archsa52

ARCHITECTURESOUTH AFRICAJOURNAL OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011RSA R19.95 (incl VAT) Other countries R17.50 (excl VAT)

N

OV

EMBER/D

ECEM

BER 2011 JOU

RNA

L OF TH

E SOU

TH A

FRICA

N IN

STITUTE O

F ARC

HITEC

TS PIC

ASSO

HEA

DLIN

E

PETER RICH –Sophia Gray laureateTWO CITIES

Architecture16_next.indd 1 2011/11/07 02:54:09 PM

Head of Editorialand ProductionAlexis [email protected]

EditorJulian [email protected]

Editorial AdvisoryCommitteeWalter Peters Ilze WolffRoger Fisher Paul Kotze

Senior Copy EditorVanessa Rogers

Head of Design StudioRashied Rahbeeni

DesignersDalicia Du PlessisJunaid Cottle

Content CoordinatorHanifa Swartz

Head of SalesRobin [email protected]

Sales ManagerJohn dos [email protected]

Project ManagerHendri [email protected]

Sales ConsultantsIsmail Abrahams

Financial AccountantLodewyk van der Walt

Senior General Manager: Newspapers and MagazinesMike Tissong

Associate PublisherJocelyne Bayer

SUBSCRIPTIONS AND DISTRIBUTIONShihaam Adams

E-mail: [email protected]: 021 469 2500

Copyright: Picasso Headline and Architecture South Africa. No portion of this magazine may be reproduced in any form without the written consent of the publishers. The publishers are not responsible for unsolicited material. Architecture South Africa is published every second month by Picasso Headline Reg: 59/01754/07. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Picasso Headline. All advertisements/advertorials and promotions have been paid for and therefore do not carry any endorsement by the publishers.

COVER PICTURE:Aksum

By Peter Rich

ARCHITECTURE��

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011RSA R19.95 (incl VAT) Other countries R17.50 (excl VAT)

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

�

��

Editor’s Note

ARCHITECTURE SOUTH AFRICA 1

PUBLISHERS:Picasso Headline (Pty) Ltd 105-107 Hatfield Street,Gardens, Cape Town, 8001,South AfricaTel: +27 21 469 2400Fax: +27 21 462 1124

THE SEARCH FOR AN AFRICAN architecture, the journey with which Peter Rich has been identified, is a dangerous one. Its first potential pitfall is generalisation – in such a diverse continent, can you characterise an African architecture any more than you can an Asian one (unless you are stereotyping ‘African’ – something that has been done for centuries, since Homer, and has come under so much fire in postmodern and postcolonial thinking)? In architecture this would mean primitive, earthy, using a rounded geometry, thatched and rural or, as in the FIFA World Cup Stadium, like a calabash. Paternalism; ethnocentricism; at best kitsch. The second trap to fall into is to ally design with the closest relation of group stereotyping: nationalism and, thence, domination and oppression.

However, there is a benign side too. Identity – every individual, group or nation needs to find a state of being and representing self, which they feel characterises them and which make them proud to be who they are. And most nations have worked in many ways, including architectural, to define who they are and to project that to the world. ‘National Romanticism’ around the turn of the 19th century was just that: there was a ‘reversion’ to traditional ways of building, crafts, skills and forms; this was made manifest in the United States, most of Europe, and strongly in Scandinavia. So, states newly independent from colonialism must also seek to find and project who they are – as long as they avoid national chauvinism.

Part of discovering identity is taking local traditions seriously, learning what can be learnt from them. For example, forms of urbanism and architecture imported from colder, wetter northern Europe are not particularly suited to Africa, all of which is considerably warmer and dryer. In much of the continent people have lived a good part of their lives outside and indigenous settlements have very sophisticated public and private outside living spaces. The Kgotlas and bi-lobial living spaces in the old town adjacent to Mahikeng are homologous with plazas and courtyard, or patio, houses in Sevilla: good models for contemporary living.

Finding the texture of a place is a further productive area along the route towards authentic architecture in Africa. It is wonderful to discover that the plaster buildings in Siena, Modena and Ferrara vary in colour from one city to the other. What a pity that 20th century buildings ignored that. How much more satisfying to the human soul and sense of belonging in a place, and how much more meaningful to the world out there when architects like Ted Cullinan or Álvaro Siza use materials that continue to meld buildings with their local geology and geography.

It seems to me Peter Rich has managed well to keep on the benign side of this journey. He even ventures into poles, thatch and rondavels. But the work is never patronising or kitsch because, in community projects, he works directly with members, learning from their skills and helping to give them current valency. Thus the work changes in character from one area to another and has a regional particularity rather than a broad Africanness. Secondly, he has studied, with great industry and enthusiasm, home-grown homes and settlements, in particular their spatial structuring, and most of his buildings show his absorption of that. Thirdly, his work does reflect natural landscapes – see the difference between the houses in the forests of the Garden Route and the Mapungubwe centre in the stony hills of northern Limpopo.

And all the motifs, forms, systems of order, characters and textures drawn from locality are brought into synthesis with a host of ideas from any part of the world and from ancient history to the very present.

REGIONAL ARCHITECTURE IN AFRICA Julian CookeARCHITECTURE

SOUTH AFRICAJOURNAL OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS

CONTENTS33

EDITOR’S NOTE01 REGIONAL ARCHITECTURE IN AFRICA By: Julian Cooke

THEME: SOPHIA GRAY05 AN INTRODUCTION By: Ora Joubert 06 SKETCHED IN TRANSLATION By: Roger Fisher

10 PETER RICH – LEARNT IN TRANSLATION By: Tim Hall. Editing: Bronwyn Viljoen

ESSAYS: TWO CITIES 33 INJECTING URBANITY: THE FORMATION OF PUBLIC SPACE IN CAPE TOWN By: Tibor Joanelly and Caspar Schärer

42 ZURICH: MAKING INFORMAL PLACES By: Claire Abrahamse PERSPECTIVE55 ALL THAT’S SOLID MELTS INTO AIR By: Nic Coetzer

BOOK REVIEW57 THE EMBODIED IMAGE: IMAGINATION AND IMAGERY IN ARCHITECTURE Author: Juhani Pallasmaa By: Andre van Graan

END PIECE62 SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHITECTS: ARE WE REALLY DESKILLED? By: Gerald Steyn

34

10

Officially, my knowledge of Peter dates from 1984, when I received a newspaper clipping (from my mother) of a most extraordinary and colourful house in Johannesburg by one Peter Rich – a project that found immediate resonance with a homesick student, studying abroad and wrestling with the notion of local architectural identity.

It was only some two years later, and with great anticipation, that I finally met Peter at Wits. And if I was initially a tad disappointed at his monochrome appearance, I was soon to recognise a more-than-colourful, larger-than-life personality of exceptional qualities. Given also the inimitable Pancho Guedes’ mischievous and maverick persona, die meisie van Tukkies was promptly put to the test to teach with Peter – quite a challenging position, but a treasured opportunity to experience, first-hand, a creative insight (surmised in a matter of seconds) and an architectural intelligence matched by few, communicated – verbally and visually – equally skilfully.

Peter was born in Johannesburg in 1945 to be an architect, as he was regarded by his parents as a successor to his mother’s brother – an architect who worked for Leith, Furner & Kallenbach, but died prematurely at the age of 29. Significantly, Peter’s mother was a nooi Retief (as my grandfather would have said) of proud Huguenot stock, whereas his father – initially an actor – hailed from England before emigrating with his parents to South Africa.

Peter attended Greenside Primary School where his teachers were soon to note that ‘Peter is an artist, a dreamer and a clown!’ Yet at the age of 12, Peter severed a nerve in his left hand and his father died a year later – two traumatic events that prompted his interest in athletics, which he vigorously pursued to be ranked, in due course, sixth in the world. Art was a simultaneous refuge and he acknowledges his high school art teacher’s beautifully executed blackboard drawings of the Hagia Sophia and other edifices as the premise of his exceptional analytical sketches.

Peter enrolled at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1964. He failed mathematics in his first year – yet was recently part of a team compiling maths textbooks for Mpumalanga matric students, using the subliminal mathematical principles of Ndebele art and architecture as points of departure. His formative influences included tuition by Don Lennard, Julian Beinart and Ted Pincus, as well as visits by the Smithsons, Ralph Erskine and Nicholas Pevsner and friendships with older students, among whom were Ivor Prinsloo and Tony de Souza Santos.

Upon graduating with distinction, he worked for Max Kirchhofer as well as at a number of unmemorable architectural practices, learning less about architecture than how he wished not to practice, until he was lured by the then-recently appointed head of Architecture to teach at Wits.

AN INTRODUCTIONThis is an edited version of Ora Joubert’s introduction to the Sophia Gray lecture.

Peter Rich


By: Ora Joubert

By: Roger Fisher

SKETCHED IN TRANSLATION – THE ARCHITECTURAL LINE DRAWING AS ORTHOGRAPHY

Reflections on the exhibitionThe idea of translation in architecture is intriguing. While the exhibition was themed into display areas, what gave cohesiveness was the distinctive style of Rich’s drawings, derived from thumbnail and notebook sketches and blown up into banner proportions. While something of the finesse of the original sketches is lost through the change of scale, they make the imagery readily accessible in an exhibition of that size. The accompanying booklet on sale at the exhibition, which in an endnote predicts a forthcoming book of the same title, promises ‘a richly textured book that will consider the idiosyncrasies of Peter Rich’s style of architectural engagement...’

The drawings from Rich’s personal archival material are the medium of his translation, and cultural diversity is their inspiration. His idiosyncrasies are in fact that of the discipline of architecture — an intrigue with the ‘other’, the unfamiliar, the richness of cultural diversity and the use of the medium of drawing to create a personal orthography through the use of line, wherewith to capture the language of material expression of that culture. While this might be regarded by some as objectification by the observer of the observed, it is my contention that through the medium of the line drawing, the architect/observer subjectifies the understanding by inscribing the observed, and thereby creates an empathetic relationship with the observed.

Rich’s particular intrigue, as demonstrated by the record of his drawings on display, seems to be with the arrangement

The Sophia Gray Memorial Lecture and Exhibition is presented annually by the Department of Architecture, University of the Free State. This year it was held on the evening of Thursday 25 August 2011 and, consistent with tradition, the exhibition followed at the Olievenhuis Museum. The works of Peter Rich – 23rd laureate – were exhibited. Both the lecture and the exhibition were entitled ‘Found in Translation’.

of simple stereometric form — the archetypal elements of architecture — in creating interstitial spaces, their cardinal arrangements relative to topography, but always related back to the scale and positioning of the person experiencing them, hence emphasising the phenomenological, rather than the abstract geometrical sense of space.

His other concern, as reflected by the exhibited sketches, is with the making of architecture — in the choice and tectonics of material but also in the opportunities that these offer for patterning and decoration. Obviously pattern can be created through direct use of surface, either through application of colour, relief work or manufacture. But he deepens the exploration by investigating the use of materials in juxtapositioning for the decorative effect of junctions. Hence many drawings borrow from the art, developed during the Renaissance, of the anatomical sketch, where fragments of the sketches resort to écorché drawing so as to reveal the anatomy of the architecture that creates the patterned and textured surface.

The architect’s notebooks are valuable to the archive of the discipline, cherished by some as would a Christian a splinter of the true cross. The beauty of the architectural sketch is that once recorded the language is translated to that of the discipline of architecture, and is universally accessible to all versed in that discipline – whatever their tongue.

Not only has Peter Rich enriched the architectural archive, but through his translations he has made richer the language of architecture.

Peter credits entirely Pancho Guedes as having been instrumental in arousing his interest in the African continent, its people and their aesthetic pursuits. His teaching position provided the platform to meticulously research – particularly – Ndebele architecture, culminating in a Masters Dissertation in 1991, various exhibitions and even a few films. He soon became South Africa’s foremost authority on the subject.

Through the lessons learnt from the modest African vernacular and his engagement with grassroots communities, combined with a thorough Modernist background, Peter was increasingly able to distill and develop an architectural language pertinent to the socio-economic circumstances of the African continent – unique both in interpretation and implementation. His inspiring and inexhaustible creative oeuvre, spanning more than three decades has, deserv-ingly, been widely recognised: nationally, as the recipient of 16 Awards of Merits and the Gold Medal from the South African Institute of Architecture and, internationally – more recently and

most prestigiously – as the winner of the 2009 Global Building of the Year Award.

When reflecting on an illustrious architectural career, for me perhaps the most admirable fact is that, despite all the trappings, trimmings, bells and whistles of current practice, Peter Rich has consistently been able to capture the essence of Africa’s architectural worth and integrity in a couple of hand-drawn sketches, executed in a somewhat chaotic space of less than 40m2 in the very same house to which my mother alerted me some 27 years ago, and implemented by a minute team of dedicated vocational practitioners.

Apart from singing the praises of his exceptional architectural insight, his creative output, his continued teaching commitments (currently mostly abroad) as well as his mammoth contribution to Africa’s architectural legacy, I also wish to pay homage to a kind and generous spirit; one eager to share and impart his contagious creative passion to students, employees and colleagues.

ARCHITECTURE SOUTH AFRICA6

Peter Rich

Who are the South Africans that are able to shift

paradigms with placemaking buildings that

are ecologically regenerative and also uplift

the community? The AfriSam-SAIA Award for

Sustainable Architecture was created to find out.

2 PLACEMAKING

3 PEOPLE UPLIFTMENT

4 PLANET REJUVENATION

See previous winners online and get everything you need to enter at www.4tmrw.co.za

1 PARADIGM SHIFTING

4you, 4me, 4tomorrowB

rein

sto

rm 1

810

2011

Kilowatt roof top.Power straight from the top. With 234 PV solar panels absorbing the suns rays and converting it into endless

energy (on average 44kw a day). This is a fine example of how the future of green buildings will be. With the

combined resources of Hudu, Suntech, Growthpoint and Eskom, The Lincoln on The Lake Rooftop Solar projectin Durban Umhlanga area is very proud to be pioneering the change to alternate energy.

+27 (0)83 608 5810 www.caesarstone.co.za

A cut abovePure White 1141 & Mosaici Carbone 7150

Quartz is more than beautiful. It is also one of nature’s strongest minerals. We get creative with our quartz developing surfaces that offer you design freedom with almost unlimited application possibilities.

So go on, design your dream with Caesarstone.

1 Early work and influencesThe South African savannah: Ndebele, Bantwane, Bakgatla, PediRiverlea Church hallGrant HouseYelseth HouseHollard Street Squash Racquets Club

During the 1970s, while teaching Architecture at the University of the Witwatersrand with Pancho Guedes, Peter Rich was encouraged to look closely at and appreciate southern African vernacular architecture and art.

As a reaction to the destruction of South African indigenous settlements under apartheid, Rich chose to document the traditional rural settlements of the Southern Ndebele.

PETER RICH – LEARNT IN TRANSLATION


Peter Rich By: Tim HallEditing: Bronwyn Viljoen

His research consisted of exquisite, measured hand-drawn documentation and analytical sketches, which recorded and illustrated how domestic spatial organisation reflected family hierarchies and expressed Ndebele cultural values. The emphasis on spatial constructs (what Rich has termed ‘African space-making’) rather than on the decorative was to have a profound influence on his own architectural approach.

For the next two decades he developed an architectural vocabulary based on what he had learned from the Ndebele and

fused with Modernist influences (notably those of Adolf Loos, Rudolph Schindler and Guedes). Taking this direction in his work meant that Rich was unable to engage conventionally with the exclusively white architectural profession in South Africa. He was limited to small domestic commissions (Grant House, 1977; Yelseth House, 1977) for (often) wealthy clients that nevertheless allowed him to test his ideas.

Rich also undertook a series of commercial fit-outs in central Johannesburg (for example Hollard Street Squash Rackets Club).

RIVERLEA CHURCH HALL GRANT HOLIDAY HOUSE

Peter Rich


2 Community work prior to 1994Elim Shopping CentreWestridge House and GardenTembisa ClinicTembisa Sports Centre

Following on from his early research, Rich took an unconvent-ional path, engaging with communities, acting as an architect and also as a facilitator. A series of small community buildings (Tembisa Clinic, 1988, and a sports centre, 1988) were built in Tembisa township for a group of young black professional clients. It was, however, the shopping centre project at Elim in northern Limpopo that most informed Rich’s attitude for all of

his future projects to process.The shopping centre was one of the first commercial enterprises

initiated by a black man, under apartheid, in the local township community. Rich and his client, a young doctor, set in motion a long period of community engagement and consultation to counteract both the authorities’ negative stance on the project and deep suspicion on the part of the local community.

Rich recognised the importance of community ‘buy in’ and ‘ownership’. It meant a drawn-out, intermittent, unpredictable and complex process, taking far longer than the physical build but nonetheless of critical importance for the project.

During the same period, Rich was building his own home (Westridge House in Parktown, Johannesburg, 1982–5), which


Peter Rich

explored how typical Ndebele homestead ‘checkerboard’ planning (alternating houses and courts extending diagonally from the space occupied by the head of the household) could be translated into a contemporary domestic dwelling. The existing suburban house was transformed into a cluster or ‘village’ of well-defined rooms and courts, and turned to face the sun and embrace a large garden.

In contrast to the house’s formality, the garden was free-flowing and organic, terraced with curved walls and planters made of reclaimed stones, and inspired by the work of Rich’s friend and collaborator at Elim, the sculptor Jackson Hlungwani.

WESTRIDGE HOUSE

TEMBISA CLINIC

Peter Rich


3 HousesKemp-Evenhuis HouseMennell Pavilion and VillageBerg HouseKennedy House

A number of domestic commissions allowed Rich to experiment with and develop a particular architectural language in different contexts. All of these projects demonstrate a commitment to clearly defined external space and also show the adoption of spatial ideas learned from the rural vernacular. As in Westridge House, Kemp-Evenhuis House (Nature’s Valley, 1991) applies Ndebele diagonal checkerboard planning to a contemporary context.

The later Kennedy House explores the recurring idea of the ‘diagonal extension’ to enhance the dramatic views.

Kemp-Evenhuis House was designed as a retreat to be shared by two families. Here Ndebele-inspired checkerboard planning is used as a means of creating privacy and a sense of sanctuary within a busy communal

environment. This loose-fit, ‘house as village’ concept is ideally suited to holiday living.

Kennedy House (George, 2003) is sited on steeply sloping ground with wonderful views over the Indian Ocean. A vertical forest of timber columns extends from the sloping ground to support a series of raised wooden decks. The organisation of the house is simple and compact: a central square living area with flanking bedroom, kitchen and dining wings defining an entrance court. Mono-pitched roofs clearly articulate the volume of each space.

A seemingly complex exposed timber structure reinforces the strong diagonal geometry, thus heightening the drama of the views.

Mennell Pavilion (Johannesburg, 1991) is a pool house and library built in the garden of a house in a central Johannesburg suburb. This simple Mies-inspired structure is made of exposed steel and glass, and is beautifully detailed and crafted. The siting of the pavilion allows for a series of simple and well-defined courtyards – outdoor rooms that encourage flexible, open-plan living.

MENNELL PAVILION


Peter Rich

KEMP-EVENHUIS HOUSE Peter Rich


KENNEDY HOUSE BERG HOUSE


Peter Rich

4 Community rural projects after 1994Inkatha Conference CentreBopitikelo Community and Cultural CentreBwanari LodgeSilonque InstituteLekgophung SMME (Small Medium Micro Enterprise)Makuleke Cultural ProjectHydraform HeadquartersMelville Koppies Environmental Centre

Political change and the establishment of a democracy in South Africa in 1994 allowed Rich to engage in a series of important cultural heritage projects. All of these were initiated by the South African government, using multilateral funding, and were part of several cultural tourism initiatives to battle poverty and heal the deep wounds of apartheid. Rich’s previous work among the Ndebele and the Bantwane put him in a unique position as a professional architect and he was employed as a technical advisor on rural development initiatives that were designed to empower communities.

One such initiative was based in the Tswana region around Madikwe in the North West Province. Rich was an integral part of what became a textbook case of community consultation that resulted in a series of projects: a community-owned lodge (Bwanari Lodge), a brick-making cooperative at Lekgophung,

and a community building in Molatedi village.Bopitikelo was conceived as a multi-use building – a meeting

place and a centre for the reinvigoration of the cultural history of a people who had been largely divested of their traditions though disruption by the colonial and apartheid regimes. It fulfilled the need for a venue for community and social functions, a place facilitating dialogue between local communities and visitors from elsewhere in southern Africa and abroad, a place of reconciliation.

In 1997, Rich was engaged as a technical advisor to a rural livelihoods programme service provider to work as facilitator and architect for a displaced Shangaan community at Makuleke village, situated at the border of the Kruger National Park in the Pafuri region. After their forced removal under apartheid, the community had finally been allowed to return to their homeland, an area rich in wildlife and adjacent to a major tourist destination. A craft centre and lodge project formed part of a new cultural tourism initiative based on local values and traditions, offering an effective and sustainable base for community economic empowerment.

On all of these projects locally sourced materials, skills and labour were used: gum poles for structure, thatch for the roof coverings, and locally gathered stone or soil bricks (made using Hydraform presses) for walls. This adoption of local, common-sense technologies meant not only that architectural interventions were sustainable but that they also engaged and empowered local communities.

BOPITIKELO COMMUNITY CENTRE

Peter Rich


BWANARI LODGE LEKGOPHUNG TRAINING FACILITY


Peter Rich

5 New Technology: Mapungubwe Interpretation CentreMapungubwe Interpretation CentreMapungubwe Day Visitor CentreThe Earth PavilionChicago Offices of Fr-2

At the Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre (2008–10) in the Mapungubwe National Park, it was important, given the complex local politics, that no overt references were made to any one local group. In effect, this meant that Rich could not engage in any community consultation. So he turned to the wonderfully dramatic landscape of the park for inspiration. A groundbreaking collaboration with engineers based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston and the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg led to the adoption of a catenary vaulted structural solution – domed organic forms that simply expressed the forces found in nature.

Innovative computational analysis proved that large spans could be achieved using relatively low-strength soil tiles built in thin layers. The hand-pressed, air-dried soil tiles were made by local women as part of a client-initiated, poverty-relief project. Through the invention of a simple bent-timber guide-work system, local low-skilled workers could be involved in constructing the seemingly complex forms. The resulting vaulted structures are thin, structurally efficient, inexpensive and extremely sustainable.

The internal exhibition spaces are archaic and cave-like. The textures of the finishes and exposed tiled soffits are imperfect – skin-like – and celebrate the beauty of nature and the handmade. On approach, the stone-clad vaulted roofs blend in to the rocky topography. At the same time, and in sharp contrast, the thin edges of the arched structures are revealed and the vaults seem to soar and ‘billow’ out of the earth.

This revolutionary vaulting technology has been specifically developed with the intention of application in developing-world contexts, where labour-intensive construction using low-skilled local people and materials is economical, sustainable and can have a positive effect on livelihoods. Rich has been involved in the only two buildings ever built using this technology.

The Earth Pavilion (2010) was constructed as part of the Earth Awards and the Start Festival: A Garden Party to Make a Difference (sponsored by the Prince of Wales) in the grounds of Lancaster House in central London. The pavilion consists of three simple overlapping catenary vaults of varying heights, each stiffened in plan and section with a flare.

The plywood blanks used to produce the soil tiles were laid to form the pavilion flooring and stacked to create exhibition stands.

Visitors are introduced to the technology through an exhibit of the hand press, the soil and the resulting earth tiles. The plywood exhibition stands illustrate the building process and show examples of buildings or future projects using the technology. Visitors walk through a serene space, leaving through a low vault where they can touch and feel the quality of the soil finish.

The design for the offices of FR-2 in Chicago (2011) will be the third built project using this technology. The project involves a fit-out of a conventional glass-clad office building in downtown Chicago. The design will create a beautiful, dynamic and lofty vaulted earth-tiled soffit, made out of river sand from the owner Joe Ritchie’s farm property. Under this, aedicules of different shapes and heights, made of environmentally friendly ‘beetle-damaged pine’ will contain work spaces and create courtyard meeting areas. The fit-out will yield a space of calm and dignity.

Peter Rich



Peter Rich

EARTH PAVILION

FR-2 OFFICE FM-OUT


Peter Rich

6 Community township projects after 1994Ubuhle Buyeze Children’s CentreRiver Park HousingAlexandra and Soweto Increased-density HousingAlexandra Interpretation Centre

Throughout his career, Rich has actively engaged with township communities. He sees his role as going beyond that of the architect to embrace activism and to help facilitate change and development within communities.

The Ubuhle Buyeze Children’s Centre in Thulamtwana (1997) came about as the result of a sudden forced community upheaval. As co-director of the UNESCO-led Growing up in Cities project, Rich was involved in facilitating participatory projects in the Canaanland squatter camp in central Johannesburg. Art workshops were held with local children to illustrate how their environment might be improved. During the course of the project, the entire community was forcibly removed from their homes and dumped on land thirty-eight kilometres outside the city.

The Children’s Centre was conceived as a catalyst to force the mayor to engage with the new community and act on promises he had made under the 1991 Children’s Charter. The Centre was constructed from stacked disused shipping containers and clad with timber-slatted screens, creating much-needed learning spaces, community facilities and play areas.

The Johannesburg Metro approached Rich to do a model village on land already set aside for a Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) housing development (River Park Housing). In contrast to the usual RDP model of high-density, single-storey housing (rolled out across the country in huge volumes) the model village proposed (within tight budgetary constraints) double-storey structures with maximum volume that would allow for additions, alterations and improvements to the structure by the owners over time. In order to facilitate social cohesion and create safe neighbourhoods, Rich also proposed strongly defined and active street edges. Lessons learned from the traditional local organisation of outdoor social space informed the articulation of the external spaces in this project.

The ambitious Alexandra Renewal Project was initiated in 2000 by the government. Its primary objectives were community-building and poverty relief through training inhabitants in tourism

and heritage, nurturing small enterprises, and showcasing arts, culture, heritage and the environment of Alexandra township.

Rich was employed as part of the Heritage Agency team, and was involved in an ambitious process of mapping the oral heritage of the area.

Out of respect for the elders of this society as custodians of history and knowledge, a team comprising local residents was trained to follow up and develop the themes that emerged from consultation. This groundbreaking work – which proposed a new strategic tourism master plan and route – resulted in amendments to national heritage policy that for the first time took cognisance of indigenous African cultural values.

Part of this study focused on a precinct named Mandela’s Yard, which had been home to Nelson Mandela in 1942. The importance of Mandela’s Yard was marked through granting the site conservation status and the development of a new building, the Alexandra Interpretation Centre. The Centre, still unfinished, will contain a museum in which the history of Alexandra will be archived. Local and international visitors will be able to access information from computers in the exhibition space and the community archive areas.

The primary volume of the building, the exhibition hall, bridges over and celebrates the street. Two important new civic spaces are defined at ground level, lined with new public facilities and shops. The language of the building celebrates the contradiction between the densely populated township’s seemingly ad hoc aesthetic and its highly considered spatial ordering. The building fabric is conceived as a steel framework, in-filled with a collage of contrasting materials inspired by the vital colours and textures of the surroundings. Soil bricks, metal, and coloured polycarbonate sheeting are combined to create an effect the locals refer to as ‘jazz architecture’.

The project has experienced irregular funding, and has been restarted several times, each time with a different agenda. This has served to accentuate the notion of building as process. Parts of the Centre will not be used as originally anticipated, but this means that the open-endedness of the original concept is given substance through discontinuity. Thus the architectural form is driven by the multiple narratives that it houses and celebrates. It is an architecture choreographed by the architectural team, yet written and performed by the inhabitants of Alexandra.

Peter Rich


ALEXANDRA INTERPRETATION CENTRE


Peter Rich


Peter Rich

CHILDRENS’ CENTRE THULAMTWANA


Peter Rich

RWANDA TRAVEL SKETCHES

Peter Rich


7 RwandaAkumunigo HousingKimihurura Urban DesignRue de la Revolution Urban DesignZone Centrale, KigaliRwanda Roasting Facility

In 2008, Rich was invited as an advisor to the government of Rwanda and as a technical advisor to the Mayor of Kigali to advise on a number of high-profile projects and initiatives.

The Rwandan government wanted to explore, in the face of unprecedented urbanisation, how development could take cognisance of local vernacular, tradition and culture. A study entitled ‘What it Means to be Rwandan’ was commissioned in 2008. This contained research into the spatial vernacular of local rural and urban architecture. Through his extensive hand drawings, done while on a visit to Kigali in 2007 and 2008, Rich captured the unique qualities of the dramatic, terraced hillside landscape – unique to the country. He later explored how this might be expressed in built form. He again identified and recorded a particular spatial vernacular – a network of semi-public and private spaces called (in Kinyarwanda) imbuga and urubuga, found in most traditional residential urban neighbourhoods. The lessons learnt from the study were applied to a number of high-profile buildings and master-planning projects in Kigali.

Designs for Akumunigo (2009), a residential master plan in Kigali, demonstrated how much-needed, medium-density housing could be sensitively designed on steeply sloping sites. Both the master-plan configuration and the internal layouts integrate this cherished domestic vernacular tradition of semi-private and private courtyards.

8 EthiopiaAksum – the oldest city south of the Sahara

The master plan for Aksum (2009–10) was initiated by the Ethiopian government to kick-start development that would improve the city and turn it into a major international tourist destination. The primary objectives of the project were to propose sustainable interventions to radically improve the visitor experience of the city. The team also documented and communicated the value of the wealth of attractions to a worldwide audience by proposing a ‘brand identity’ for the city.

Improvements and additions were proposed to enhance the setting and access to all of the major archaeological and historical sites (including the famous Stelae Field).

Infrastructure improvements to the drainage and sewerage systems and the roads were prioritised. Extensive new hard landscaping using locally quarried stone was proposed to dramatically improve orientation and access.

Modest architectural interventions included multiple decentralised interpretation centres made of local stone or rubble. Along with signage sandblasted onto stone, the small buildings will serve to guide and orientate visitors through the city, activating otherwise undiscovered or underdeveloped districts.

Note: This text was first published in the booklet Learnt in Translation, which accompanied the exhibition related to the Sophia Gray lecture.

PETER RICH – and his co-workers over many years – undoubtedly deserves this honour. He rose splendidly to the occasion in a spirit of generosity and humility, but not without a rightful confidence gained from a lifetime of hard work and investigations on which he bases his architectural expressions and vision. In his lecture, delivered in his usual way without notes, but well structured by the visual material used as an aide memoire, he effortlessly captured the imagination of the more than 600-strong audience. He held them spellbound throughout and it was all over too soon.

There is always an air of anticipation as the audience snakes up the hill from the lecture venue to the Oliewenhuis Art Museum, where the exhibitions take place. There is also each year a strange dichotomy between the empty architectural gestures of the building housing the museum and the authenticity of the

NOTES ON THE LECTURE AND EXHIBITIONSince the inception of this lecture and exhibition series by the Department of Architecture at the University of the Free State, each of the 23 events has had a special and magical quality. It is as if the often unforgiving realities of the laureate’s professional career are suspended for a few hours to make way for a celebration of their achievements by their peers and the general public.

architecture on display inside the building. Rich’s exhibition did not fail to reward this feeling of anticipation. Robert Rich, one (of two) architect sons in the Rich family, was responsible for its design and curation. He reacted to the semi-domestic scale of the venue in an innovative manner, using printed banners of off-white cloth to create sub-divisions of the space. The exhibition material was grouped according to the following categories into these pavilions:1: Peter Rich family, office and home;2: Jackson Hlunqwane works;3: Old transparencies;4: Sketchbooks;5: Memorable travels; and6: Process models.

By: Paul Kotze School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand


Peter Rich AXUM PLAN ZONE CENTRALE KIGALI, RWANDA

NOTES ON THE LECTURE AND EXHIBITION

The material was furthermore structured into a timeline that enabled the viewer to trace the development of Rich’s career. The subdivisions were physically in the form of a grid, creating ‘exteriors’ and ‘interiors’ within the larger space. The somewhat secretive and reflective interiors juxtaposed with the exteriors could be viewed as a metaphor for the endeavours of the architect. On the one side of the coin, there is the private life of the architect and his solitary engagement with the rigours of making architecture, and on the other there is the public world where the architect’s creations are exposed to everyday usage and critical scrutiny.

This spatial ordering device also underpins the nature and subject matter of Rich’s inspired drawing technique and architectural sensibilities. In his drawings he consistently explores his fascination with interiors, exteriors, context, tectonic detail and the nature of materials. Taken in unison, his drawings and built works explore the total context of what it means to ‘dwell’ in this part of the world. Throughout his work, Rich primarily explores his vision of an African genius loci. The exhibition method and the materials used are furthermore reminiscent of his tactile, craft-based architecture.

By means of his unique talent and painstaking research into local architectural culture, Rich has built up an enviable and rich œvre, worthy of the international attention that it is increasingly attracting. It is obvious that he is not shy to constantly investigate the architectural and cultural world around him. Through this, he has developed a confidence that enables him to build in a daring manner. His architecture is quintessentially made by the ‘thinking hand’, in the full meaning of the concept as developed by Pallasmaa.

The title of the lecture and exhibition, ‘Learnt in Translation’, is well chosen as it precisely describes his method of work. He is deeply committed to constantly learn from the natural, physical and cultural world around him in order to ‘translate’ this knowledge into his unique architectural vision. In this method of working Rich is not alone. Locally, the names of Fagan and Eaton come to mind and internationally the reputations of Laurie Baker (India), Felix Candela (Mexico) and Eladio Dieste (Uruguay) bring weight to a position against a blanket of images and projects produced by globalism in all its architectural manifestations. Rich, and the illustrious company that he finds himself in, create unique and place-bound architecture as a counter position against the leveling and equalising forces of global culture. This counter position comes from the ‘periphery’ – from the reality, contradictions, vitality and general lack of resources on the ‘edges’ of global forces to challenge the often abstract, cerebral and sometimes empty gestures and images generated by what can be termed an introverted and elitist architectural culture.

Yet again, for the 23rd time, the staff at the Department of Architecture of the University of the Free State extended the invitation to a worthy and inspired architect. Yet again, time stood still for the excellence to be revealed in the cool tranquility of a Free State night.

PUBLICATIONS ON AND BY PETER RICH1: Rich, P. 1982. The Bantwane settlement at Kwarrielaagte. Journal of the South African Institute of Architects. November/December, p. 32-38.2: Rich, P. 1984. A Hybrid Architecture Takes Root. Journal of the South African Institute of Architects. May/June, p. 32-38.3: Rich, P. 1989. The New Jerusalem. Jackson Hlungwani Exhibition Catalogue.

4: Joubert, O. 1991. Afro-pean axis: reflecting on South Architectural expression. World Architecture. No. 12, p. 70-77.5: Nuttall, J. 1992. A Pavilion, Johannesburg. Journal of the South African Institute of Architects. September/October, p. 19-31.6: Rich, P. 1995. Pride of the Ndebele. Architectural Review. March, Vol. 197, No. 1177, p. 73-77.7: Rich, P. 1996. Berg Retreat, Drakensberg Ranges, Natal. UME 1, p. 22-25.8: Anon. 1999. The 1999 SA Architects Project Awards. Journal of the South African Institute of Architects. April, p. 12-31.9: Rich, P. 1999. Peter Rich Architects: Thulumtwana Children’s Facility, Johannesburg, Gauteng. Lotus International. August, No. 143, p. 47.10: Brunet-Jailly, J. 1999. Djenné, D’Hier à Demain. Bamako: Editions Donniya (Drawing by Rich on p. 156 and acknowledgement given to Rich in notes on p. 202).11: Anon. 2000. Project Awards. Journal of the South African Institute of Architects. July/August, p. 17-35.12: Buster, K. et al. 2000 (reprint 2002). Places of Reconciliation. Washington DC: (no publisher cited) [Architect Peter Rich’s projects ‘where vernacular tradition is incorporated into contemporary architectural practice].13: Anon. 2001. Projects Awards. Journal of the South African Institute of Architects. September/October, p. 19-31.14: Anon. 2001. Projects Awards. Journal of the South African Institute of Architects. September/October, p. 27-51.15: van Wyk, L. 2001. 2001 Awards of Merit and Conservation. Journal of the South African Institute of Architects. November/December, p. 13-40.16: Chawla, L., (Ed.) 2002. Growing up in an Urbanising World. London: Earthscan Publications Ltd. (Drawing by Rich on page 114: ‘Canaansland site map’).17: Rich, P. et al. 2003. The physical and cultural Landscape of Space. In Malan, C. et al. Building an African Icon: The Northern Cape Provincial Government Complex. Johannesburg: MPTS Library. p. 107-113.18: Rich, P. 2004. The Altar of God in the spatial context of Jackson Hlungwane’s New Jerusalem. In Nettleton, A. et al (Eds). Voice-Overs: Wits Writings Exploring African Artworks. Johannesburg: Wits Art Galleries, p. 106-107.19: Anon. 2005. Fassler Gallery and New offices. Journal of the South African Institute of Architects. July/August, p. 31-32. (Thorsten Deckler with Peter Rich Architects)20: Long, K. et al. Talent and passion converge at the 2009 World Architecture Festival. Architectural Review. December, Vol. 226, Issue 1354, p. 37-38.21: Gregory, R. 2010. Earth Pavilion, Lancaster House. Architectural Review. Nov., Vol., 228, No. 1365, p. 76-81.22: Rich, P. 2010. Bóvedas y baobabs – centro de interpreción, Mapungubwe, Sudáfrica. Arquitectura Viva. No. 133, p. 56-59.23: Fagan, G. 2010. Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre. Architectural Review. February, Vol. 227, Issue 1356, p. 40-47.24: Rich, P. 2010. I cortili di Mandela; Mandela’s Yard (Alexandra Interpretation Centre). Abitare. April, No. 501, p. 148-161.25: Anon. 2010. Mapungubwe Interpretation Center: Peter Rich Architects. C3 Korea. September, No. 313, p. 154-161.26: Rich, P. 2010. Peter Rich Architects: Alexandra Interpretation Centre, Alexandra. Lotus International. August, No. 143, p. 44-46.27: Anon. 2010. The Earth Pavilion. C3 Korea. December, No. 316, p. 24-25.28: Gregory, R. 2010. SKILL. Architectural Review. November, Vol. 228, Issue 1365, p. 76-81.29: Anon. 2011. Peter Rich Architects: Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre, Mapungubwe National Park, Limpopo, South Africa, 2004-08. Lotus International. March, No. 145, p. 92-95.30: Le Roux, H. 2011. Subsidised Housing in Soweto/Edilizia sovvenzionata a Soweto. Domus, July, No. 949, p. 52-55. (Joint project by 26’10 South Architects and Peter Rich Architects)31: Hall, T. 2011. Museum und Stadtteilzentrum für ein Township in Johannesburg/Museum and Community Centre in a Township in Johannesburg. Detail; Zeitschrift für Archhitektur. No. 4, p. 342-349.

Peter Rich


An innovative building system designed to use site soil for the production of interlocking compressed earth blocks. Unskilled labourers can be trained to produce blocks on site and

build Hydraform structures.

Website: www.hydraform.com Tel + 27 11 913 1449 Email: [email protected] Fax +27 11 913 2840

As Seen on CNN and France24 daily

M7MI 220mm InterlockingBlock

Dry stacked wall display

��

HYDRAFORM OFFICE DESIGNED BY PETER RICH ARCHITECTS

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

ARCHITECTURE SA ADVERT 3 copy.pdf 1 2011/10/31 3:01 PM

CONCRETE MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION��

��

Their piece of heavenYOUR PEACE OF MIND

Use CMA concrete roof tiles for the best all-round roofi ng solution

TREL000268_ClearG_Arch_SA.indd 1 2011/08/25 12:35 PM

GVG

083

460

297

6

Architecture fullpg.indd 1 11/25/2011 3:23:31 PM

THE SCARS OF APARTHEID are still legible in Cape Town’s urban pattern. From the airport to the city centre, the N2 crossing the Cape Flats is lined with an endless concrete wall, built to above head-height and set back at a continuous 60m distance from the motorway lanes – over a stone’s-throw away. Behind it small, low-set and uniform houses alternate with squalid improvised dwellings, most of them made of corrugated-iron sheeting, but some of them merely of cardboard. Further on the motorway rises slightly in order to circumnavigate the sheer bluff of the soaring Table Mountain, where it suddenly passes well-tended parks. And then the vista unexpectedly opens out over the ‘City Bowl’. The skyline of the Central Business District (CBD) rises in front of the silhouette of Signal Hill; to the right the view extends out over the length of the Cape Bay and the Atlantic. At this point the Parkway transverses a sparsely developed area, inclining gently down to the sea. It also used to house settlements, and what today looks like a vestige of open landscape in the midst of the city is in truth District Six, the site of a past that has yet to be overcome and a symbol for the dysfunctional urban planning of the Apartheid Era – the 1950 Group Areas Act, in which the modern planning instrument of ‘zoning’ played a notoriously cynical role.

Tearing down the wallsToday around four-fifths of the 4.5 million people in greater Cape Town live on the Cape Flats. Ever greater numbers of people continue to flock to the townships from the countryside and neighbouring states on a daily basis, in search of work and income. In the decades before the 1990s, when the townships had been left to their own fates, investments in infrastructure had been kept to a bare minimum. The settlements were ill prepared to meet this rapid and uncontrolled subsequent growth, and the metropolitan municipality had no available instruments with which

to deal with the problem. Still today, new improvised dwellings continue to occupy the spaces between existing buildings, and informal development seeped in between formal constructions. Settlement pressure is enormous, and people simply seize the space they need.

This glaring deficit triggered a comprehensive planning proposal in the mid-1990s, the Dignified Places Programme (DPP). Whereas previously the interest in the design of public space had, if at all, focused entirely on the city centre, the DPP shifted the focus to the townships. The DPP itself is neither an autonomous authority, nor is it attached to a particular department, and instead has had to patch its budget together by cajoling various different departments. The city planner Barbara Southworth headed the programme for 10 years from 1998 onwards, and with a budget of around R100 million that took over 70 projects to completion. The programme’s main thrust involved measures to control the rapidly spreading informal economy, which had penetrated into almost all economic sectors, from transport (taxis and minibuses) and manufacturing (for instance prefabricated elements for improvised-dwelling construction) to trade and comestibles. At specific locations – for instance important railway stations – traffic corridors and their environs were reorganised, space was created for informal traders and an element of urban culture was transposed into the townships via design, with echoes of the vibrant model of Barcelona. One of the DPP’s most important aims was to tear down the omnipresent fences in Cape Town – at least those around public buildings. ‘Breaking down the fences’ became a leitmotif of the programme.

Initially, with its numerous small squares and markets, the DPP generated considerable goodwill, but it failed to really stem the tide. One of the serious difficulties that emerged was the maintenance of the facilities. The complex distribution of powers

INTRODUCTIONPro Helvetica, the Swiss Arts Council, supports Swiss culture throughout the world and builds on cultural networks by providing access to Swiss arts and ideas.

Its ‘Moving Words’ programme is aimed at helping to expand the position of Swiss literature and to increase exchange between the language areas, at the same time making the public more aware of translation as a creative activity for communicating culture. Out of this initiative the Swiss journal werk, bauen +wohnen (wbw) contacted Architecture SA to initiate an exchange.

Their idea was to address the problem of how to deal with public space. Issues not only of planning and architectural aspects should be dealt with, but also ‘questions about the relationship between centre and periphery, historic permanence and identity-forming, symbolic values.’ Two Swiss architectural journalists would visit Cape Town and one young South African would go to Zurich to critically examine the issue, at more-or-less the same time.

What follows are the two essays which came out of the exchange – which were also published in the October edition of wbw.

INJECTING URBANITY: THE FORMATION OF PUBLIC SPACE IN CAPE TOWN

PH

OTO

S: D

ILLO

N M

AR

SH

Cape Town’s spectacular landscape makes it an internationally popular tourist location. Off the beaten track of the city’s attractions, however, the majority of the population in the townships is locked in a daily struggle for existence. For over a decade now the city has tried via public-space design and with uneven success to steer the informal economy into more or less coordinated channels and to curb violence and criminality.

Two Cities


By: Tibor Joanelly and Casper Schärer

financed and run by the Cape Town authorities, the South African Government and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development – concentrates solely on this aim.

In choosing where to intervene, the VPUU had the courage to concentrate on the city’s greatest challenge, Khayelitsha, around 30km away from the city centre, which has the highest rate of violent crime in Cape Town. ‘Founded’ in the 1980s, it was originally intended for 250 000 inhabitants. Today, the area is South Africa’s third-largest township, with 600 000 to 800 000 people living tightly crammed together, some of them in brick housing, but the majority in rudimentary, improvised corrugated homes.

For the VPUU, building and design are only single aspects of far larger processes. Michael Krause, the VPUU’s project leader, considers the phases before and after building to be the most crucial. In the preliminary ‘phase 0’, as he terms it, needs are ascertained and lengthy discussions take place with as many

and responsibilities within the municipal apparatus, combined with tight budgets that provided funds merely for building – and an often deadlocked political fragmentation in the townships themselves – meant that no-one in particular tended the public spaces, however well created they were. For instance, a fence had to be erected around the Guga s’Thebe Arts and Culture Centre in Langa because of innumerable break-ins.

The Establishment of ResponsibilityThe aim of a comparable project on the Cape Flats is to avoid repeating the failings in the planning and design processes of the DPP to ensure maintenance and to include local inhabitants. The programme ‘Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading’ (VPUU) is likewise predicated on public buildings and outdoor space, but has completely different roots. In the violence and crime-plagued townships, public security is the highest priority. Before economic and social developments can occur, the level of daily violence has to be stymied. The VPUU – a project jointly

1


Two Cities

of the participants as possible. Similarly to the situation in Switzerland, there are numerous visible, hidden and, above all, contested claims on space in Khayelitsha that have initially to be clarified. Such procedures – sometimes arduous – exist only tentatively in the townships, where more often might is right.

Of equal importance to the negotiations is the subsequent recruitment and training of the personnel to run the facilities, due to the fact that, in contrast to the buildings and public spaces of the DPP, those of the VPUU are constantly manned. A particular person is made responsible and is recompensed for his or her work, albeit not with cash but with other inducements to honour their voluntary work, for instance with vouchers for driving lessons or training and education courses. Sustainable jobs financed from the programme’s own income are created in landscape and building upkeep. The VPUU is essentially an economic model based on consensus with the local population. The intention is not to eliminate informal economic sectors, but rather to integrate them into a formalised system.

Approximately R135 million has been expended on the various projects in Khayelitsha.

Ultimately, the accompanying architecture represents a crystallisation of these efforts. The necessity is that it be visible and symbolic in the sense of marking a location with greater security. The VPUU’s first ‘architectural’ intervention in the existing structures is usually the erection of a type of office in the form of a watchtower of colourful, stacked shipping containers at a public-transport intersection. Building vertically in the predominantly one-storey townships has a number of significant aspects. On the one hand it creates the desired signal effect, reinforced by the conspicuous colours, and on the other hand, the elevated position gives the observers in the upper level a greater overall view and control. In a subsequent phase the stacked containers are replaced by a so-called Active Box.

One such example is the slender red tower dominating the surroundings at Khayelitsha railway station. The building complex houses a community centre, a number of businesses and, most

2 3

1 District Six New White Houses2 Hanover Park Market 3 DPP Square with Trees4 Hanover Park Market5 VPUU Watchtower

4

5

Two Cities


importantly, a caretaker’s flat, signifying that it is permanently occupied. Simultaneously, the Active Box at the railway station marks the starting point of a secure route through the township – a route lined by other VPUU buildings. After about 600m another, almost identical Active Box appears at the edge of a newly laid- out and carefully maintained park with sports fields. Slightly further along the route is the showpiece of the VPUU programme, namely the library directly on the ‘village square’ of Harare, one of Khayelitsha’s neighbourhoods. Right next to the library, a commercial centre is under construction, and on the other side of the square is a row of newly built houses for manual workers, with workshops on the ground floor and flats on the first floor.

Set in the unending sea of identical houses on the Cape Flats, the interventions of the various improvement programmes seem miniscule; indeed like the proverbial drop in the ocean. However, they can also be read as urban injections by which a sense of common community culture and coexistence can hopefully be instilled with more depth into the townships.

Selection and DiversityAn archetypal expression of this hope can be found in another smaller and far less conspicuous project. Together with students from the University of Cape Town, the architect Luis Mira and the artist Jonathan Garnham have created two platforms in the Imizamo Yethu Township at Hout Bay, south-east of Cape Town, which by minimal means signalise special locations. With the help of the inhabitants, simple concrete slabs with seating were erected at two water wells, which provide its users – mainly women

– with a view along the steep rise of the street. The platform is an invitation to linger after drawing water or washing clothes. This symbolic overlay to an already existing infrastructure distinguishes, at a literal elementary level, a public space that encourages the inhabitants of the township to come together, to take matters into their own hands and to collectively represent their own interests.

If the projects presented so far primarily involve introducing elements of western urbanism into African neighbourhoods, then the opposite is true for the city centre, where the more equitable use of space requires that it become more African. The current urban form of Cape Town was set by a bundle of streets and railway lines that all converge on a single point, namely the historic city centre and today’s CBD. From the middle of the 19th century onwards the city spread from this point eastwards in a radial form – funnelled by the typographical narrowness of its site – out across the Cape Flats. It was here that the first racially segregated areas were created in the 1920s and 1930s, stripped of any connections between them and without any means for commerce, trade or industry. This meant that already by the first half of the 20th century a large proportion of the population were obliged to travel to work – a circumstance that became increasingly exacerbated with time, and which, due to the absence of transverse public transport links, continues to play a part in the discrimination of today’s poor. Cape Town’s geographical circumstances facilitated the enforcement of apartheid, whereby the network of railway lines and roads constituted the arteries of the past system of racial segregation. And in fact the real heart of apartheid was embodied in Cape Town’s main station, the Cape Town Train Station. Built between 1963 and 1966 to replace the former terminus, the modernist building was actually a machine to sort people according to the colour of their skin: blacks had to board, alight from and change trains via the rear area, while the representative railway frontage was reserved exclusively for whites.

With the end of apartheid, numerous street vendors found a niche for themselves in the station, whilst the former upper parking deck became an interchange and collection point for the private shared taxis to and between the townships, which led to numerous informal traders establishing themselves here too. The train station, originally an instrument of repression, became an outpost of the African townships in the very midst of the characteristically European city centre. This, in turn, resulted in greater public safety problems that were considered unacceptable – in particular with the improvements to the city centre in conjunction with the 2010 Fifa World Cup.

In the last few years the station has been subject to a step-

5

6

7


Two Cities

by-step constructional and functional streamlining, under the supervision of the Makeka Design Laboratory. The project’s aim is to do justice to the site’s history by reinforcing the positive architectural characteristics of the modernist construction, with its public concourse and railway halls, but moreover to complement it with African design elements to foster a sense of identity. Crucial, however, is that the project has chosen to preserve space for the informal sector on the upper parking deck.

When completed, this coexistence of official and informal sales structures could make the refurbished and rebuilt Central Train Station a model of urbanity, capable of integrating both the European and the African heritage whilst simultaneously diminishing the extremes between the townships and the CBD. Organisational structures built in the centre have the potential for a feedback effect on the peripheries. Conversely, a similarly significant development is taking place in District Six in a project initiated in 2003, which has been directed by Lucien le Grange and Nisa Mammon. In it, former forcibly evicted inhabitants can return to new homes erected on the previous urban pattern. The project includes a number of accompanying measures in order to prevent the threat of speculation. This entails that another sort of bridgehead of African vividness is slowly emerging, directly adjacent to the ever-more monofunctional CBD.

By this means, intercultural bridgeheads and urban injections have also become the instruments by which, through architecture and urban planning, an attempt is being made to fulfill the promise of South Africa’s diversity as a ‘rainbow nation’. As well as becoming the loci of history and a new beginning, as embodying the promises of the modern and the symbols of African vitality, Cape Town’s District Six and Central Train Station are also the litmus tests of a fairer future society.

5 VPUU Active Box.6 VPUU Harare Library.7 Houtbay Platform.8 Cape Town Train Station.9 Station Container Market.

8

9

Our thanks are due to Anna Schindler, editor of werk, bauen + wohnen for initiating the contact, and to Tibor Joanelly and Caspar Schärer, also editors, who made the visit to South Africa, for their assistance and cooperation.

Two Cities


Contact us today for a free quotation on the most affordable & safest pool cover.

Tel: +2711 230 6600Email: [email protected]

Beautiful pools deserve only the best

��Fully automatic operation & built in with your pool

��

��

��Acts as a thermal blanket, reduces dust & leaves

��

��

��

It’s the safest way to live

A1110/15152/3273

��

Cover will transform

an outdoor or indoor

pool into a masterpiece.

Custom made to fi t your

specifi cations, it allows

the beauty of your pool

to be appreciated 365

days of the year.

ZURICH: MAKING INFORMAL PLACESTo a recently arrived South African, Zurich’s airport epitomises the international image of the city. The planes arriving from every continent are a testament to its global centrality and connectedness. The immaculate arrival halls and capable airport staff provide a foretaste of the clean, orderly and highly efficient ‘clockwork city’ that lies beyond passport control. The trains that ferry passengers between terminals to a soundtrack of cowbells and yodelling set the stage for the Alpine vistas that serve as a backdrop to the city and remind the traveller that they cannot afford to leave this banking capital without a weighty bar of Swiss chocolate, or to sample some of Switzerland’s excellent cheeses.

EVERY ASPECT OF THE EXPERIENCE of arrival in Zurich confirms its stability. Zurich offers an economically successful, safe and clean urban environment, highly accessible through its dense and varied public transportation system and public spaces, yet closely connected to the natural areas that surround the city in the form of Lake Zurich, the Limmat River and the encircling green hills.

While Zurich certainly appears to be (and to some extent is) a model for the 21st century city, the very mechanisms used to achieve this high level of liveability in Zurich require that – from an urban planning perspective – it is a city that is highly planned, highly zoned and extremely controlled. This level of order and regulation is so developed that, through the Swiss system of direct

democracy, many urban projects in Zurich are not only negotiated with the city council and neighbouring communities but are also put to public referendum[1].

Liveability or Democracy?While this system of city making may be democratic in the legal sense, it does not necessarily result in a democratic physical experience of the city. The downside to Zurich’s highly controlled urban democratic system is that it can lead to over-determination, creating urban environments that become (in Richard Sennett’s words) ‘brittle cities’, where the uses of city spaces become too singular[2]. The process of pre-empting urban change


Two Cities By: Claire Abrahamse

through zoning controls fails to provide citizens with the space and time needed to adapt and evolve the city to best respond to their own situations.

Yet in Zurich, the high levels of urban order put it on the top of the world’s most liveable cities list. Surely the culture of planning and predetermination practiced in this city actually contributes to its image of high stability, which is befitting of a city that is located at the very centre of the global financial network and is host to a transnational professional workforce?

However, one need only look at the recently completed Prime Tower to understand the potential pitfalls of creating a city in this image. Visible from all areas of the central city, Prime Tower stands as a sleek new landmark to Zurich’s status as a global financial centre. The fact that the tallest structure in the city has been realised during a global financial crisis makes it a powerful symbol of the financial stability of the city. Yet, despite the confidence it inspires from afar, on ground level Prime Tower offers nothing more to the citizen than blank sheets of glass descending to the street.

Multicultural Urban TransformationOver the past 12 years, Zurich has absorbed over 20 000 new inhabitants, taking its population to over 383 000 citizens[3]. The globalisation of cities has always been accompanied by the attraction of the ambitious to the wider range of opportunities and choices that they are able to offer. Yet not all of these newcomers form part of the international professional workforce rooted in Zurich’s global financial industry.

As Saskia Sassen has highlighted, the globalisation of cities is also associated with increased informalisation, which reintroduces the individual as an important economic player within the global cities of highly developed countries. Informalisation in this manifestation is an important mechanism for producing flexibility and dynamism, and for lowering the ‘burden’ of regularisation in these highly controlled, over-determined urban environments. It offers a wider range of economic, artistic and professional opportunities to citizens and allows for greater levels of creativity, experimentation and entrepreneurship[4].

While this type of informality might not look like the sprawling urban environments of sub-continental Asia, Africa and South America, it nevertheless operates outside that which is official and planned without transgressing the boundaries of what is legal. It uses flexible and in-between positions to improvise and adapt to a given situation in order to create new opportunities[5].

When informality is embedded in the city, it allows those mono-functional spaces of the overly planned, 20th century city to offer a more mixed-use, fine-grained and dense urban environment. It creates a more agile and flexible layer of urbanism within the city. And because it requires visibility in order to maximise access to opportunities, it contributes to the articulation of the public realm, even though it is often not part of that zoning category called ‘public space’.

In Zurich, this type of informality is clearly present in those districts of the city that are undergoing change – particularly to the west of the historic core. It is also central in the shaping of a new creative and ‘trendy’ identity for the city[6]. This creative identity is not associated with the officially endorsed and therefore ‘zoned’ events such as the Street Parade and Ironman, but rather with the collective creativity of small groups of people situated in all kinds of informal ‘edge conditions’ in the city.

For example, the New York Times, rather than focussing on

Two Cities


Zurich’s opera, museums or parades, mentions in its ‘must-do’ list for the city several restaurants, shops and businesses located in a small urban block set against the elevated Hardbruke and Prime Tower. Wedged between a road, the railway lines and the newly-developed Viadukt, which abuts Josefswiese park, this block is described as being ‘poised between industrial use and hip urban renovation’[7]. It houses a wide range of businesses and uses: the Zurich Freitag store of stacked shipping containers, a large badminton hall complete with a bar and a stranded sailboat serving as part of an outdoor kitchen. Each different use arises out of the individual and complex adaptation of the old warehouse structures arranged in a series of linear plots across the site.

Temporariness and InformalityIt would appear that most of these structures owe their existence within Zurich’s strict planning codes to their ‘temporariness’. Yet, despite the (deliberately) temporary look of these spaces, it is clear that they are quite embedded within this particular urban block. Creative start-up businesses and microenterprises typically operate in neighbourhoods that have low rents, and cluster in buildings such as old warehouse factories because of the flexibility they offer for informal cooperation and networking. It is clear that Zurich West, with its fine-grained landownership patterns and leftover 19th and early 20th century warehouse fabric and transitional nature, is attractive to these small creative industries. While gentrification will eventually push many of them out of this area, they have already set the tone for more formal uses in the future, such as the ‘trendy’ redevelopment of the adjacent Viadukt.

Just on the western side of Prime Tower, another informal ‘edge use’ operating within the city is revealed. Throughout Zurich, small Schrebergarten plots cluster in the leftover urban land between railway lines, alongside the river and on the hillside slopes above the city. They create an urban pattern one would expect to see in much poorer and denser cities such as Mumbai or Bangkok. With their lightweight garden sheds, these green areas certainly resemble ‘garden ghettos’ when contrasted with the highly ordered city surrounding them[8].

While urban planners will insist that these green plots are strictly regulated, they nevertheless show a higher level of flexibility of use when compared to the rest of the city. Here, the action of the individual on the city is apparent, as gardeners will often fly the flag of their home country over their garden plot or

will grow plants particular to their places of origin. The structures built within these areas are clearly not subject to fire regulations or planning controls. The different articulation of each of the gardens is perhaps the most visible example of spaces in which individual citizens are able to control and adapt pieces of the city.

What is interesting about the Schrebergarten in Zurich West is that, unlike the gardens circling the residential areas on the upper reaches of the surrounding hills (which are permitted to occur on land directly abutting some of the most valuable residential real estate in the city), these gardens and the families tending their plots in a kind of micro-subsistence agriculture are seen against a backdrop of cranes and ascending high-rise towers. While this is not a juxtaposition of uses one would expect to see in Zurich, the gardeners are holding out against redevelopment. Clearly another piece of garden somewhere else would not serve them as well as their current one.

The situation throws into stark contrast the difference between the highly regulated and zoned city, and those spaces where less control has allowed for informality and the individual adaptation and personalisation of urban space over time.

Urban Adaptation through Personalisation A related situation is occurring on farms at the edge of the metropolis, which have become part of community-based agriculture programmes in which inner-city citizens contribute their time in order to help grow organic fruit and vegetables. In return they receive fresh fruit and vegetables from the farm throughout the year. These programmes – like Ortoloco, which is situated to the west of the city within the Limmat Valley


Two Cities

– exist because of direct negotiations with a farmer and happen independently of the authorities[9]. While still agricultural (and therefore appropriately zoned), these uses introduce a new kind of informal-edge urbanism into the city. They are highly adaptable and flexible, as the community and the chief gardener are free to experiment with different types of plants each season. These negotiations occur in an annual general meeting, but as each member of the group contributes at least five-and-a-half days of labour per year, they no doubt occur in the fields too.

Ortoloco has become involved in another urban ‘edge space’, which has recently started to offer further opportunities for informal uses within Zurich. Brotoloco is a sister organisation which has established an outdoor, clay oven in the abandoned grounds of the Hardturm football stadium to the west of the city. Instead of growing fruit and vegetables, Brotoloco bakes bread in a similar community system to that practiced at Ortoloco. The abandoned stadium site, which came under pressure for community use as redevelopment had been stalled, was handed over to the citizens of Zurich (with a few established ground rules) in July 2011. A skate park and outdoor yoga classes are earmarked to join Brotoloco, but the possibilities for the space in the near future are still largely undefined[10].

While the type of informal community use currently allowed here is seen by all to be temporary, what is interesting is that the community demanded that this temporary and informal use be allowed while the planners and owners are busy determining the future of the site. The citizens of Zurich see the value of having such spaces in their otherwise highly regulated city, and their use of the space during the next few months, could begin to influence

the spaces and programmes that are eventually designed into and around the new soccer stadium when it is realised, hopefully resulting in a more mixed-use, humanly scaled and community-embedded structure.

The perception of the space as ‘between’ formal uses is significant. In Zurich, informality occurs where the use of space is postponed. The temporariness with which the city authorities view the ‘intermediate’ operations that may occur within that space allows for the regulations to be less strictly applied.

And yet, some of the temporary and in-between spaces, such as those in Zurich West, have produced lively cultural nodes within the city, making the surrounding areas more attractive and richly layered. They have been important in the re-drawing of Zurich’s ‘cultural map’, and have brought attention to parts of the city that were previously seen only as ‘leftover spaces’.

Green PowerOther informal uses of urban space, such as the Schrebergarten, were originally located in spaces along the railway lines that were undesirable to developers. The gardens were seen to be unthreatening to future urban planning because they posed no large-scale structural changes to the city. Yet these light and ‘temporary’ spaces are now ‘fighting back’, laying claim to their right to exist side by side with new, large-scale and expensive developments in the area, and further embedding an informal urban pattern – a literal armature for growth – that has existed in the city for a century.

The liveability of Zurich cannot only be attributed to its orderliness and high levels of control. It is also the less formal use of space that gives citizens the ability to adapt to changing needs and situations, to create opportunities for cultural innovation, to allow citizens to rub shoulders in a meaningful way with one another and to bring a human scale and complexity to the otherwise highly zoned and monofunctional districts of the city.Of course, being Zurich, this variety of informality has a tighter framework of control within which to act, but the few sites and locations in which it is able to flourish remains disproportionately important to the everyday experience of citizens and the changing cultural scene within the city.

The challenge to Zurich’s planners is, somehow, to keep spaces for informality open within the tight zoning schemes and regulations that overlay the city. It could be that more spaces are

Two Cities


‘delayed’, always allowing informality a temporary home in the city. After all, informality will find niches in which to occur despite the regulatory framework. In Zurich, the hyperdynamic nature of informality seen in other cities seems to have adapted and evolved in order to take advantage of the slower processes of ‘bottom-up’ democracy and ambiguous political procedures that so often form the context for change within the city.

It is this symbiotic situation that might see informality survive into the next of the city’s building booms. And while it might not score any points for the city on the ‘most liveable’ indexes, it will certainly contribute to citizens’ ability to engage meaningfully with their urban environment and with one another in the future.

Claire Abrahamse is a South African architect, urban designer and heritage practitioner. She was born in Cape Town, studied architecture at the University of Cape Town and later studied Urbanism at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Fulbright Scholar. She is currently establishing a practice in Cape Town.

8

REFERENCES[1] Christian Schmid, ‘A New Paradigm of Urban Development for Zurich.’

In The Contested Metropolis: Six Cities at the Beginning of the 21st Century,

edited by INDURA. Basel: Birkenhauser, 2004.

[2] Richard Sennett, ‘The Open City.’ In The Endless City, edited by Ricky

Burdett and Deyan Sudjic. London: Phadion, 2007.

[3] Office of Urban Design, City of Zurich.

[4] Saskia Sassen, ‘Seeing like a City.’ In The Endless City, edited by Ricky

Burdett and Deyan Sudjic. London: Phadion, 2007.

[5] Hubert Klumpner, personal communications, 2011.

[6] Philipp Klaus, ‘Creative and Innovative Microenterprises: Between

Subculture and World Economy.’ In The Contested Metropolis: Six Cities at the

Beginning of the 21st Century, edited by INDURA. Basel: Birkenhauser, 2004.

[7] ‘Zurich for a Song.’ New York Times, http://travel.nytimes.com. Accessed

August 2011.

[8] ‘Rent-a-Plot: Germany’s Garden Ghettos.’ Der Spiegel, 2006-04-11. Accessed

August 2011.

[9] http://ortoloco.ch. Accessed August 2011.

[10] http://www.stadionbrache.ch. Accessed July 2011.


Two Cities

PO Box 2452 Clareinch, Cape Town, 7740 T: +27 (0) 21 671 7806 E: [email protected]

Appointed Distributors and Agents for Birch G Industry Co.Ltd.

Pinnacle Procurement International will source all your building finishing requirements for any construction project you are currently planning, whether be it a hotel, housing development or offices we will assist you in the detailed sourcing, pricing, and supply of these quality items at truly affordable prices!

WINDOWS DOORS SANITARY-WARE KITCHENS CUPBOARDS FLOOR FINISHES SHUTTERS GARAGE DOORS CURTAIN WALL WATER-HEATERS FURNITURE BALUSTRADES

PLANNING YOUR NEXT PROJECT?

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

Pinnacle Procurement2.pdf 1 11/25/11 11:15 AM

As one of the leading global suppliers of healthcare flooring products,

Polyflor is proud to be considered the flooring partner of choice by most

of the Healthcare organisations in South Africa today. We believe this has

a lot to do with the fact that our clients trust us to walk our value talk.

Our solutions are designed around your needs. In hospitals, we

understand them to primarily be related to hygiene, visual design and the

protection of people, equipment and the environment.

EXPERTS IN HEALTHCAREFLOORING SOLUTIONS

• A 10 year warranty on all our flooring products

• Stock availability of all our main colour ranges

• Helpful design, installation and

maintenance advice

• Technical support to help lower your

installation risk

• The assurance that our products meet

internationally accepted environmental

standards.

OUR VALUE PROMISE

Protecting Your Patients and your Staff

• Our Polysafe safety flooring range is ideal for:

• high slip areas that require guaranteed and sustainable levels

of slip resistance, performance quality and hygiene protection

• kitchen areas where fats and oils demand higher levels

of slip resistance

• wet areas such as walk in showers and hydro therapy rooms

• Our Gradus range of non-slip stairnosings not only enhance foot

traction on stair edges, but also ensure clear visibility of step

edges

• Our Gradus range of handrails are ideal for frailcare and

orthopaedic areas, as well as for pedestrian guidance and

support.

Protecting Your Sensitive Equipment

• Our Polyflor ESD products combat electrostatic discharge in

X-Ray suites, scanner rooms and operating theatres.

They also protect sensitive monitoring equipment that can be

damaged by static.

Protecting Your Building from Wear and Tear

• Gradus wall protection bump rails, bed protectors, door & corner

guards and sanparrel sheeting offers superior impact protection

against wheeled traffic such as beds, trolleys and mobile

equipment

• Gradus primary and secondary Barrier Matting Systems

effectively remove dirt and moisture before it enters the

building, reducing maintenance costs and hygiene risk

• Our PUR floor coatings substantially reduce maintenance costs.

.

Protecting our Environment

• Polyflor floors are 100% recyclable, carry an A+ BRE rating and

contribute to LEED points

• Polyflor VOC emissions are well below all acceptable norms

• Polyflor products significantly reduce the consumption of water

and chemicals required to ensure clean, hygienic hospital floors.

ENVIRONMENT

Solutions to Protect Buildings, People,Equipment and the EnvironmentStaff & Patients • Walls & Floors • Equipment • Environment

Livingstone Hospital - Eastern Cape

Please contact us for a detailed overview of Polyflor’senvironmental profile

Poly Sales Africa (Pty.) Ltd. PO Box 3967, Edenvale 1610, South Africa Tel: (27) 11 609-3500 • E-mail: [email protected] • Web:www. polyflor.co.za

Custom Designed FlooringOur wide range of colours, designs and textures allow architects to

transform any hospital floor into a patient uplifting environment.

Design Possibilities• Limitless choice of shapes, patterns and designs

• Combine the look of wood with stone while maintaining a

consistent floor level and finish

• Waterjet any logo or graphic onto your designer floor.

DESIGN FLOORS

SchoolZone | February 2011 3

Preventing Bacterial Build-up• Polyflor sheet flooring, together with our

butterfly corners, covings and clip top

capping systems form an impervious barrier

that offers no sanctuary to dirt and bacteria

• Wall cladding increases the impervious layer

all the way to the ceilings

• PUR floor coating makes for easy-cleaning;

lowering the risk of infections.

2 SchoolZone | February 2011

HYGIENE

Solutions for Hygiene-Sensitive AreasOperating Theatres • Aseptic Areas • Showers & Bathrooms • Laboratories • Scrub Rooms & Kitchens

Solutions to Enhance Floor DesignsEntrances • Receptions • Walkways • Wards • Coffee Shops • Paediatric Units

Vryburg Hospital - North West Province Kimberley Paediatric Unit

Wet Area Solutions• Polysafe safety flooring prevents the growth

of bacteria and offers watertight finishes in

all wet areas

• ACO vinyl drains are specially designed to

prevent bacterial and dirt build-up around

the water outlet. The easily removable foul

air trap system also stops dirt accumulation

and resulting bad odours.

Livingstone Hospital - Eastern CapeLivingstone Hospital - Eastern Cape

Vryburg Hospital - North West Province

BUT THE VICTORIANS ALSO BROUGHT US INFRASTRUCTURE. Gas. Water. Electricity. Sewerage. And they buried it all, out of sight. Beneath the streets are kilometres of pipes awaiting archaeological divulgence, an assembly of services and tubes ready to burst through the thin layer of tar, like a scene out of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. These pipes arrive at some of the most regal of cast-iron chimney posts, standing forlorn and forgotten at street corners in my neighbourhood – or neatly embedded into garden walls in too-narrow streets. No longer useful and not ‘building’ enough to be conserved as heritage, and too heavy to be hacked off by scrap burglars, they just stand silently, unnoticed, the cast-offs from a previous technological era.

Victorian technology started out ugly and yet, within a few generations, its remnants appear so beautiful, so poetic – the top of the gas chimney a regal crown, the heavily coupled tapering segments an elegant defiance against 100 years of galeforce winds and marine attack.

Further down the road is the ‘triumph’ of Salt River circle, where a new technology stands proudly, taking centre stage in the fight against crime. Or not quite centre stage. Thanks to all the carelessness of bureaucracy, the new CCTV security tower was planted off-centre – on a whim, perhaps – and now the pylon is just plain. Odd.

But to follow the logic of the circle and the roundabout and the steady gentrification of Salt River, the pylon is now a place, a decentred Union Jack of paving and planting to make pretty. But truth be told, it’s more Orc de Triomf than Arc de Triomphe, as it rises like a giant finger to the sentimentality of beauty; the war on drugs has no time for symmetry, for the emphatic centring logic of the circle.

But the tower nevertheless has a strangely compelling presence – the assemblage of technological devices gathered in a precarious bundle at its top waiting to drop off, the centipede rhythm of its ladder, its coupling lines disappearing in the monotone of galvanised steel...

What will become of it when the – assuming the – scourge of crime and drugs magically disappears from the face of this fairest Cape? Will the pylon be left, forgotten like the Victorian street chimneys, becoming background? Will it become conserved and cherished as part of our heritage? Or will it be taken down and recycled, part of the great metal restitution projects of the Mad Max future?

What would the city look like if all its layers of defunct ‘ugly’ technology were cleared away?

The digital images of US photographer Matt Siber offer an interesting perspective on this, especially in his early ‘floating logos’ projects. In these he manipulates photos of streetscapes, removing all the text from the jumble of signs and advertising and logos. He cleans up visual pollution, puts it to one side... Or we might find clues of this in the slightly disturbing, but peerless documentary, Crumb.

In A Short History of America, the cartoonist Robert Crumb depicts a single-point perspective on a quaint American pasture. He builds this up and animates it with the layers of technology and development of the past 500 years. It ends up in a horrible mess of strip malls and logos and street signs and overhead cables. In a techno-clean-up future are we headed for this little animation in reverse? A return to the tech-no future of William Morris’s News from Nowhere?

Or are we going to go deeper into a technological future with things as yet unimagined? As we move to a more digital wireless world the physical infrastructure will, well, melt into air. And then, in a roundabout way, we can take Marshall Berman’s take on Karl Marx literally, where All That’s Solid Melts Into Air.

In this future the Salt River circle is returned to its agrarian pasture, all visible signs of industrialisation and the ‘street furniture’ technology removed. In order to see what’s really going on behind the scenes, to really see the polluting infrastructure holding it all together, you will have to unplug yourself from the matrix, or don glasses that reveal the green screen of zeros and ones, the eye floaters across the air of the world.

ALL THAT’S SOLID MELTS INTO AIRThe Victorians brought us technology, in-your-face technology, grotty, gritty, grimy technology. Not so long ago my neighbourhood of Woodstock in Cape Town was suffocated by the tangy clang of steam engines and blacksmith workshops. Not a touch on the Manchester of Engels, but a real blow to health and happiness for those who worked as blacksmiths or boilermakers.

Pho

to: N

ic C

oetz

er

1 Victorian street chimney, Woodstock.

2 Salt River circle CCTV.

1 2

Perspective


By: Nic Coetzer

THE EMBODIED IMAGE: Imagination and Imagery in Architecture

IN THIS BOOK, the noted Finnish architect and architectural thinker, Juhani Pallasmaa, completes his study of the role of the senses, embodiment and imagination in architectural and artistic perception. He gained a cult status among architects and architectural students with his first study, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses (1995). This investigation was expanded in The Thinking Hand: Existential and Embodied Wisdom, where he examined the significance of the hand as an extension of the brain through the eye, seriously lacking in the electronic age. He has often called for the return to a more physical, sensory experience of architecture.

In The Embodied Image, he returns to his driving concern with architecture’s loss of communicative power and expands on the phenomenological position that he adopted early on. He bases his position on the readings of writers: Gaston Bachelard, in particular, but including Barthes, Calvino and Sartre among many others. Here, using text and visual images, he removes the word image from our visually dominated consciousness and relocates it in our being, in the subconscious and in the familiar objects around us. His reference to the work of philosophers and critical thinkers is considered, and makes their concepts and theories easily accessible.

The book is divided into a number of parts that examine the meaning of the image in contemporary culture: language, thought and image; the varied aspects of the image, particularly its metaphorical role in art and architecture; the poetic image that lies between the physically perceived world and the realm of the imagination; and, finally, the architectural image. Here he explores the way in which architecture embodies aspects of context, cultural metaphor and memory.

The Embodied Image is illustrated with over 60 images arranged in pairs. They range from scientific images to historic, artistic and architectural masterpieces. Artworks range from Titian to Van Gogh and architects include Modernists such as Alvar Aalto and Carlo Scarpa, Steven Holl and Glenn Murcutt. The images chosen and the related captions are fascinating sub-texts. One is constantly struck by the unusual image pairing: John Soane’s London house with Aalto’s experimental house at Muuratsalo; or Van Gogh’s painting of his boots with Aalto’s Villa Mairea, or a Chinese cave painting with a Brancusi sculpture. In each section he explores concepts of image and meaning and relates

these to architecture in a manner that encourages a focussed yet relaxed reading, allowing him to follow a series of sometimes digressive paths as he explores his concepts in the visual arts and literature, and then examines in terms of its impact on architecture. He does not take a narrow view on architectural expression, but ranges across the centuries from the drawings of Piranesi to the collage of the Castel Vecchio in Verona by Scarpa as he considers issues in a sensory manner.

What does Pallasmaa mean when he refers to embodiment? He quotes the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal’s description of the embodiment that occurs in the act of reading: ‘When I read I don’t really read: I pop a beautiful sentence in my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop.’

Pallasmaa suggests that images become apparent when they are stirred by subconscious stimulus. But embodiment means that while our latent images are sublimated, there are other images embodied in the things we see around us. He speaks of the ten ‘primal images of architecture: floor, roof, wall, door, window, hearth, stair, bed, table and bath’. These are images rather than things because they ‘are acts rather than formal entities or objects’, which ‘permit and invite’; recalling the view of Bachelard as expressed in his seminal The

Poetics of Space, where each image needs to be analysed both phenomenologically and in terms of its reality.

For Pallasmaa architecture is an experience that shares with other art forms a significant quality: ‘Profound artistic images are not singular pictures, snapshots, confined views, aspects or details; they are entire worlds.’ His concerns are clear: he fears that buildings are becoming functional structures devoid of meaning, and that to counter this lack of meaning buildings are turned into visual images that are devoid of any meaning, intended merely to ‘seduce the eye’. He calls for the embodiment of meaning in architecture that is ‘the externalisation of our imagination, memory and conceptual capacities’.

Pallasmaa’s value is in showing us important new ideas by exploring related fields of thought and drawing them into architectural and aesthetic theory. Human sciences, philosophy, poets and artists — all form appropriate raw material for his paths of discovery.

Following along these sometimes unfamiliar paths will possibly lead to new insights and meaning in architecture.

By: Andre van Graan


Book Review

Author: Juhani PallasmaaPublisher: Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2011

Visit our new showroom to see all our ranges from desking to accesories at 386 Jan Smuts Avenue, Craighall Park / Hyde Park

or contact us on T 011 326 0344 | F 011 326 3184 | E [email protected]

You can also download our catalogue from www.velocityfurniture.co.za

c o m p l e te f u r n i t u r e s o l u t i o n s

V E L O C I T Y

ANG

ELCY

4109

ve·loc·i·ty (n)1. the speed at which something moves, happens, or is done

That takes care of our delivery! Now come and experience our range and quality.We can expand on your existing range of furniture or assist with manufacturing custom-made designs.

4109 VELOCITY/ARCHITECTURE.indd 1 2011/05/26 11:21 AM

��

��

��

��

��

��

QUOTED ABOVE IS THE OPENING SENTENCE in le Corbusier’s Towards a New Architecture (1927). Has the ‘unhappy state’ of the profession improved during the nearly 90 years since? There is a perception out there that it has not. When I started to examine what expertise is really expected from architects, the term ‘deskilling’ appeared rather frequently. For example, in an interview Rory McGowan, Arup’s principal partner in Beijing and the structural engineer responsible for the CCTV building, commented that ‘Architects are becoming more and more deskilled. At the same time, building design is becoming more and more technically driven’ (De Muynck, 2010). This was a general remark and not aimed at Rem Koolhaas.

From literature, the internet and discussions with colleagues, a wide and disparate range of weaknesses and causes became evident: (1) a lack of proficiency in the production of technical documentation; (2) a lack of fundamental knowledge of climatically-sensitive design; (3) subordination to the limitations of computer programmes; (4) an obsession with visual impact; and (5) a lack of technical knowledge. Significantly, these cover nearly the whole spectrum of architecture.

Whereas the critiques could often be construed as sweeping statements and highly personal views from random sources, the now shelved Built Environment Professions Bill (March 2008), proposed by the National Department of Public Works, was the result of a systematic assessment. It would have resulted in the creation of an umbrella ‘super council’ that would have stripped the professional councils of their juristic personality. Reasons for this drastic intervention included limited access to education for historically disadvantaged individuals and the low level of race and gender transformation, but also qualitative problems in delivery. The three largest councils – architecture, engineering and quantity surveying – objected publicly and defended their position in a joint statement entitled, ‘Built environment professions face harsh impact of new bill’. This document is available on a number of websites (including www.sacapsa.com/sacap/action/media).

At that time academics and practitioners alike were outraged, and we were all hugely relieved when the proposed Bill was recalled. After that it was business as usual, but we missed a valuable opportunity for a constructive self-appraisal because it seems as if the Bill is at present being revived. In view of that, I wish to briefly share some of my very personal views on the state of architectural practice and education in South Africa.

PracticePrior to the introduction of the Architectural Profession Act (Act 44 of 2000), the typical practice consisted of architects registered with the defunct South African Council of Architects (SACA), assisted by draughtspersons. Experienced draughtspersons were the acknowledged experts in technical matters. They were depended on to produce ‘working drawings’ and schedules, to specify materials and finishes, and to plan service installations.

The Architectural Profession Act changed all that. Instead of architects and draughtspersons developing specific skills in two separate, symbiotic streams, the Act prescribed four categories of compulsory registration in an educational continuum – professional architect, professional senior architectural technologist, professional architectural technologist and professional architectural draughtsperson. The declared intention was to achieve inclusivity by allowing for mobility and progress within the qualification and registration framework.

By 2006 most experienced draughtspersons were indeed registered as professional senior architectural technologists, but graduates with four-year degrees can now also register as candidate senior architectural technologists. The result is, of course, that architects – with the benefit of more time spent studying – are more knowledgeable than their less-qualified collaborators. Who are now the technical experts?

The SACAP Council subsequently realised that a number of applicants had been allowed to register as senior professional architectural technologists in terms of the ‘deemed to’ clause [Section 42 (5)], in spite of what retrospectively seem to be questionable qualifications and experience. Whereas it will now be challenging to overturn those arbitrary decisions, the Act is less vague regarding persons registered in the wrong category since the cut-off date (2006). Section 20 (1) (a) gives the SACAP Council the power to ‘cancel the registration of a registered person if he or she... has erroneously been registered’. An example would be persons registered as professional senior architectural technologists, who possess three-year instead of four-year qualifications. This is an ominous anomaly – once Identification of Work is a reality, they will be allowed to do projects for which they are patently not prepared. SACAP probably has no choice but to audit the qualifications of all its registered persons and to rectify errors where necessary. In any case the president of SACAP, Mr Phill Mashabane, has issued strict instructions that under no circumstances will the value of architectural qualifications be compromised.

With all registered persons currently being allowed to open practices and design buildings, the situation has become

SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHITECTS – ARE WE REALLY DESKILLED?

‘The Engineer’s Aesthetic, and Architecture, are two things that march together and follow one from the other: the one being now at its full height, the other in an unhappy state of retrogression.’


By: Gerald SteynEnd Piece

year of part-time evening classes) and the Part 3 examination in Professional Practice and Management are the minimum requirements for registration as an architect with the Architects’ Registration Board (ARB), and corporate membership of the RIBA. Graduates of Part 3 courses receive formal qualifications, such as a postgraduate diploma in Architectural Professional Practice.

ConclusionSome South African architects are internationally-acclaimed designers, teachers and researchers. The truly indomitable ones are also actively involved with committee work for SACAP and the various voluntary associations, they mentor thesis candidates, lecture part-time, and serve on validation boards and as external examiners. However, we must admit that others are undoubtedly not always designing good buildings and are less meticulous in preparing contract documentation and administration than they should be, damaging their reputations as well as ours. Deskilled? That is maybe just too much of a generalisation. The profession nevertheless cannot afford to ignore the accusations – an ignorant, complacent attitude will be inappropriate.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is a hugely beneficial arrangement in order to acquire, retain and improve knowledge. It also eliminates the inevitable tendency of architects, who run one-person practices, to become isolated from mainstream developments. Architects in country towns sometimes complain that they have no access to accredited CPD lectures, for which a minimum of only one credit must be earned annually. There are many events that compensate for this. For example, attending the Sophia Gray Memorial Lecture in Bloemfontein each August and the accompanying SAIA mini-conference the next morning will earn them that credit.

Finally, rebranding SAIA as the South African Institute for Architecture, an initiative to signal a more inclusive dispensation vis-à-vis the other categories of registration, is perhaps not the right way to go. Regional institutes already embrace persons registered in all categories. The South African Institute of Architectural Technologists (SAIAT) is a vibrant and well-organised voluntary organisation and lobbies aggressively on behalf of its members. I do not wish to polarise the profession, but architects similarly need an exclusive forum to debate issues intrinsically associated with their level of involvement in the built environment, not only locally, but also with our international colleagues (the RIBA, CAA, UIA, etcetera). After all, we share exactly the same concern – that the title ‘architect’ is only worth protecting if the status associated with the title is earned through professionalism, proficiency and leadership.

ambiguous – many draughtspersons now practise as ‘______ Architecture’, a situation that unquestionably confuses the public, which now tends to believe that all building designers are architects.

EducationSeven South African universities (including one university of technology) are currently offering professional Master’s degree programmes that permit graduates to register as candidate architects. A common feature of all seven programmes is that design comprises half of the curriculum content. This is a condition imposed by SACAP, as well as the relevant international validation bodies – the RIBA and CAA. The ‘other coursework’ may include history, theory, urban design, landscaping, computer applications and technology-orientated subjects such as contract documentation, construction methods and materials, structures and building services, as well as professional practice subjects.

With design being at the centre of architectural studies, there is little time in the programme for those professional practice subjects. The students also simply do not relate to any subject that does not somehow inform design. In addition, all universities (including the former technikons) insist that academic staff produce research outputs in the form of peer-reviewed articles – often a prerequisite for promotion. Since fewer and fewer full-time academics are involved in practices, the inevitable result is that many are either not equipped to or not interested in teaching professional practice subjects, so that ‘outsourcing’ them to practising architects is often the only solution. That is obviously a good thing, but the downside is that design then totally dominates the culture within the school and practice subjects become marginalised.

Some schools intentionally teach professional practice only in the most superficial sense, insisting that graduates should learn this in the workplace during their practical training. This is causing friction in small practices (the vast majority in South Africa), who expect their newly graduated employees to participate in contract administration and to contribute to the management of the office.

On obtaining their qualifications, graduates may register as candidates in one of the categories, and after two years of structured practical training (three in the case of draughtspersons) may write the Professional Practice Examination (PPE). In South Africa, the preparation for the PPE during candidacy is undeniably woefully inadequate and has been described by colleagues in the United Kingdom as ‘Mickey Mouse’ in nature. In Britain a RIBA Part 3 course (at least one


Goo

gle

Map

s

End Piece

archsa52

Documents

african architecture

south africatel

picasso headline pty

picasso headline reg

incl vat

countries r17

rsa r19

excl vat novemberdecember