Flo Bird

The Johannesburg City Library has been in the news recently for the wrong reasons, but thankfully, owing to pressure from the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation and the reading public, parts of this important civic facility have been reopened, and after a long closure, it will again be fully functional later in 2025.

Johannesburg Public Library from a. distance (The Heritage Portal)

This may be an appropriate moment to reflect on the role of the City Librarians who ensured the success of the library and maintained its high stature for so many decades.

One of those outstanding figures was Anna Hester Smith (1912-1992), City Librarian from 1960 to 1975. She was a remarkable woman whose career is worth recounting and whose dedicated work requires recognition. The Johannesburg Heritage Foundation is presently negotiating with the City Council to erect a Blue Plaque to honour Miss Smith near the main library building.

A Blue Plaque, an international symbol, is a permanent sign installed on heritage sites to alert the viewer to an aspect of local history explained briefly on the plaque. The Johannesburg Heritage Foundation (JHF) has taken responsibility for Blue Plaques in Greater Johannesburg  because they raise public awareness of our heritage, foster pride, provide information, and encourage the protection...

A land surveyor of distinction and an early pioneer of South African satellite geodesy, Werner Kirchhoff, passed away at the age of 92 in August 2023.

Werner, born in Germany in 1931, was the son of Peter Kirchhoff and Margarete Bose. Two years later his family left Germany and immigrated to South Africa, settling in Johannesburg in 1934. Between 1936 and 1941, he attended the German school in Edith Cavell Street, Hillbrow and from 1942 to 1947, the German school in Pretoria (the Deutsche International Schule) and Pretoria Boys' High School.

Werner grew up in an artist’s home. His father (with three other artists: Hennie Potgieter, Laurika Postma and Frikkie Kruger) was commissioned to sculpt the Voortrekker Monument Hall friezes from 1941-1946. Here, the young Werner acted as the model for the young hero figure of Dirkie Uys, a young Paul Kruger at Vegkop and a surveyor in the Church of the Vow frieze. The latter post was prophetic indeed as surveying became Werner’s profession.

Werner posed for these figures in the Voortrekker Monument Hall friezes (Russel Scott)

The Kirchhoff family lived at Harmony Hall (the converted artists’ studio for the work of the four artists on...

I was very sad to learn of the passing of the architect Robin Fee a few days ago and especially sorry that I had not expressed to him in his lifetime my thanks for his role in the conservation of Joburg’s heritage.
 
I would like to pay tribute to Robin Fee for two extraordinary instances where he put Johannesburg’s old buildings above any profit he or his firm could make if they had upheld their clients’ demands for demolition.
 
The first was the row of small shops in Diagonal Street which in 1988 The Star had sold to JCI. Robin was commissioned to develop skyscraper offices for Ernst and Young. Diagonal Street at that time was developing fast thanks to the re-location of the Stock Exchange to the north end. It seemed quite logical that all these tiny shops so quaint in which Indian shopkeepers had been plying their trade for more than 80 years with families living in rooms above the shops, should be replaced by huge office blocks. That was Joburg and the direction the city was taking and has always taken.

Nathanson's Building was almost lost (The Heritage Portal)

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Ladies and gentlemen. What a marvellous, almost miraculous Day this is for friends, neighbours and all the conservationists who stood with us holding protest banners 10 years ago. We were devastated when the buildings were demolished and for nearly three years there was a complete impasse. The authorities would not take any action, stop orders were in place and we in the heritage lobby could not see a way forward.

Protesting the demolition of the Rand Steam Laundries (Johannesburg Heritage Foundation)

Then I got a phone call from a town planner. He cut the Gordian knot. His suggestion was that civil society should take the lead and reach an agreement with the wicked developer on the things we wanted to happen on the site. So we cast off our rage and anger and settled down to working as a team to create a Town Planning Amendment Scheme which satisfied both parties. I want to thank Steve Jaspan who is the town planner who found the way forward. With the help of the City of Johannesburg and here I must mention Liz Theron of the Planning Department, the incredibly detailed Town Planning Amendment Scheme was finally passed.

The next stage was making the paper dream become a reality. For a...

Flo Bird, Founder of the Parktown and Westcliff Heritage Trust and founder member of the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation was a surprise guest speaker at the 17th annual symposium of the Heritage Association of South Africa held at Heidelberg last week. Her task was to draw on experiences gathered over a lifetime of commitment and campaigning to provide a useful checklist for all heritage warriors.

1) Make your list - Top heritage sites

It starts with your own idea of just what you believe is important and want to save. Later some experts will suggest other items, but begin with the ones that mean a lot to you. It takes passion to save the heritage and especially passion to stay the course. Is one in any danger right now? If so, that tops your list.

AG Visser House makes the list (The Heritage Portal)

2) Document these sites and buildings

The facts you gather are the weapons you will need. When was it built, for whom and by whom, what important people or events are associated with it? What legal status does it have now? Is it a Provincial Heritage Site? (if it was a National Monument then it is now a Provincial Heritage Site). Is it more than 60 years old? (this means it is protected by Section 34 of the National Heritage Resources...

[Originally published 11 March 2013] On Saturday 9th March the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation had a walking tour around Fordsburg looking at heritage buildings and talking of the dramatic history. At 3.30 pm the group reached the historic Fordsburg Square where a plaque was unveiled recording the final battle of the 1922 Strike which took place in the Square. Dino Badroodin, proprietor of The Train on the Square, and Flo Bird of the JHF unveiled the plaque as shown in the photograph above.

Fordsburg is one of the three villages which grew rapidly together to form Johannesburg. It had its own railway station, police station and market square. There were a number of hotels with bars, and eating houses for the miners who lived there and walked across to work on Langlaagte Gold Mining Estate, Crown Reef Mine, Robinson Gold Mine.

Layers of history were uncovered on the tour involving the Boer women and children who suffered great poverty during and after the Anglo Boer War, the people of Indian, Chinese and Malay descent who moved in gradually as the miners left. Factories and warehouses began to squeeze the small cottages. Then many people were forcibly removed to Lenasia, schools were closed and Fietas was destroyed. The Oriental Plaza created space for shopkeepers, but another group of residents were displaced as that was built with generous parking all around. With everchanging demographics after 1994 more blocks of flats were built and Pakistani immigrants arrived, bringing new skills and new restaurants to...

Since February this year members of the heritage lobby have been attending meetings with the Department of Public Works discussing the development of the Marshall Street Police Barracks and the site they call 85 Anderson Street. We were more than sceptical at the first meeting, became even more suspicious when no heritage architect was appointed, so only at the final meeting on 18th May did we accept their bona fides and really enjoy the discussions.  

Yasmin Mayat of Mayat Hart Architects has been appointed as the heritage architect. She laid down the law very firmly and we certainly intend supporting her whenever possible. So anyone who has photographs of the Marshall Street Police Barracks and the small buildings on the site before the fire please send them in and let us scan them.

Old images of the Marshall Street Barracks (FJ Henley)

Bhavid of Creative Axis architects presented the design for the two new office buildings, one of which will be entirely new in form in that area. No pretense or pastiche. They relate in some respects to the old, but with the freedom Norman Foster claimed for the Hearst Tower in New York these buildings will stand out in Marshallstown as unashamedly 21st Century. 

Space is created between the old and new recalling the parade ground which was the breathing space behind...

As we enter silly season I have been warned to be brief. No one has time to read long pages of diatribes against those who own wonderful old buildings and don’t maintain them. I am just back from a week in Cape Town, travelling there by train. The most disgusting views of Johannesburg came from the eastern section behind the Art Gallery where literally tons of filth are simply pushed over the side from what used to Union Grounds. This continues for some way. Clearly no one ever dreams of cleaning alongside the railway line, but any visitor would imagine they enter Joburg via a rubbish tip. The train goes fast enough to miss seeing the rats and smelling what must be a revolting mix of rotting refuse and urine. Leaving and approaching Cape Town is not like this.

The Johannesburg Art Gallery (The Heritage Portal)

The one rewarding part of the Johannesburg exit was seeing the Kensington Flats still standing. These provided accommodation to Milner’s teachers who were all Oxford graduates. Several went on to head Potchefstroom Boys High, Jeppe Boys High and Pretoria Boys High. One decided to follow Maria Montessori and set up her own primary school – St Katherine’s in Parktown.

Changing our name to Johannesburg has already involved us in other areas. The New...