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pole positionLeft, Circa gallery in Johannesburg’s Parktown North arts district is an eco-friendly pole-clad structure designed by StudioMas. ‘Circa is truly organic in design and use,’ says owner Mark Read. ‘And it only cost us four times our initial budget…’

Right, Monna Mokoena in his Gallery Momo, also located in Parktown North. It is housed in a traditional bungalow transformed into a large, clean-lined, glass- fronted structure by architect Sarah Calburn

Developed by the same folks behind Johannesburg’s renowned Everard Read Gallery, and located next door to it in the city’s Parktown North arts district, Circa is, as its name suggests, sort of circular. The elliptical shape was chosen by architect Pierre Swanepoel of StudioMas to maximise potential gallery space using the site’s oval footprint on a city-centre corner. Yet Circa’s real allure is as much its shimmer as its shape: the building is clad with a skin of vertical aluminium poles. Add in the precisely calibrated, shifting lighting, and the gallery glows from the inside out. ‘The space is inspired by the kraal, the traditional South African enclosure,’ says owner Mark Read. ‘A kraal is never square,’ he adds, ‘so this is our 21st century version.’ Circa’s main function is to present works – particularly large installations – curated by Everard Read, from contemporary art to fossil finds. There’s also a café as well as The Darwin Room, a sprawling rooftop events space with Rosebank views. Throughout it all, the gallery is as green as it is eye-catching, using rainwater for all but drinking and self-generated electricity. circagallery.co.za

Founded by curator Monna Mokoena in 2003, the innovative Gallery Momo (like Circa, located in Johannesburg’s Parktown North) has emerged as one of South Africa’s leading proponents of contemporary African art. ‘When I started Gallery Momo, contemporary South African artists simply did not have representation,’ Mokoena recalls. ‘Art then was very conservative; it was all landscapes and animals.’ In contrast, Mokoena’s artists are diverse in medium and message, from Sharlene Khan’s satirical ink-jet prints to Mary Sibande’s colour-rich commentaries on post-Apartheid female imagery. Along with an artist-in-residence programme, Gallery Momo also hosts important exhibitions from visiting artists, fashion designers and architects, including a recent show anchored around David Adjaye’s ‘Urban Africa’ project. Having firmly established Gallery Momo in Johannesburg, Mokoena is now looking beyond South Africa. Satellite sites are in the planning stages throughout the continent, with Lagos his first destination. ‘There is a huge recovery in Nigeria,’ says Mokoena. ‘It really is the next frontier.’ www.gallerymomo.com

Portrait: Steve Tanchel

01 circa on jellicoe 02 momo gallery

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Few understand the challenges and opportunities of contemporary South Africa better than its architects. Urban planning and improvements in infrastructure and transport links are priorities for a country still facing massive social and economic problems. Developments are happening, if not at the pace many would like.

The new Gautrain project (07) – a $3bn new train line linking Pretoria and Johannesburg via the OR Tambo airport – is starting to have a real regenerative effect, with StudioMas (www.studiomas.co.za), also designer of Johannesburg’s Circa gallery (01), working on urban development plans to ensure that its new Sandton and Rosebank stations do more than lift local property prices.

Another practice leading the urban transformation of Johannesburg is 26’10 South Architects (www.2610south.co.za), set up by husband-and-wife team Thorsten Deckler and Anne Graupner in 2004. The firm, which takes its name from the city’s geographical coordinates, has produced works stretching from housing projects in Soweto to large-scale development plans for the entire city. What defines Deckler and Graupner’s work is that they don’t come up with top-down grand visions, but rather ‘look at what is already working and how ordinary people have constructed their environments’. The pair see their work as built on a ‘pragmatic, passion-driven vision and a love for cities, the local and particular’.

The ‘socio-spatial’ problems of South African cities certainly need massive doses of passion and pragmatism. But the country also needs symbolic acts and shared places. Freedom Park is such a space. Set high on a ridge overlooking Pretoria, Freedom Park is a sprawling complex of museums and green spaces, conceived as a place where the nation can come and reflect on a history of conflict and conciliation.

Mphethi Morojele, of MMA Architects (www.mmaarch.co.za), is part of the architectural team behind Freedom Park. Morojele, who set up his practice in 1995, has worked on several regeneration projects in inner-city Johannesburg and designed the South African embassies in Berlin and Addis Ababa. He was recently

This cubist house, in the idyllic Banghoek Valley, was designed by Henri Comrie of Comrie Wilkinson for Dané Erwee and Chris Willemse, who approached the practice with a brief for a minimalist residence in which they could display their art collection. The house’s carefully placed openings frame the views towards the nearby mountains. A view of the house itself might become more difficult, though. ‘Creepers have been planted at its base,‘ explains Comrie. ‘In a few years, visitors might find something resembling an overgrown ruin, or maybe nothing at all.‘ www.comwilk.co.za

one of a group of architects who won a competition to design a large urban park (see Wish list, opposite) in Johannesburg, though he admits that reclaiming this much land for the public good is a tricky proposition.

Phill Mashabane and his partner Jeremy Rose of Mashabane Rose Associates (www.mashabanerose.co.za) have become specialists in just these sort of symbolic heritage and cultural sites. They worked on the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg; beat off 250 other practices in a competition for a new conference and exhibition space on Robben Island; and are behind the

front rowAbove, inside Paragon Architects’ new 15 Alice Lane office building, South African architects, from left, Thorsten Deckler and Anne Graupner of 26’10”South Architects; Jeremy Rose and Phill Mashabane of Mashabane Rose Architects; Mphethi Morojele of MMA Architects; Dieter Brandt of OCA Architects; Henning Rasmuss and Andrew Butcher of Paragon Architects

15 alice lane, jo’burg ‘The developer wanted an iconic building,’ says Paragon Architects’ Anthony Orelowitz. And that’s just what he got. With its two 18-storey (six more levels are below ground) asymmetrical towers and twisting, elevated walkways, 15 Alice Lane is a showstopper. In Johannesburg’s Sandton business district, the 24,000 sq m office building is a two-faced affair: the east and west façades, facing the harsh sun, feature aluminium boxes criss-crossed by deeply incised glass lines, while the north and south façades feature a pattern of grey, white and clear glass. www.paragon.co.za

Support system

In 2009, in a desperate move to address the scant provision of green spaces in the city, Johannesburg’s development agency launched a competition asking planners and architects to come up with nothing less than a new central park – while admitting there was nowhere to actually put such a thing. MMA Architects’ imaginative winning entry suggested gradually reclaiming and landscaping the many areas used as train-shunting yards, creating a huge patchwork of new public spaces. Unfortunately, the city of Johannesburg and the government train agencies, which own the shunting yards, will only allow for the area to be decked over; which, according to MMA, stops the plans in their tracks. We hope they find a way forward. www.mmaarch.co.za

//Hapo museum (18) in Freedom Park. But they have also worked on smaller-scale community projects and public works such as HIV clinics, often pulling in creatives such as film-makers, designers and graphic artists on projects.

Namibia-born Dieter Brandt is project architect for Freedom Park (www.freedompark.co.za), working closely with Rose and Morojele. He is the kind of young African architect who might once have left to practise elsewhere. Brandt was all set to move to London to take up the offer of a research MA at Goldsmiths University, but decided his time was better spent exactly where he was.

The architects building bridges and rebuilding South Africa

04 banghoek house

PhOTOgRAPhy: STeve TAncheL

∫For a directory of our South African architects’ work, see Wallpaper.com

jo’burg park

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