The recent devastating fire at Brazil's National Museum (which gutted 20 million items) and last week’s tragic fire at the Bank of Lisbon Building in Johannesburg yet again highlights how political and official neglect and maintenance cut backs are placing lives – and South Africa’s valuable heritage – at risk.
Bank of Lisbon Building (The Heritage Portal)
The Egoli Heritage Foundation has previously expressed concern about the state of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) which is home to one of the continent’s most valuable collections.
“In 2017 we were informed that JAG does not meet fire safety requirements. In fact, neither structural engineers nor fire safety inspectors wanted to sign off on the building following the disastrous attempts by the Johannesburg Development Agency to “renovate” the building”, says Herbert Prins of the Egoli Heritage Foundation.
“City authorities are playing with fire and putting the lives of their employees and visitors at risk. If lives are lost the Mayor will have blood on his hands”, he says.
In fact, in October 2016, Mayor Herman Mashaba publicly committed to the restoration of JAG to the epicentre of Johannesburg culture. Two years later nothing has been done.
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The article below, written by journalist and Joburg explorer Lucille Davie, looks at the layered history and significance of Johannesburg's markets over the years. It was originally published on the City of Johannesburg's website on 9 January 2004. Click here to view more of Davie's work.
Just 118 years ago the Johannesburg CBD was flat, patchy grassland, interspersed with rocky outcrops and an occasional stream and one or two farmhouses. Then gold was found in 1886 and a town was born, taking its shape from the largest square in the country, market square.
The old mining works at the site where the main reef was discovered (The Heritage Portal)
Six blocks in all, market square stretched from Rissik Street in the east to Sauer Street in the west, bordered by President and Market streets. According to Johannesburg – One Hundred Years (1986), “Depending on the weather, the square and streets were either unattended dustbowls or strips of churned-up mud dotted with pools. There were always wagon tracks and horse and ox droppings.”
The eastern portion of the square became a produce and general dealers’ market, while the western half was a cattle market.
By 1895 shops, offices, and banks appeared on its perimeter. In 1888...
This Heritage Month, the newly established Gauteng Heritage Action Group (GHAG) launched its 'Heritage Horror Stories' campaign. Sites that have been neglected for years have received 'black plaques' (the opposite of the prestigious blue plaque) with the aim of shaming owners into taking action. Many of these owners have made big promises over the years but have failed to deliver.
A prestigious blue plaque (The Heritage Portal)
The black plaques have been installed on the properties for passers-by to see. Owners may remove these physical markers but they won't be able to remove the property from the official black plaque list until the site is brought back to life (click here to view the growing list).
Below are the inscriptions for the properties that have been added this Heritage Month. Click on the heading for background and updates. The sites are all based in Johannesburg with the GHAG planning to expand the campaign to other towns and cities across Gauteng in the weeks and months ahead.
"Bought by Urban Ocean in 2005 who promised to restore it and its neighbours. This significant Art Deco heritage building was left without security leaving it to be vandalised. All steel windows and any other metal was removed.
DEMOLITION BY DECAY is an utterly unacceptable practice, completely anti-social yet the authorities do nothing...
In the 1991 edition of Restorica, significant space was dedicated to the debate over the Civic Spine project. The overview of the controversy has already been published on The Heritage Portal (click here to view). In this piece, the voice of the architects is brought to the fore. Thank you to the University of Pretoria and the Heritage Association of South Africa for giving us permission to publish.
Historical background
The architects referred to several extracts from the book From Mining Camp to Metropolis by Gerhard-Mark van der Waal. These highlight aspects of the history of the Civic Spine and the various shortcomings which the author has noted, have been addressed by the project:
Of all the squares, Market Square presented the liveliest aspect- through the daily congregation of a mass of buyers and sellers and the visual cohesion of its components -but even this square failed to become a symbol with many references, because its only had a single function. Part of the explanation for this state of affairs probably lies in the fact that Johannesburg's raison d'etre lay outside the town· - in the mining area. There was in fact no ceremonial or social focus in the town itself. Market Square remained the most important city square. Originally established as a community centre, the square gradually saw its functions scaled down to those of an administrative and service area.
Until the early 1930's the single mass of the City Hall filled the eastern portion of the square, leaving...
From 1989-1991 a major project unfolded in the historic centre of Johannesburg. It was known as the Civic Spine Project and aroused considerable debate. Below is an article from the 1991 edition of Restorica which looks at arguments on all sides of the controversy. Thank you to the University of Pretoria and the Heritage Association of South Africa (HASA) for giving us permission to publish.
The water feature between the Rissik Street Post Office and the City Hall still exists in 2016 after being restored in 2011. The controversial structures in Beyers Naude Square were removed at the same time.
Seldom in the history of Johannesburg has a project of a public nature sparked as much controversy as the Civic Spine in the centre of town. Some hate it, others think they may grow to love it.
What it looks like
The Civic Spine project stretches from the Rissik Street Post Office to the City Library. An imposing water feature was erected in the centre of Rissik Street. In the Library Gardens provision has been made for two upmarket restaurants on top of a line of kiosks flanking the gardens along President and Market Streets, where more than 200 trees were planted along the widened and paved sidewalks. The Civic Spine is intended to give the CBD a tree-lined focal point. It runs from the piazza in front of the Library through extensively redesigned gardens and two new fast food outlets above the underground car park access ramps on either side of...
Seldom in life does one get an opportunity to take decisive action in what appears to be a major emergency. But let me recount one very small such moment in my own life. When I was a youngster growing up in Johannesburg a notable feature of life in the city was the weekly street collection, run by the City Council in order to assist worthy causes in raising funds. (The citizens of the city were astonishingly generous in aid of good causes but it was interesting to note that I, along with many other collectors, commonly observed that the least well-dressed donors were frequently the most generous – and the reverse.)
In the mid-50’s, when I was an engineering student at WITS, each year I volunteered to do a two-hour stint for that year’s collection in aid of the Epworth Children’s Home, run by the Methodist Church and situated on the Kensington-Germiston border. I therefore collected my ‘tin’ box (securely sealed with a steel wire crimped with a piece of lead to ensure that the money went into the box but couldn’t come out again!) from a side office in the City Hall and found that I had been assigned a point immediately in front of the main entrance to the Rissik Street Post Office – a most excellent position, especially as my two hours included the busy lunch hour when one could be sure that the post office would be very busy.
Louis Bonaparte Neapolitan Collins (Lou Collins) was a clockmaker based in Pritchard Street who was commmissioned to install a number of landmark Johannesburg clocks including the original Rissik Street Post Office Clock and the Markham's Clock. Over the last few days we have been corresponding with his great grandson Rowan Collins who uncovered some fascinating old letters to the editor of The Star revealing part of the story behind the Post Office Clock. Hopefully many of the details will inspire twenty-first century clockmakers in their task when the restoration of the building eventually gets underway.
The correct name of Johannesburg's Old Post Office clock is the "Coronation Clock'. This might be a good point for city councillors to stress when they next apply to the prevailing authority for the demolition of the Old Post Office.
The clock was not in existence in the year 1897, as stated in The Star and since corrected. I quote from records that the idea of the clock originated in 1902 when the Government decided that a vote of £3,000 should be granted to the town of Johannesburg wherewith to purchase a clock as a memento of the King's coronation.
At that time only a few jewellers had been permitted to resume their business and none of them would undertake the task of making and erecting the timepiece. It was contemplated sending to Great Britain for quotations, when List Brothers and Colin Brothers who were well-known local clockmakers were permitted to return to their respective businesses.
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...
