Bernard Cooke

In the early 1980s in the lead up to Johannesburg's Centenary celebrations, the Joburg 100 Committee placed the Second Kerk Street Mosque on its list of one hundred buildings of great significance worthy of preservation. The building was controversially demolished in 1989 to make way for the Third Kerk Street Mosque. The latter has since become a landmark in its own right. Below is a description of the Second Mosque compiled by Marilyn Martin and Bernard Cooke in 1984. The photograph above appeared in a 1989 edition of The Star.

This is the oldest mosque in Johannesburg. Known as the Jooma Masgid Mosque, the foundation stone was laid on 15 May 1918 by Syed Jammool Hoosain Mashade, an important religious man who happened to be visiting Johannesburg at the time.

The mosque is still active, holding five daily calls to prayer. It is usually filled with people from the surrounding area and local businessmen who say their prayers there.

The rectangular building is set slightly at an angle with the street, according to its relationship with Mecca, and is enclosed by a high decorative wall. The latter has six arched recesses and a seventh arch forming the main entrance.

The remarkable feature of the building is the four identical minarets at each corner. They are three-storeyed with balconies around the upper two and delicate detailing. The minarets are scaled down to about one quarter of full size. Although no muezzin could call the faithful from the minute balconies, they serve...

Everytime we travel to Wits campus we look up in amazement at the majestic Tower of Light. It has been standing since the mid 1930s and is still a landmark on the Johannesburg skyline. The Tower was rated one of Johannesburg's Top 100 sites in the lead up to the Centenary Celebrations. Below is the statement of significance written by Bernard Cooke in 1985.

The Tower of Light at the old Milner Park showgrounds [now Wits West Campus] was erected for the Empire Exhibition held there in 1936. Its symbolism was related to electricity and it was sponsored by Escom. It is said that Van der Bijl, then Chairman of Iscor and Escom was personally interested in the project.

For some time before the Exhibition a tower of this nature had been mooted and envisaged constructed in steel. In the event the decision to proceed was taken so late that there was insufficient time and it was decided to build it in concrete which would be quicker. The architect was Professor Geoffrey Pearse, then Professor of Architecture at the Witwatersrand University. He consulted with Professor W.G. Sutton who was Professor of Engineering at Wits at the time. The structural design was prepared by him and his Department.

The bold architectural design with its central cylindrical core and projecting fins, had the mechanistic quality of the Modern Architecture of the 1930s, railings and details are suitably ‘ship-like’. The top of the Tower with the fins projecting over the top balcony is slightly ‘Art Deco’...