Steffen Ahrends

Around 1947-8 I explored one of Steffen’s houses under construction. In one room with a fireplace was a piece of paper under a stone: “The fireplace is in the wrong room.”

Soon after he was kind enough to employ me, a green deaf fellow with two years before I could be accepted to study at Wits University. From that time to his death in 1992 he was my mentor and best friend.

He had his office at old Midland House, corner Fox and Rissik streets. Among those working for him when I was there and on and off while at Wits for the next 10 years were his young son, Peter, secretary Mrs Dotty Richards, Donald Turgel, Arno Jobst, John Griffiths and a couple of German draughtsmen. A happy gathering under a stimulating boss. We often argued with him for not making his designs more modern. He would reply how some clients would not understand. (Later at Wits, Professor Fassler’s comment 'You cannot give a Stradivari violin to a street musician' struck a chord!).

Steffen Ahrends

Due to his early work for his father in Berlin, Steffen’s detailing of woodwork and finishes in the few Bavarian houses in Johannesburg were fantastic. One house was for Wits Chancellor, Bertrand Leon “Birch” Bernstein.

Steffen’s choice of wood and...

In 1943 my parents, Kurt and Lorna Hepner, then living in Parktown North, bought a 3 acre stand in Bryanston. The one they chose sloped gently northwards from Mandeville Road and afforded uninterrupted views of the Magaliesberg. It also had the bonus of a well, stream and large pond which teemed with birdlife such as red and yellow bishop birds nesting in the reeds and terrapins and moorhens on the water.

Unfortunately, the estate agent (brother of the well known Anglo American director Sidney Spiro) mistook the stand number and my parents found they’d bought stand number 511 instead of 512. They’d earlier purchased another stand on the other side of Bryanston, and luckily managed to do an exchange.

Steffen Ahrends was commissioned to design their house on Stand 512. My father disliked corridors, so rather than a long passageway with bedrooms opening off it, the house was much more of a square shape. It was positioned in the top eastern corner of the property so that the view down the slope was given maximum effect.

Steffen Ahrends drawing for Ponden House 1943

The roof was thatched and the upper storey displayed typical Ahrends dormer windows. The chimneys were covered with Ahrends’ wavy iron cowlings, also one...

Rosendal is a townhouse complex in the heart of Rosebank, designed by the Johannesburg architect, Michael Sutton, in 1988. With only 16 units in two rows of semi-detached double storey houses, the complex is quintessentially understated. It nonetheless represents a significant contribution to the architectural heritage of Johannesburg, being both a refined example of Sutton’s townhouse typology, and also an elegant synthesis of a South African style and postmodernism.

The street façade is unassuming - a simple, white-bagged plastered wall. The staff quarters, above the garages, sit a few meters back from the street boundary and span the main entrance to the complex, creating a simple Porte cochere. The street facing windows in this building are deeply recessed, providing privacy for residents and emulating the thick walls of early Cape Dutch farm houses.

Beyond the entrance is a car courtyard lined with garages and more pergolas covered in creepers, again mimicking the vine-covered structures of Cape wine farms. Leading from the courtyard are a pair of passages that provide access to the two parallel rows of semi-detached double storey houses, which run east to west down the slope of the ridge and perpendicular to Bath Avenue. The units have identical gabled roofs, but this repetition is offset by variations in the placement and size of the upper storey windows. The entrance to the north passage is marked by a corbelled brick doorway which is visible from the gate, but the path doglegs afterwards, offering seclusion from the street. Along this...