Sunnyside Campus Houses

Over a period of ten years (2010-2020), a set of 20 houses of different styles located on the UNISA (University of South Africa) Sunnyside campus in Pretoria was studied informally for their spectacular deterioration and accumulation of rubbish. Several times each year since 2010, the author (an art student on the campus) visited the houses and took photographs, building up a photographic record of increased dereliction. All in all, the appearance of the houses over the years became very forlorn, yet evocative. It was like seeing Time in action. Also collected was a record of the types of litter and debris inside the houses and in the undergrowth around the houses. How was it possible that the people occupying them had vanished, leaving behind such a rich store of discarded items? Also, from an artistic perspective, many of the ‘trash’ items were beautiful in the way that they had changed.

In 2010, when the author began taking photographs, the Sunnyside campus and its residential houses were in fair condition, meaning that their windows and doors, floors, roof timbers, pressed ceilings and metal roofing were intact, although all metal kitchen sinks, taps, metal pipes and wiring had already been stripped. Where they could not be removed, ceramic fittings like toilets and baths had been vandalised. Nothing of the original occupants remained in the houses.

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An article by Adrian de Villiers on The Heritage Portal in 2017 highlighted the history and importance of Kirkness bricks made in a Pretoria brickyard, starting in 1888 (click here to view). At the UNISA Sunnyside campus, bricks from this historic Pretoria brickfield were used and individual bricks are lying about in the gardens, as the photograph above (taken in 2020) attests. Many famous buildings in Pretoria like the Raadsaal for the Transvaal Republic and the Union Buildings, and Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, have Kirkness bricks, roof tiles and flower pots.

A Mr JJ Kirkness established John J Kirkness Ltd and built the Kirkness Brick Factory in Groenkloof under the name of Groenkloof Brick, Tile, and Pottery Works in 1888 and pioneered the production of high quality bricks in South Africa. This factory grew with the years and was capable of an annual output of 50 million bricks, plus a range of other fired clay elements such as columns and fireplaces, roofing tiles, quarry tiles, structural hollow tiles and decorative landscape earthenware. The bricks were also used to build the Normaal Kollege on the northern parcel of the Sunnyside campus. It looks like some of the bricks also ended up on the southern side of the Sunnyside campus. Also, the attractive Kirkness brick fire places were deployed in hundreds of homes and public buildings in Pretoria and beyond – and may also be in many of the heritage houses on the UNISA Sunnyside campus.

No brick heritage assessment done

While a...