Johannesburg CBD

In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie unpacks the history and significance of the landmark Magistrates' Courts in Johannesburg. The article was first published on the City of Joburg's website on 7 June 2007. Click here to view more of Davie's writing.

Twenty years ago this year two car bombs went off outside the Magistrates’ Courts in downtown Joburg. Three policemen died, and 15 were injured.
 
On 20 May, 1987 a decoy blast took place, and policemen from the then John Vorster Square (now the Central Police Station), six or seven blocks away, rushed to the scene. The second, more powerful blast killed three of those policemen.
 
These were the 11th and 12th bomb blasts in Johannesburg that year. Some of the others that occurred in the city were at the Sanlam Centre in Eloff Street, Sandton, the Civic Centre, Cosatu House and the Carlton Centre.

Carlton Centre (The Heritage Portal)

Twenty-four-year-old Hein Grosskopf, a member of the ANC’s Umkhonto we Sizwe, was responsible for planting the bombs. He also placed bombs outside the Krugersdorp Magistrates’ Courts and the Witwatersrand Command in Quartz Street. Two military personnel died in the Krugersdorp blast.
 
Bomb blasts through the 1980s escalated until by...

In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie looks at the restoration of the majestic old Reserve Bank Building in the Johannesburg CBD. The article was first published on the City of Joburg's website on 1 December 2005. Click here to view more of Davie's writing.

The Gauteng legislature got it for R1 in 2002, and now they’re spending R38-million on the building to restore it to its 1930s splendour.

The Old Reserve Bank Building, known now as Matlotlo House, built in 1938 on the corner of Simmonds and Fox streets, is a Gordon Leith design and just beautiful.

Old Reserve Bank from above (The Heritage Portal)

Walking into the building, one is drawn upwards into its beautiful, four-storey volume foyer, with ceiling shaped in the form of a dome, open at the top but originally filled with glass. The dome is supported by marble pillars, behind which are alcoves with vaulted roofs – quite breathtaking. The floor is an expanse of Italian marble.

At three storeys the building stands modestly on the corner, its classical columns and perfectly laid granite slabs offset by a large recessed “bird’s bath” above the impressive moulded, metal front door.

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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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The article below, written by journalist Lucille Davie, reveals some of the amazing discoveries that were made during the restoration of the Drill Hall in 2003. The article was originally published on the City of Joburg's webite on 27 June 2003. Click here to view more of Davie's writing.

A pile of rusty rifles and bayonets, old stone foundations, limb moulds, a live mortar, an underground rifle range and a diesel boiler have been found on the site of the old Drill Hall, presently undergoing development into a community and heritage site after being gutted by fire in April 2002.
 
The Drill Hall, on the eastern side of the city near to Joubert Park, built in 1904 and used as an army barracks until 1992, was the site of the initial stages of the historic Treason Trialm from 1955 to 1961, in which former president Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu were among the accused. It became a home for homeless people from the mid-1990s, housing over 200 people until a devastating fire last year in which five people died and the Hall and portions of the west wing were razed to the ground. The previous year a fire devastated the eastern section of the barracks, killing five people.

Old photo of the Drill Hall

The...

In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie reveals some of the history of the Jewish Community in Johannesburg. The article was originally published on the City of Johannesburg's website on 2 February 2007. Click here to view more of Davie's work.

Jews first settled in Johannesburg a year after the town was proclaimed. Public digging in Joburg was opened by Carl von Brandis, who read a proclamation written by President Paul Kruger on 20 September 1886.

Statue of Carl von Brandis in the Joburg CBD (The Heritage Portal)

This year marks 120 years since the Jewish community was first established in the town. Wendy Kahn, national director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBOD), says that the 120th anniversary “is a meaningful anniversary for the Jewish community as in Jewish tradition, based on Genesis 6.3, the number 120 always represents a coming of age and completion”. Living for 120 years indicates a complete lifespan, symbolising fulfilment, according to Genesis.
 
Over the past 120 years, explains Kahn, thousands of Jews from around the world have settled in Johannesburg. “They have been intimately bound up with the history of Johannesburg from its very establishment, and remain so as the city continues to progress confidently into its second century.”

Although Jews only arrived in the city...

The article below forms part of Mike Alfred's series on Joburg personalities from the first decade of the 21st century. Click here to view Kathy Munro's fantastic introduction and here to view the series index. The stories were written in 2005/6.

Geoffrey Klass was supervising the offloading of some old pieces outside his building when a young woman from a nearby business stopped to admire one, an Edison disc machine. ‘Ooh, that’s nice, what’s that?’ she asked. Klass told her it was a gramophone. ‘Oh, I’ve heard of those but I’ve never seen one.’ Klass smiled. She thought he was being friendly which he was, but he was also silently pondering how quickly familiar objects become forgotten; one generation’s marvel becomes obsolete in the next. Such is the speed of technological change stemming from the supercharged twentieth century that the Klass emporium of beauties, rarities and wonders, comprises, not only a collector’s paradise, but provides myriad cultural history lessons, in a vast uncatalogued museum.

Geoffrey Klass at work (The Heritage Portal)

To enter Collector’s Treasury at 244 Commissioner St, deep in the old city, is to enter a world of munificent chaos: piled cartons of books clog the entranceway stairs and the narrow passage leading to the main display room. This contains a great profusion of rarities: glass, porcelain plates...

Heritage activists have reported that the Rotunda in downtown Johannesburg is being vandalised. The iconic roof is being stripped and if action is not taken soon the condition of the building will deteriorate rapidly. Passionate enthusiasts are trying to get the owners (PRASA) to allocate more security to the site.

Rotunda in 2013 (The Heritage Portal)

Rotunda in 2020 (Yolanda Meyer)

The Johannesburg Heritage Foundation attempted to get the building declared a Provincial Heritage Site in 2012 but the Provincial Heritage Resources Authority Gauteng turned down the request. Below is a statement of significance, compiled by heritage icon Herbert Prins in support of the JHF nomination, which will give readers an idea of the importance of the site:

"The Rotunda has architectural and aesthetic significance, but it also possesses cultural significance as defined in the National Heritage Resources Act (NHRA) as: "aesthetic, architectural, historical, scientific, social, spiritual, linguistic or technological”. With regard to the Rotunda, a case can be made for architectural, aesthetic, historical, social and technological significance. It is in addition, a landmark in the City.

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The article below forms part of Mike Alfred's series on Joburg personalities from the first decade of the 21st century. Click here to view Kathy Munro's fantastic introduction and here to view the series index. The stories were written in 2005/6.

On a Saturday afternoon, after a morning spent in a similar manner, a man wearing black trousers, a black T shirt and cap, all offsetting his white hair and beard, is showing a group of tour guides around Newtown and Joburg centre city. He walks energetically and purposefully, one might even describe him as bulldoggish in the way he moves, and he recites the facts supporting the city’s revitalization. For three hours he demonstrates the renewal of Joburg. The visitors are stunned. Their pencils are never still; their cameras click away. They crane their necks, viewing this transformed city. What he doesn’t tell them is that were it not for him and some far sighted and dedicated colleagues and associates, our city, the repository of living memories, of history, of wonderful architecture, would be well nigh moribund and lost in irreversible decay. After the tour, Neil Fraser downs a quick beer and rushes off to another engagement.

Neil Fraser

I talk to Fraser, born in 1939, Executive Director of the Central Johannesburg Partnership, in his office situated in a magnificent reclaimed building in...

In a test of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s reputation and approval rating in South Africa, a motion to remove the name and statue of the Indian leader from the city centre was debated in recent weeks by the Johannesburg City Council, the country’s largest municipality. The motion called for the removal of the bronze statue at Gandhi Square — sculpted by Tinka Christopher, it depicts Gandhi as a young activist lawyer in his legal gown — and the re-naming of the site after Sophie de Bruyn, a well-known anti-apartheid activist.

Gandhi Square from above (The Heritage Portal)

Plaque commemorating Gandhi Square (The Heritage Portal)

Previously called Van der Bijl Square, the site was officially named Gandhi Square in 1999; the statue was added by the city authorities in 2003.

The motion was tabled by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the third-largest political party in South Africa, which is often known for highly-charged populist rhetoric, and fierce denunciations of political opponents. The motion cited “racist utterances” made about African people by the young Gandhi during his stay in South Africa, without doing justice to the...

In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie explores the fascinating history of a few of Joburg's Fire Stations. The piece was first published on the City of Joburg's website on 13 November 2003. Click here to view more of Lucille's work.

The two tall, single-trunk gum trees outside the Turffontein Fire Station were ostensibly used by firemen to spot smoke and potential fires in the southern suburbs. But for the firemen there was a much more important function, sufficient to warrant a plaque in the grass alongside all that exists of the trees today – two stumps in the grass.
 
A rope ladder was strung between the two 30-metre tall trees, which were several metres apart. The ladder went up about five storeys, where a platform had been erected between the trees.

The famous trees

Now an important part of this story is that the Turffontein Race Course is across the road from the Turffontein Fire Station. The Race Course opened for business three years after Johannesburg was established in 1886. Racing had in fact begun only three months after those first gold diggers hit town, on a course marked out between Natalspruit and Von Brandis Square.
 
But back to the two gum trees. On race days several firemen used to...