Robin Fee

I hardly Knew Robin fee personally except shaking hands in a restaurant was a warm experience. But his presence in the profession was known over 3 decades & more: 1960-1990s. He embodied much of the complexity that characterised architecture over this period. Complexity? I can only summarise- the profession was profoundly affected by the change in urban scale; the changes in perception with modernism profoundly challenged on several fronts; by the growing social & political crisis in our country & beyond; by the challenges in the economy; by the growing awareness that Johannesburg’s history needed valuation; & that I’m sure is only the briefest of summaries.

I was intrigued to learn that Robin as a schoolboy knew Stanley Furner in retirement in Tzaneen. There’s hardly a young architect in the 20s & 30s not influenced by Furner & his name was still bandied around in the 60s & more.

Fee’s career,working in New York under SOM (Skidmore Owings & Merril), arguably the most advanced practice anywhere @ that time, & then with SOM @ the Carlton Centre site was involved in what I have called the”major  transfer of technology & culture from New York to Jhb”.

Drawing of the Carlton Centre and Hotel

Fee has left a massive imprint on Jhb but the...

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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