Johannesburg

For several years the historic 1906 Driefontein Farmhouse (or more specifically the Wilhelmi House) in Parkmore/Riverclub has been waiting for a new use (click here for some history). The old Sandton Historical Association used to use the house for meetings and functions but this ceased when the organisation shut its doors in the 1990s. I am very happy to report that the historic landmark is set to serve the local community once again. In recent weeks, the Johannesburg Property Company entered into a nine year lease with the Parkmore Residents Association (PRA) signalling a new chapter for the heritage site. The City must be applauded for restoring the property a few years ago to make it more attractive to prospective tenants.

On Saturday morning I had a fascinating discussion with Kate Wardle from the PRA and she shared a few details of the association's vision for the property. These details (and more) will in turn be shared with members of the community at a meeting on 2 September 2017 (click here for details). The PRA will be looking for ideas and partners to ensure that the site has a sustainable future. 

Kate Wardle explaining her vision for the heritage site (The Heritage Portal)

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On Saturday 22nd July, a Johannesburg Heritage Foundation Blue Plaque was unveiled at Windybrow. 2017 saw the reopening of Windybrow as an Arts Centre under the auspices of the Market Theatre Foundation. In the last two years Windybrow has been restored. The team has been led by Christine Smith McDonald, Ismail Mahomed and Jennifer van den Bussche who are passionate about heritage and see a role for a fine restored heritage building that relates to the surrounding community and has a contemporary purpose. Herbert Prins was the Heritage advisor and Wayne Mansfield of KMH the architect. The project has been entered into the Africa Architecture Awards competition.

Blue Plaque (Kathy Munro)

Jennifer van den Bussche, Christine McDonald, Ismail Mahomed and team of the Windybrow Arts Centre at the unveiling (Kathy Munro)

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Below is the first article in a series on the Brixton Cemetery by Kathy Munro. The piece begins by giving the reader a general understanding of the purpose, origin and meaning of cemeteries before delving into the history and significance of Brixton Cemetery. It finishes by highlighting the shocking current state of the cemetery and attempts by local groups to take action. Future articles will look at the epitaphs and symbolism of the Brixton Cemetery as well as stories behind the graves and family memorials.

Walker grave-site Brixton Cemetery (Kathy Munro)

Why the fascination of a cemetery? Cemeteries have always fascinated me. I love their tranquillity, remoteness and solitude. Stepping within the gates of a cemetery takes one into another world; it is the world of the dead but belongs to the living. Cemeteries are strange places as they are resting places for the dead, a means of disposing of a deceased body, but they are also places for the living to return to, to mourn, grieve and remember a loved one. I may not know any of the people buried there but immediately I become a vicarious mourner if only for an hour or two. Cemeteries are places to reflect on mortality, life, death, longevity and the possibility of an afterlife. 

Cemetery definition. By definition a ”cemetery” is a place or ground set...

In June 2017, the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation commemorated the 41st anniversary of the Soweto revolt and offered its members a tour of the Fort and prison museum complex at Constitutional Hill. The complex encompasses the Number 4 section prison, the original 1890s Fort buildings and cells, the Gandhi and Mandela exhibitions and the Constitutional Court with its impressive collection of artworks.

Old Fort at Constitution Hill (The Heritage Portal)

The tour was led by Flo Bird, doyenne of Johannesburg Heritage and Seth Mazibuko the youngest member of the 1976 Student Action organizing committee who at the age of 16 was arrested and went through the humiliating experience of imprisonment and solitary confinement. He was charged, tried, and sent to Robben Island for seven years. Today Seth runs his own foundation and a blue plaque was unveiled in his honour in Soweto on 16th June 2017.

Unveiling of Seth Mazibuko plaque (Mark Straw)

My focus in this article is on the fine mosaic on display at the Old Fort: Vertical Aerial...

Johannesburg hosts many fascinating treasures. Did you know bookbinding is one of Johannesburg's oldest enterprises? A bookbinders appears in an 1889 photo of our town (see below). Impressed Craft bindery connects you to that past.  

1889 Panoramic View of Johannesburg

I recently discovered this enterprise owned by Martin and Anie Ciolkosz. Their home, studio, workshop and museum is located in the quiet leafy suburb of Birdhaven, close to the Wanderers Club. They offer a craft bookbinding service and letterpress printing service. This is handcraftsmanship of the highest order. The combination of workshop/studio, museum of everything to do with the printing industry and their gallery level library comes with a whiff of a bygone age, impregnated with the smell of musty paper and linseed oil. The studio is pure vintage but it all works and is exquisitely beautiful.

The purpose built studio is located in their spacious garden and is worth seeing for the quality of its architectural design. I thought I would share my enthusiasm and delight at discovering a hidden aspect of Johannesburg. It is a museum filled with many unique 19th century printing machines and hand tools of the print and binding trade. Book decorating tools can look like “antique pizza cutters”, but don’t be fooled, these wheels make impressions and patterns on fine new goat skin binding. An old embosser continues to give ghostly impressions on thick paper. Their studio is a treasure. The website (click here to view) gives a flavour of what this...

The weekend of the 24/25 June 2017 saw the launch of the Jozi Walks initiative of the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA). Individuals, community organizations, tourism companies and NGOs joined hands in offering a series of free and innovative walks through Johannesburg, north, south, east and west. It was exciting, fun and  showed off Jozi at its best over a two day celebration of the Jane Jacobs walk my city philosophy.  

60 people joined Brett McDougall and Kathy Munro of The Johannesburg Heritage Foundation (JHF) on a Sunday afternoon for a three hour guided walk through the eastern Joburg suburbs of Orchards, Maryvale, Sydenham and Orange Grove. The theme was 'Louis Botha Corridor of Creativity'.

The walk started at the Orchards Project at 6 Pine Road where we launched Jozi Walks and told our guests about the JHF. Everyone was armed with a map. Roger Chadwick of the Orchards Project spoke about the opportunities for public street art in the neighbourhood with the walls along Louis Road and the Spark Gallery turning creative graffiti into an art form. Our first stop was at the 1946 communal hall of the North Eastern congregation of the Jewish Community, the forerunner of the Pine Street shul; today it is the 24 Carrots building and has passed on to new uses and hands but the façade of golden, facebricks and the style of the 40s’ with contemporary street art enhancing the frontage is worth close inspection. This was the moment for a group photograph.

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Here is an interesting story. Sometimes paper finds, or ephemera, happen in a serendipitous way. A friend bought a book at a recent Johannesburg monthly book auction at Westgate Walding. As he opened the title page, the document below fell out into his hand. Of course all sorts of things are used as bookmarks in old books – I have found bus, airline and parking tickets. There have also been pamphlets and city maps. I have even found out of date bank notes. However, I have never found a property transfer deed. “Acte van overmaking van regt op Standplaats, translates from Dutch as  “Deed of transfer of right to stand”.  

The original title deed

There is an intimate connection between City and Suburban Gold Mining Company and the City and Suburban Township. The land of the township or suburb was part of the land owned by the Mining Company and the suburb lay on land on one of the original farms that make up Johannesburg called Doornfontein. 

This is an unusual document because it is a legally registered transfer deed by the City and Suburban Gold Mining Company Ltd. or as it is also called here City and Suburban Township, of a specific stand Number 35 located at the corner of Goud and Commissioner Streets, Johannesburg to a  John Ford  Bagshaw. The date is 1895.  This is a legal document registered with the state and carrying...

News broke recently that work on Africa’s tallest building has commenced (click here for details). Assuming it will be completed as designed, the Pinnacle in Nairobi Kenya will be 300m tall eclipsing the Carlton Centre by quite a margin. The fact that the Carlton has managed to hold the record of Africa’s tallest building for over four decades is remarkable. It got me thinking about the context of the late 1960s and early 1970s that led to an explosion of towers across Johannesburg. In the short article below, I will highlight a combination of factors that contributed to the surge in height that transformed the Johannesburg skyline into the one we know today.

Looking up Fox Street towards the Carlton Centre (The Heritage Portal)

Arguably the most important factor was the stellar performance of the South African economy during the 1960s and early 1970s. Various sources state that the country achieved growth rates exceeding 7% for a prolonged period. The stock exchange boomed, new companies were formed and an overall mood of confidence and swagger developed. Johannesburg was awash with money and, with the property sector booming, much of it found a home in ambitious CBD projects. A fellow...

Most commentaries on Johannesburg of the decade of the thirties takes 1936 and the city's fiftieth birthday as the year for reflection and anticipation. See, for example, the Star Newspaper's popular history, Like it Was. Johannesburg A Sunshine City Built on Gold (1931) is an unusual publication that takes us back to the start of the decade to discover Johannesburg.

Book Cover

What was Johannesburg like in 1931? One source of information is this small 56 page booklet issued in that year by the Johannesburg Publicity Association and the SA Railways and Harbours (a national state department). It was meant to promote tourism to Johannesburg specifically and South Africa in general in an upmarket authoritative way to the elegant visitor or potential immigrant. The new Johannesburg Station (Leith and Moerdyk) was being built, the foundation stone was laid in 1928, but it did not open until 1932, when arriving train passengers saw the city for the first time as they came up the marble steps and gasped when they viewed fashionable people going shopping in Eloff Street. This is a small promotional book that might have fitted into your leather valise to be read on a sea voyage out to South Africa by mail ship. 

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South African mining photographs from as early as 1870 have been identified. These early diamond surface mining activity photographs were taken by Weber & Sederstrom at New Rush (Kimberley). When gold was found in Johannesburg some 14 years later (1884), it was initially not difficult to mine as the gold was found near the surface and prospectors had many laborers to assist them with the digging.

But soon, miners found that they had to dig deeper and deeper to find the gold - 100 meters became a 1000 meters, or more, within a short period. This type of mining became known as deep-level mining.

Although deep-level mining was very expensive, dangerous and difficult, the introduction of the cyanide extraction process during 1890 made the recovery of gold excavated at these deeper levels economically more feasible.

Indications are that by the end of 1889, the Jubilee and Langlaagte mining companies had already sunk shafts for deep-level mining purposes.

Deep-level mining in turn resulted in a growing curiosity at both local and international level – People wanted to see what was happening down below – It had to be photographed!

The inscription suggests that this photo was taken at the State Mine. Men seem to be repairing an underground rail track

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