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OH Architecture in collaboration with Docomomo SA, presents OH_Thursdays: Hans Niehaus Gallery. Docomomo_SA is the South African chapter of Docomomo International, an international working party for the documentation and conservation of buildings, sites and neighbourhoods of the Modern Movement. Their interest lies in the exploration of the contribution of the modern movement to the South African cultural landscape. In colonial contexts and specifically in South Africa, the emergence of the Modern Movement coincided with regimes of power and architects were challenged to design for racially designated publics. Docomomo_SA the documentation of Modern Architecture within this context.  The Hans Niehaus Gallery and antique shop was designed by the late architect Norbert Rozendal in collaboration with owner, Hans Niehaus. The mixture of curvilinear and rectangular geometries, brick, timber, glass and concrete makes it a wonderfully curious moment in the context of the bland suburban s...

Rather late than never: pictures of the Open House Thursdays series from March - May 2014.   Photo credits: Heinrich Wolff

This time OH tours went national, well not exactly national – but let’s say ‘further a field’. The Architectural Forum of Knysna Plettenberg Bay invited me to show the work of that area. This is a significant step for OH tours because it seems that for the first time others have also begun to see the value of their architectural environment and decided to act on it. Of course I agreed and the result was a weekend trip to Knysna and Plett to look at some gorgeous holiday houses along the Garden Route– not bad for a long weekend. I was moved by three houses: House Elphick by Design Workshop , House Kemp by Peter Rich and Beach House Philips by Noero Wolff. First of all, I don’t believe in luxury homes, let alone luxury HOLIDAY homes. I think that it is an anti – Marxist idea and promotes conspicuous consumption. That is until I walked into House Elphick, situated on the most exclusive beachfront ridge in Plettenberg Bay. It is an unapologetic display of wealth, but rather than show...

There is a couple in Cape Town who has had a major influence on South African Architecture. They are prolific in the amount of knowledge that they produce in the form of books, photographs, research and of course – architecture. As a married couple, and I was fortunate to be at their 60th wedding anniversary in 2009, Gwen and Gawie Fagan have inspired, informed and provoked architects not only in Cape Town but much further a field. The tour tried to acknowledge a career spanning over 60 years by showing the most notable conservation projects as well as their best new buildings. The climax of the tour was when all 100 + visitors squashed into their beach house in Langebaan to listen to them talk about their work and their life. This was a truly memorable experience. Photo Credit: H Wolff  UCT Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine  Die Es Paradys Paradys Paradys Klein Constantia  Klein Constantia

Van der Merwe Miszewski Architects headed by Anja Van der Merwe and Macio Miszewski is a practice mainly engaged in the designing of luxury homes. But what struck me about Tree House as well as Courtyard House (Anja’s personal home) is not the luxury of the building but the luxury of the space that it inhabits, makes and responds to. Tree House has always been a fascination for me. From the street, one sees a foot bridge, a wall which half conceals the interior and some interesting tree-like roof trusses supporting a thin concrete slab. The interior is tightly planned which I think forms a wonderful balance with the vast openness of the outside, appropriate for a city building. Courtyard House, as a suburban house, takes advantage of the big garden, the luxury of the suburbs. Being in Newlands it has the luxury to look at the mountain where as Tree House has the luxury to be in the mountain.   Photo: H Wolff Courtyard House Tree House

My attempt to be provocative and misspell the word density as ‘dencity’ did very little to provoke real debate about the current status of inner-city housing. There was, however, a heated exchange about the re-use of material at the Mandela Rhodes Building : should we or shouldn’t we? Mmm too much effort to recycle so let’s just buy new rare wooden parquet flooring tiles and throw out the old ones! Mandela Rhodes atrium space - DHK  Inside a Mandela Rhodes apartment/hotelroom What a pleasure to see some innovative planning as I discovered at Wonderviews Mews, a student residence on Mowbray Main road designed by Design Studio. I consequently got to know the owner quite well and what I found refreshing from my discussions with him is that he seems to be unswayed by class/racial/xenophobic tensions that exist in South Africa. As long as you can afford to pay the rental you are welcome as a tenant. The result is a ground floor that is a mini-mall of sorts where small scale entrepr...