Rand Steam Laundries

For over a decade journalist Lucille Davie has tracked the Rand Steam Laundries Saga (click here to read a compilation of her articles). Below is the latest installment highlighting the majestic adaptive reuse of the site. Click here to view more of Lucille's work.

A big “Hooray!” should echo across Joburg for the historic Rand Steam site in Richmond, which has risen from the destruction of Imperial’s mindless bulldozers 11 years ago.

This joy stems from the fact that the original 1902 Rand Steam Laundries & Cleaning & Dyeing Works has been largely reconstructed as a small neighbourhood shopping centre, in a unique first for Joburg, and possibly South Africa. It boasts the original streetscape, with the buildings created for adaptive re-use.
 
Imperial Properties bought the site in 2006. A clause in the sale document stated that as it was a heritage site, demolition permission had to be obtained. This was disregarded and two years later, when the provisional protection order expired, Imperial sent in the bulldozers, not only flattening the buildings (except for two), but those bulldozers repeatedly crashed over the debris, crushing it to nothing. The smell of the shattered oregon pine lingered for days.

A photo taken after demolition (Lucille Davie)

But the site is now wonderfully reborn, and it...

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...

In the article below, Lucille Davie traces the rise and demise of the famous Amawasha in Johannesburg. The piece was first published on the City of Johannesburg's website on 3 April 2006. Click here to view more of Davie's writing. 

Main image: A new development is rising on the site once occupied by the Rand Steam Laundries and before that the AmaWasha.

At the turn of the 20th century, Johannesburg had an unusual group of self-employed businessmen carving a place for themselves in the mad scramble for gold.

The AmaWasha, or Zulu washermen, formed a guild, which gave them privileges that blacks at the time could only dream of as they were systematically deprived of their rights to earn a living as they chose.

These entrepreneurs had an impressive presence - they wore turbans and marched into town in regimental style once a month, keeping perfect time and singing their old regiment songs. At the market square they would get down to a sociable imbizo after they'd renewed their monthly licence. By 1896, a decade after Joburg was established, there were more than 1 200 AmaWasha cleaning the town's laundry. But by 1914 the authorities had successfully marginalised them and the industry was largely dead.

...

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...