Tower of Light

I found Mike Alfred's article about Jonathan and Geoff Klass absolutely fascinating as I have known Collectors Treasury and the Klass Brothers from the time they started up in business at what we now known as 44 Stanley Avenue (click here to read the article). Those were the days when for a young collector recently returned to Johannesburg there were wonderful book bargains and a great shared joy in finding good books. I have watched the business grow to the present vast emporium of books. I can never visit without being tempted by something  but oddly I can afford far fewer books now than I could in about 1974!

Collectors Treasury (The Heritage Portal)

I would like to comment though on Jonathan’s comment. I know it was made in the early 2000s and it is now 2020, but I cannot allow the comment that Wits has destroyed  the Wits Agricultural Society showground to stand without comment. Jonathan and I agree totally on the Tower of Light being a rare treasure of international significance; it is iconic in its architectural language, its expression of modernity for the time (the 1936 Empire exhibition) and in its functionality. That was when large scale exhibitions saw a tower as an integral part of the event. In 1938 there was another Empire Exhibition in Glasgow at Bellahouston, named the Tait Tower...

Everytime we travel to Wits campus we look up in amazement at the majestic Tower of Light. It has been standing since the mid 1930s and is still a landmark on the Johannesburg skyline. The Tower was rated one of Johannesburg's Top 100 sites in the lead up to the Centenary Celebrations. Below is the statement of significance written by Bernard Cooke in 1985.

The Tower of Light at the old Milner Park showgrounds [now Wits West Campus] was erected for the Empire Exhibition held there in 1936. Its symbolism was related to electricity and it was sponsored by Escom. It is said that Van der Bijl, then Chairman of Iscor and Escom was personally interested in the project.

For some time before the Exhibition a tower of this nature had been mooted and envisaged constructed in steel. In the event the decision to proceed was taken so late that there was insufficient time and it was decided to build it in concrete which would be quicker. The architect was Professor Geoffrey Pearse, then Professor of Architecture at the Witwatersrand University. He consulted with Professor W.G. Sutton who was Professor of Engineering at Wits at the time. The structural design was prepared by him and his Department.

The bold architectural design with its central cylindrical core and projecting fins, had the mechanistic quality of the Modern Architecture of the 1930s, railings and details are suitably ‘ship-like’. The top of the Tower with the fins projecting over the top balcony is slightly ‘Art Deco’...