
‘[p]ure invention is rare in architecture, and originality more
commonly manifests itself in the purposeful adjustment of
traditional forms’ (1995:192). In the case of the Winburg monument, the forms are certainly not traditional, and the abstract
interpretation of the laager, the qualities of shelter and striving,
and their manifestation in the material of the day put this monument of commemoration, in the early phase of Hallen’s careerxiii,
in the realms of pure invention.
While the Pretoria Voortrekker monument has recently been
declared a National Heritage Site, one cannot but conclude that
its counterpart at Winburg has stood still. Yet, almost half a century on, the structure itself remains in excellent condition with
minimal spalling, and should survive even though the township
has expanded in the direction of the monument, despite the
earlier assurances. Fortunately it is well built and requires minimal maintenance, for it might take a long time before a critical
mass of sympathisers can be found to save it from its otherwise
insidious path to ruination.
1
OZMIK HOUSE, PRETORIA
In the 1975 publication Age of the Masters, Reyner Banham presented
a personal view of modern architecture. He described the modern movement
as an architectural revolution that visibly affected people’s lives. According to
Banham, new ways of thinking about existing structural solutions resulted in
the new forms. Today architecture is in need of a similar revolution, one that
focuses on reducing resource consumption in the built environment.
BY JACQUES LAUBSCHER
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
OZMIK HOUSE
The Royal Norwegian Embassy, Innovation Norway and the Swiss Agency
for Development and Cooperation are
located in Ozmik House. According to
Arca Architects and Designers (Arca)
they were challenged by this project
to express a distinct design identity
through built form on a highly visible
site along Lynnwood Road, bordering
the suburbs of Hillcrest and Brooklyn
in Pretoria.
Inus Goussard and Faan Nel of Arca
believe that the built product represents
a regional design character as well as
being sustainable. This design resulted
from studying the existing context and
marrying it with Norwegian and Swiss
design culture.
Planning restrictions determined the
north-eastern site entrance, resulting
in an L-shaped building. The pivotal
north-western corner is emphasised by a
curved concrete corner. This part accommodates the visa reception and service
area on the ground floor with the conference room being housed on the first floor.
The resulting east-west floor plate was
addressed by using material mass, performance glazing, and the implementation of a secondary louvered skin. On the
northern side the relationship between
boundary and threshold is explored
through function, level and massing.
2
ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGY
Arca follows a design strategy of local
eco-consciousness. It is argued that a
building’s main function is to provide
shelter and comfort. However, the architect should remain conscious of the
design’s impact on the environment.
Unfortunately this awareness comes at
a price, and for Ozmik House it is estimated at 10–15% of the overall budget.
The established rapport between Ozmik
Property Investments and Arca facilitated this investment. Rashid Aboobaker
of Ozmik Property Investments says: ‘We
are all committed to promoting responsible development and to carrying knowledge from Ozmik House forward to new
ventures.’ Additionally, Aboobaker sees
Ozmik House as the flagship development to promote the continued working
relationship with Arca.
Arca believes in designing for a changing environment. According to Goussard,
passive sustainable concepts and uncomplicated technical resolutions were integral to the design process for this project.
This approach is illustrated in Ozmik
House in the following ways:
• Allowing for future expansion to
accommodate increased space requirements or additional tenants;
• Selecting materials according to their
sustainability index;
• Introducing passive environmental
control; and
• Installing energy efficient services to
limit resource consumption.
FUTURE EXPANSION
The completed building allows for future expansion in a variety of ways. The
lightweight metal roof could be raised
with steel columns to introduce additional floor area. This would be supported by extending the existing circulation
and service cores. Providing additional
basement parking allows for more building occupants. Except for service areas,
all finishes to floors and ceilings were
treated as continuous planes. A modular
screwless partitioning system demarcates
the cellular office spaces, but it allows for
future adjustment and removal to suit
changing needs.
TECHNICAL | JUNE/JULY 2012
5
3
4
MATERIAL SELECTION
According to Banham, the modern masters were sensitive about materials, and
it was this sensitivity that allowed simple
materials to produce sophisticated structures. A similar material sensitivity is evident in this project. In example, bamboo
was selected as a sustainable alternative
to other natural timbers. However, the
inherent properties of bamboo were also
investigated, resulting in
• using bamboo as an applied floor- and
windowsill finish;
• using bamboo structurally as treads
for the staircase;
• manufacturing the handrails and
screens from bamboo; and
• designing modular bamboo panels
to be used in conjunction with
traditional suspended ceilings.
PASSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL
CONTROL
The significant east-west orientation
was addressed by introducing screens as
a secondary skin to the building. These
screens respond differently to the various degrees of sun exposure. The resultant effect of this skin is the diffusion of
the sunlight while minimising glare and
heat gain. The narrow floor plate allows
for maximum penetration of natural
light, thereby reducing the need for artificial lighting. The design strategy approaches ambient lighting as a resource
to be supplemented by artificial lighting.
To achieve proper integration between
6
natural and artificial light, lux meters
were used to measure luminance in the
workplace. By using movement sensors,
the relevant lighting system is activated
by occupancy. Lighting armature selection was restricted to compact fluorescent lights (CFLs), fluorescent lights
(FLs) and light emitting diodes (LEDs).
Movable lamps were used for askoriented lighting at the workstations.
External lighting was minimised to reduce light pollution. The semi-basement
parking is naturally lit and ventilated.
A refuse recycling area is provided in
the basement, encouraging reduction of
waste diverted to landfill. This facility is
managed by a local recycling company.
Performance glazing with insulated aluminium frames was used throughout to
lessen heat gain. Double-glazing was
used to reduce noise disturbance on
Lynnwood Road. The façade glazing was
made up of double-glazed units. Openings to the exterior were fitted with selfclosing mechanisms to assist with the
indoor climate control.
Low-flow sanitary fittings and waterless urinals were installed throughout.
Rainwater is harvested and used to water
the indigenous landscape.
installed. By installing motion sensors,
independent zone control is possible for
the four main functional zones. On the
other hand, the climate to cellular offices
is controlled individually. Exhaust risers
extract pollutants from all printing areas.
CONCLUSION
Ozmik House serves as an example of
environmental strategy and the sensitive
use of material producing a sophisticated
product. In the words of Banham, the
resultant architecture is visibly affecting
people’s lives.
PROJECT TEAM:
Client: Ozmik Property Investments
(Pty) Ltd
Architects: Arca Architects & Designers
Architectural Team: Inus Goussard, Faan
Nel, Barend Hattingh
Photos: Gunther Gräter, JP Hanekom,
Drawings and Illustrations: Inus Goussard
Structural and Civil engineers: Liebenberg,
Jenkins & Partners Inc.
Mechanical and Electrical engineers: KKA
Consulting Electrical Engineers cc
Quantity Surveyor: McLachlan du Plooy
Midway (Pty) Ltd
Landscape Design: Allingham
Environmental Architecture
Contractor: GD Irons Construction
(Pty) Ltd
ENERGY-EFFICIENT SERVICES
In conventional office buildings the
mechanical ventilation system is largely
accountable for the energy consumed. In
Ozmik House a variable refrigerant volume (VRV) air-conditioning system was
1
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6
Typical section
View from south east
First floor plan
Ground floor plan
Entrance
View from north west
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PERSPECTIVE | JUNE/JULY 2012
SLUMDWELLERS
Picture: Nic Coetzer
BY NIC COETZER
I GREW UP IN A SLUM. Which is funny, and at the same time not. It’s funny,
because I spent my entire pre-school
and school years living in Umhlanga by
the sea. It was, to be sure, an idyllic and
privileged place to grow up, with sugarcane fields and bird-filled jungles nearby,
bringing an edginess to the suburbia it
was. But of course, it was the beach that
was about the best thing that can ever
happen to a kid – endless days of summer-through-winter bodysurfing and
surfing, a paradise.
But I can’t escape the fact that I grew
up in a slum. It was not a district or an
area, just a house. A slum house. And it
was a perfect house – it had a gable and
a big garden for hoopoes and paradise
flycatchers and trees for vervet monkeys.
The thing is, when my parents got divorced my grandparents made a plan and
turned the half-level below their house
into a second dwelling for my mum, me
and my three siblings. My brother and
I shared a room, as did my sisters, but my
mother? Well, rather than moving us all
to a block of flats on the Durban beachfront, she decided to sacrifice her comfort
for our youth – she spent nearly ten years
sleeping without windows in the passage
leading to the bathroom.
In 1935 the Slums Act finally resolved
a vexing dilemma for the policing of
the built environment and society at
large. For years the British administrators in Cape Town – following the lead
of London – had tried to get a handle
on what constitutes a slum. Before 1935
they knew one when they saw one, they
knew it in their gentrified bones. Of
course it was mixed up with all the class
and thence racial prejudices of the Age
of Empire. Medical Officers of Health
and City Engineers looked for reasons
in the poorer neighbourhoods to discriminate against the city’s ‘others’ and to
have them removed from the city centre.
They found them – the reasons and these
‘others’ – within the visually derelict and
discombobulated buildings of District
Six and other parts of ‘Old Cape Town’.
Before 1935 the city bureaucrats took
things at face value and read within the
decaying surfaces of buildings signs of neglect and social inferiority; unpainted and
spalling walls were a sign of the unkempt
and degenerate inhabitants whose fraying
clothing confirmed their lack of goodness
and moral strength rather than indicated
the scourge of poverty and rack-renting.
Everyone understood that an ugly building
housed ugly people.
But it was impossible to prove this and it
was entirely contestable – ‘luckily’ the age
of modernity had always been bubbling
under this Age of Empire. It had been waiting to reveal the true ambitions of English
cultural domination and it did this through
measurement and science – indisputable
science, where a slum became categorically definable and measurable through the
Slums Act of 1935. Suddenly the Medical
Officer of Health had unequivocal proof
of a slum’s existence, for example, if there
weren’t enough cubic feet of air related
to the number of inhabitants intended for
the room, or if two siblings of opposite sex
shared the same room after either turned
12 years old, or if, for example, someone
slept in a corridor or a room without ventilation or windows.
Which brings us back to my mother.
Her sacrifice was bigger than simply
having her privacy compromised daily.
It was that she made herself a lawbreaker, albeit an unknowing one, to
protect her children and to give them the
best life possible. These laws persist in
our building regulations, which people
break out of necessity all the time even
after the powers have inspired – aspired
– them to a ‘better life for all’ through the
‘eradication of slums’ and the provision
of existenz minimum housing. And the
prejudice against ‘slum-dwellers’
continues. It is in our housing policies
being led by national government. And
it is in the everyday attitudes of ordinary
citizens. I doubt that many architects
still believe what the Empire-era British
taught us, that only the morally corrupt
don’t care for their appearances, and
inversely, that corrupt appearances
indicate a corrupt soul. We know that
in ‘informal settlements’ and ‘slums’ are
some of our country’s best citizens; these
houses of makeshift assembly are often
a sure sign of indescribable resolve and
self-sacrifice – simply, to provide a better
life for one’s children.
BY NOËLEEN MURRAY, UNIVERSITY OF THE WESTERN CAPE
Post-apartheid South Africa has seen new forms of
heritage practice emerge in the spatial disciplines,
alongside older forms of the preservation, restoration
and conservation of buildings and urban spaces.
IN THE 2008 revision of the widely
known volume from the 1980s, New South
African Keywords, in the chapter entitled
‘Heritage’, Nick Shepherd suggests:
‘...rather than thinking about heritage as a
set of objects, it may be more useful to think
of it as a set of effects... What we might call
the ‘heritage effect’ lies in edging us towards
essentialised notions of culture and identity.
Heritage weighs down on the side of reification.
It places notions of culture and identity beyond
critique...’1
In order to trace the ‘heritage effect’
(after Shepherd who cites KirschenblattGimblett), it is useful to think of the
genealogy of the emergence of the
term ‘heritage’ in South Africa. Aside
from some usage in archaeology and the
Afrikaans term erfinis (meaning heritage
or inheritance) the word is noticeably
absent from earlier discourses and
practices of conservation in architecture
and in urban conservation.2 Tracing the
history of the word, it seems to make an
appearance following the promulgation
of the National Heritage Resources
Act (NHRA November 1999) largely
replacing the word ‘conservation’, which
had gained preference from the 1980s
onwards under the influence of leading
practitioners and academics.3
This emergence is perhaps not that
surprising, as the NHRA contained
a new category of work, through the
new requirements for heritage impact
assessments, for which the specific skills
of the conservation architect or planner
seemed to be a perfect fit. Very soon, in
response to the need to formulate a set
of specifications, practices and codes,
a group made up largely of architects,
archaeologists, landscape architects
and urban designers was started in
Cape Town. The group, going by the
acronym AHAP (Association of Heritage
Practitioners), began from the early 2000s
onwards to create membership structures,
hold meetings and position its members
for the work that was beginning to flow in
the form of Heritage Impact Assessments
(HIAs). Cape Town has since been widely
hailed by practitioners elsewhere in the
country as the city in which the best
heritage practice is taking place. As part
of establishing AHAP, a list soon began
to circulate of ‘accredited’ practitioners.
Local authorities, professional bodies,
developers and private clients all began
to employ and recommend heritage
practitioners whose names appeared on
the ‘AHAP List’ in the Western Cape.4
The exact process through which
practitioners’ names came to be included
in the list was linked to appropriate
qualifications and membership of the
voluntary association. Membership
was granted in one of three categories:
Generalist, Specialist or Associate. In
this manner it appeared as if AHAP had
successfully completed the process of
establishing and institutionalising a select
set of specialised heritage competencies.
However, the group’s move to create
heritage accreditation operates outside
of the governing authority of the then
newly formed South African Heritage
Resources Agency (SAHRA) and its
accredited membership reflected in the
list has no real status. Yet its continued
circulation in practice and its adoption
by major institutions of authority has
become problematic as its membership
END PIECE | JUNE/JULY 2012
THE ‘HERITAGE EFFECT’
has come to be racially polarised, hardly
attracting key practitioners and graduates
outside of the spatial disciplines in
any significant numbers.5 In addition,
the conceptualisations of heritage in
the realm of the built environment as
practised by these professionals has
tended to continue to give prominence to
settler and colonial buildings and urban
spaces. The heritage effect of AHAP has,
perhaps inadvertently, produced a set of
exclusions from its newly invented field
of heritage practice.
One of these exclusions has been
over considering the position of modern
architecture as heritage, and this has had
a profound effect on heritage practices
post-apartheid. Over the last decade
or so, international heritage groupings
such as ICOMOS and DOCOMOMO
have begun to address the incorporation
of modernist architecture into a new
category of heritage significance.6 Most of
the initiatives aimed at the preservation
and protection of modern architecture
have been motivated through rationales
around their modernist design, as a way of
according them a place in national listings
of heritage buildings.7 These groups
view modern architecture as historical
and representative of a particular period
of building. Restoration and adaptive
reuse projects have been encouraged as
a means of conserving these buildings.
To a very large extent these preservation
projects have been successful in the
economically buoyant centres of Western
Europe and North America where
benevolent benefactors have contributed
towards their restoration. Much like
modern art, these buildings have been
celebrated for their avant garde qualities
and their adherence to the heroic aspects
of the project of modernism. While
modern architecture has certainly taken
its place alongside other older forms of
architecture internationally as a new
form of heritage concern, in general the
problematising of modern architecture’s
modernities has hardly been considered
in any systematic manner by architects,
especially in South Africa.
ARCHIT E C T UR E | SA 52|
project. In each case the ethnicised
motivations were aimed at motivating
for relevance in the postcolonial, postapartheid present, mobilised in some
way to argue (although obliquely) against
the European-influenced colonial forms
commonly used by architects previously.
Architect’s impression. Proposals for
the Kopanong Provincial Government
Precinct in Johannesburg, 2004. Source:
City of Johannesburg website, ‘It’s not
5 buildings for demolition, but 10!’
– Tuesday, 13 January 2004.
Photograph Svea Josephy
Instead of posing a systematic set
of questions about the relationships
between modern architecture and the
apartheid period, essentialised notions
of culture and architecture appear to
have been preferred by architects in
constructing arguments for new forms of
heritage practice. Two examples in South
Africa, dating back to 2006/7, illustrate
this point – the cases of the Werdmuller
Centre in Claremont, Cape Town and the
proposed Kopanong Gauteng Provincial
Government Precinct in central
Johannesburg. In the Johannesburg
case, the reconceptualisation of the
Johannesburg city centre for the Kopanong
Gauteng
Provincial
Government
Precinct raised issues around modern
and art deco architecture from the early
years of the twentieth century. The
arguments presented in architect Fanuel
Motsepe’s scheme for redevelopment
and demolition contained an idea of
redress in the colonial city, asserting
the insertion of what was claimed to be
more African (specifically Tswana) spacemaking principles.8 In reaction the groups
formed to oppose the development
argued for the architectural qualities of
the ten buildings under question as key
examples of their period.9 In Cape Town
the case for saving the Werdmuller centred
on the architectural significance of the
building as a key example of esteemed
practitioner Roelof Uytenbogaardt’s
body of work. The arguments in these
two instances of debate, around modern
architectures’ presences in the postapartheid city in South Africa, point to
many useful comparisons around the
processes through which these debates
took place. In both cases ethnicised
notions of space-making were invoked
as motivations for the development
– in the Johannesburg case it was Tswana
architecture and space-making, and in
Cape Town the case was made around
the democratic souk-like quality of the
space as an argument for the retention
of the building.10 These ideas of Africanness and the souk as precedent deployed
a culturally inspired argument for each
The modernist shopping centre inspired by the
idea of the souk; view of internal street space
in a run-down and empty state in 2009.
In both cases too, these arguments
were used despite radically different
spatial manifestations evident in their
designs. At the Werdmuller the Corbusian
brutalist modernism dominates the
idea of the souk, stylistically obliterating
the idea from all but those in the know.
In the Johannesburg case the stylistic
language of the architecture is even more
baffling, given the claims to African-ness,
where postmodernist forms drawn from the
classical forms of ancient Greece and Rome
are scattered over the space in what appears
to be a random manner.11
The slippage between the arguments
that have been used in these recent cases,
and their material imaginaries, seems
to highlight the confusion around the
relationship between language and spatial
form. This points, perhaps, to the troubled
nature and limits of debate about heritage
and spatial identity in the spatial disciplines
in the post-apartheid city, where new ideas
are used to rationalise old forms and in doing
so produce the heritage effect described by
Shepherd.
END NOTES
1. Shepherd, N. 2008. ‘Heritage’ in Shepherd,
N. and Robins, S. 2008 (eds) New South African
Keywords, Jacana Books an Ohio University Press,
Johannesburg and Athens. p.125.
2. Merrington, Peter, 1997, ‘Heritage, Genealogy, and the inventing of Union, South Africa,
1910’, Africa Seminar, Centre for African Studies,
University of Cape Town, 7 May.
3. The most prominent of these were Derek and
Vivienne Japha and Fabio Todeschini.
4. Association of Heritage Assessment Practitioners – Accredited Members: as at August 2007,
AHAP Western Cape, fax 021 650 2352, email
ahapwc@age.uct.ac.za: 16 August 2007.
5. By way of example, the 2007 list does not
contain one graduate of the African Programme
in Museum and Heritage Studies’ Diploma in
Museum and Heritage Studies, offered by Robben Island Museum and the University of the
Western Cape.
6. Fisher, R., Le Roux, H., Murray, N. and Sanders, P., 2003, ‘The modern movement architecture of four South African cities’, doco.mo.mo
Journal, 28, March: 68–76: 69.
7. Van Oers, R. and Haraguchi, S. 2003, UNESCO
World Heritage Papers 5, Identification and Documentation of Modern Heritage, Published in 2003
by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
8. Bremner, Lindsay, 2005, Designs should reflect
Jo’burg’s diversity, Sunday Independent, November 27, 2005 Edition 1.
9. Fraser, Neil, 2005 ‘Kopanong’http://architectafrica.com/bin0/KopanongIndex.html (accessed 5
October 2005, 20h46).
10. Werdmuller Blogspot, http://werdmullercentre.blogspot.com/2008/01/werdmuller-centremain-road-claremont.html (last accessed 22 June
2009 13h50).
11. Bremner, 2005; Rassool, C, 2006, (Chairperson) Report of the Commission of Inquiry for
SAHRA, SAHRA Archives Johannesburg.
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55 - SAIA

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