Kathy Munro

Last weekend my husband Keith and I spent a weekend in Durban as guests of the Durban Art Deco Society (DADS). I was there to deliver the lecture at the Annual General Meeting of the Society on the Sunday morning at the Phansi Museum but we had about 26 hours to see Durban and pleasure the pulse of the Indian Ocean city which had been Keith’s home town and my favourite teenage holiday destination. I knew Durban from my childhood sojourns and then family visits to the grandparents once we had settled in Johannesburg but in recent years our visits have dwindled so it was a pleasure to revive memories of places we knew decades ago and to gain fresh insights of a 21st century Durban.

A highlight of the weekend was the special Art Deco tour by professional tour guide, Shiney Bright and Professor Mike Mulholland of UKZN. Both are passionate about Durban’s Art Deco buildings and through the Durban Art Deco Society they are determined to promote, celebrate and save all that is Art Deco in Durban. There are more than 100 Art Deco buildings in Durban dating from the interwar period. Art Deco is such a distinctive style of angles, lines, geometry, decorative motifs in brick and plaster. Durban, because of the many apartment blocks, office blocks, homes and even simple shops, has been recognized internationally as a city where you can view Art Deco architecture with its many motifs and colours. Durban is an Art Deco city, though if you are keen on this style you will also find many buildings in Johannesburg and Springs.

Art Deco style was popular...

I snapped the image above from the Station Street entrance of the Braamfontein East Campus  - exiting the Wits gates. Photo taken on Sunday 17th November 2019. It reminded me of how much of a city university Wits is and how layered the city is in the buildings around us. 
 
In the foreground are the old corrugated iron semi-detached workers cottages (now the Performing Arts Administration of Wits’ School of Arts). This was once a home of an artisan - we know they were here as artisan’s residences of turn of the 20th century Braamfontein. 
 
The tall building with the circular flying saucer top is the 1970s Lawson’s Corner and the flying circle was the old revolving restaurant and night club of that era. It was the pride of Wilfred Lawson who started life in Braamfontein when he established a garage and petrol station on Jorissen Street and went on to become a car agent. He held the agency for Volvo as I recollect. Many older Wits alumni recall being sold their first car by Mr Lawson. Lawson’s corner with its garage on the corner of Bertha Street (extension of Jan Smuts Avenue) and Jorissen Street grew to reflect Lawson’s  business acumen and success in the automobile world. There was initially a fairly modest building but ultimately the skyscraper rose on the corner site. The original street frontage building was then backed by the 21 storey skyscraper.

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Saturday 5 October 2019 was a heritage cum book day of note at the library complex to be found at Solomon Street. The weekend offered booklovers the annual City Library book sale spread over two days, hosted by the Friends of the Johannesburg Public Libraries and the Johannesburg Library and information services.
 
Today 22 Solomon Street, Braamfontein is the Library’s administrative headquarters but the odd mix of buildings - a blend of workshops, living quarters, and offices presents a puzzle about origins and the several changes in activities on the site.

In the afternoon the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation under the guidance of Mrs Flo Bird, founding member of the JHF and first Chair, led an hour long tour of the interesting old buildings on the site  and unveiled two blue plaques on these city properties. Flo introduced the layered history of the complex. The blue plaque signals a heritage site of significance and sets out in an elegant short paragraph a summary history.

At one time at least 1000 workers were housed here. The tour offered a workers perspective of labouring life in the city of Johannesburg that can be traced back a century. Compound living is today recognized as socially undesirable and unacceptable but at one time a single man who came to Johannesburg had to fend for himself, find a job and grab any accommodation possible. There are still remnants of those practices in the economy of the town.

The unveiling of two blue plaques is an opportunity to mark the social history of black working class life in the city. Here is a history that...

Last month I attended the opening of the new photographic exhibition at Museum Africa: The Gift of Seeing History – The Legacy of Dr Arthur David Bensusan. The exhibition commemorates the 51st anniversary of the establishment of the Bensusan Museum and Library of Photography. The exhibition runs until 21st September and has been curated by Ms Dudu Madonsela of Museum Africa.

The photographic collection of Dr Bensusan was a remarkable gift to the City of Johannesburg (a donation made to the city in 1969). It is made up of photographs he gathered all his life as well as historic photographic equipment he collected.

Bensusan started his collection at his home at 9 St Paul’s Road in Houghton but the collection later moved to a house turned museum on Empire Road. When that was demolished to make way for the park to serve Hillbrow, the collection went to the Africana Museum and later still was relocated to Museum Africa where it was given a generous sized exhibition area on the top floor.

It has always been one of my favourite collections at Museum Africa. Congratulations to Dudu Madonsela and Brett McDougall (from the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation) for assembling, collaborating and promoting this exhibition of photographs that so fittingly captures Bensusan’s work, life and legacy. A blue plaque will be unveiled at the home of the Bensusan family, where Arthur David Bensusan was born (22 Oaklands Road, Orchards, Johannesburg).

Bensusan was a son of  Johannesburg. He was born in 1921 and was called Kin by family and friends. His interest in photography started as a young boy at...

The Grand Station Hotel went up in flames on Friday evening, 2 August 2019 (main image courtesy of Eugene Ulman). This news reached the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation members at their AGM on the Saturday afternoon. Heritage  people gasped with shock, dismay and distress. The hotel was an icon of Johannesburg, it achieved the status of being Johannesburg’s oldest surviving hotel, although by the late 1980s it was no longer run as a hotel.

Aftermath of the fire (Kathy Munro)

It was and still is located in Jeppestown at 302-04 Main Street. The hotel was planned in 1896 and completed in 1897 strategically sited close to the Jeppe Station. Its name said it all, the Grand Station Hotel. It was a hotel that considered itself “grand” and it was close to a station. It was a substantial hotel - the 1896  plan showed 27 bedrooms and a ladies sitting room.

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On Saturday 3rd August 2019 I delivered a talk to members of the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation entitled ‘Blue Plaques - Heritage History and Blue Lining our City.’ The Heritage Portal has had requests for at least some of the “take-aways” from this talk to help guide other South African heritage bodies. I will be delivering a talk on blue plaques in October at the HASA conference in Tulbagh. Meanwhile let’s skim over the subject of blue plaques and their possibilities. Click here to view South Africa's growing blue plaque database.

Northwards, Randlord Mansion, 21 Rockridge Road, Parktown (Kathy Munro)

When is heritage not heritage? When it is less than 20 years old? Or should that be 60 years or maybe venerably ancient at 100 years. In the United Kingdom the enduringly famous are only eligible for nomination for a blue plaque when he or she has departed this life 20 years ago. That was the dictum of English Heritage in London when they rejected the award of a blue plaque to extol the achievements of a footballer who is still playing. In Johannesburg we take a somewhat more relaxed view. We are a young city, only 133 years old and with heritage under threat the blue plaque is a powerful tool to recognize heritage survivals. The...

This week I dropped in to visit James Findlay’s bookshop situated in the basement of the Rand Club. If you have not yet visited the reborn Rand Club it is definitely worth it. Enjoy  a coffee at the bar (or go for something stronger) and spend some time out in the bookshop. The Rand Club has come to life with a renaissance and reinvention. It’s a place to meet, enjoy a coffee, have a business meeting; you can even spend a night in a magnificent new bedroom suite. If you are a member so many more facilities opens up. The Rand Club has a splendid library,  its unique bar counter is still there; step into the billiard room for a game of skill. The club still exudes history and an Edwardian period atmosphere. The Club is more accessible and much  more part of the downtown business  and tourist Johannesburg scene.

Rand Club (The Heritage Portal)

Rand Club Library (The Heritage Portal)

James Findlay’s Bookshop and Gallery  is a  nook that draws one for a heavy browse. I was lucky to catch a rehearsal of the jazz musicians who were  in...

If you are a Johannesburg enthusiast you will certainly be delighted to acquire four recent Johannesburg books. It seems like almost a deluge of titles on old Johannesburg. A fellow Johannesburg heritage enthusiast threw me the questions: well what is the difference between these books, which one is for me and is it really necessary to buy four books all on Johannesburg?

It is the right time for a quick overview of all four books hence this thumb nail sketch of each one. Remember it is easy to purchase a book when it is current, a first edition and in print but once it slips into the out of print category you will battle to locate a copy (unless there is a reprint and 2nd edition).  

Forgotten Johannesburg (2019) by Tony Grogan published by Don Nelson.  

This is a handsome book. It is a book of old photographs of Johannesburg covering the period 1886 to mainly 1930, though the book states 1886-1950. It comprises about 400 old black and white photos many of which are very familiar but there are also some "new" images from Cape Archival sources and the National Library (Cape Town sources). The majority of photographs have been scanned from  earlier now out of print books – such as the Barnett Collection, Rosenthal’s Rand Rush, Anna Smith’s Pictorial History of Johannesburg and Pearson and Kallaway’s Images and Continuities. All of these earlier books are difficult to find. The captions and an introductory essay have been written by the well-known cartoonist Tony Grogan. The captions are either copied from other sources or give the slenderest outline as...

A few months ago it was my  pleasure to lunch with Mr Walter Pon, of first Chinatown of Johannesburg and Brett McDougall (Chairman of the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation). Mr Pon has a passion for the history of the Chinese community in South Africa. Lunch was a gastronomic route into Chinese culture and history - our meeting point was the Ming Woo restaurant (corner of Alexander and Commissioner Street) which started and ended with copious small cups of delicate green tea. Lunch was Dim Sum, a variety of enticing servings of Chinese delicacies. This unpretentious family Chinese restaurant is on the ground floor of one of Johannesburg’s architectural marvels, Pabst’s Chinese United Mansions,  which dates from 1948. We immediately drop into Chinese history and culture, and move into  a deep conversation about heritage, the meaning of a Chinese presence in Johannesburg and the strands of Chinese history that ought to be preserved and presented today.

Pabst’s Chinese United Mansions (The Heritage Portal)

The Chinatown area is an area of significance for the small Chinese Community in Johannesburg. There has been a Chinese presence in this area from the 1890s till today despite the restrictions of Apartheid. This is where Chinese culture in Johannesburg is anchored. The original Chinatown of Johannesburg is located in the Ferreirasdorp area, historically known as the Malaikam bounded by...

The map above is of considerable interest as it shows the principal route of travel to South Africa and from the principal ports inland. By 1889 the railway had reached Kimberley from the coastal ports of Cape Town and Port Elizabeth and East London; and in Natal the railway went as far as Ladysmith. The Lorenco Marques railway connection went inland as far as Komatipoort. From the terminal points the traveller proceeded by coach. This was the heyday of coach travel through the Orange Free State and the South African Republic. The economy of South Africa is indicated in what was produced where - wool, ostriches, mohair and wheat were the principal agricultural products. Diamonds drew  hopeful immigrants to Kimberley and in the ZAR there was the lure of minerals - gold, lead, coal and iron were the magnets. Gold is labelled in a vague way 14 times. This signals  that gold fever had really taken hold. To the left of the map are listed the fleet of the Castle Line and the tonnage of each steam ship – it was a fleet of 20. The right hand border  lists the possible destinations from London to Mozambique and connection with other ships moving on to India, China and Australia. A box within the borders of the map shows distances from Cape Town to Johannesburg and Barberton, in miles and hours. In 1889 the journey from Cape Town to the Witwatersrand via train and then by mail or passenger coach took a hopeful 85 hours, approximately 4 days.

Donald Currie and company’s offices were at 3...