South African Architecture Research Articles

Erratum for ‘house Biermann in Durban: A case of “regional vernacular” in the modern architectural heritage of South Africa’ by Bodei and Harber (2022).

Curator: The Museum JournalEarly View ErratumFree Access Erratum This article corrects the following: House Biermann in Durban: A Case of “Regional Vernacular” in the Modern Architectural Heritage of South Africa Silvia Bodei, Rodney Harber, Volume 65Issue 3Curator: The Museum Journal pages: 603-621 First Published online: August 11, 2022 First published: 24 January 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12542AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Erratum for ‘house Biermann in Durban: A case of “regional vernacular” in the modern architectural heritage of South Africa’ by Bodei and Harber (2022). In Bodei and Harber (2022), there was few errors in author's biography. Silvia BODEI (bodeis@ukzn.ac.za; silbocs@yahoo.com) is an architect (IUAV, Venice) and doctor in Architecture (UPC, Barcelona). She is currently Senior Lecturer at UKZN in Durban (South Africa). She has authored several research papers and publications on modern architecture, industrial heritage and Italian, Spanish and South African architecture and urban design. The correct Author bio should be: Silvia Bodei (silvia.bodei@polimi.it) is an architect (IUAV, Venice) and doctor in Architecture (UPC, Barcelona). She was Senior Lecturer at University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban-South Africa (November 2017-June 2022) and is currently Researcher at Polytechnic University of Milan (Politecnico di Milano) in Italy since July 2022. She has authored several research papers and publications on modern architecture, industrial heritage and Italian, Spanish and South African architecture and urban design. Reference Bodei, S., & Harber, R. (2022). House Biermann in Durban: A case of “regional vernacular” in the modern architectural heritage of South Africa. Curator: The Museum Journal, 65(3), 603– 621. https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12510 Early ViewOnline Version of Record before inclusion in an issue ReferencesRelatedInformation

An entrepreneurship education, training and support framework for South African architects

This article will report the findings of a study undertaken to propose an integrated education and training framework that can enhance the entrepreneurial performance of South African Architects’ firms while contributing to the current discourse on entrepreneurial education and training. Many South African architects’ firms are finding it difficult to stay afloat (Corbert 2015, 44). While there could be many reasons for this situation, the absence of appropriate entrepreneurship education, training and support for architects could be a contributing factor. Substantial agreement exists amongst entrepreneurial education and training theorists that a phased approach that includes enacted learning is best suited for entrepreneurship education and training. Hence the article proposes a framework as a basic conceptual structure within which the education and training can be packaged. The study used a mixed methods approach as a single source was insufficient and, due to the use of multiple phases or projects, could best achieve the overall research objective (Creswell & Plano-Clark 2011, 8). The purpose of the article is to bring the findings and recommendations to the attention of those who can put them into effect and to contribute to the discourse on entrepreneurship education and training.

South African ‘know-how’ and Israeli ‘facts of life’: the planning of Afridar, Ashkelon, 1949–1956

ABSTRACTIn 1949, in the newly founded state of Israel, South African architects Norman Hanson and Roy Kantorowich planned the city of Ashkelon and, within it, the exclusive neighbourhood unit Afridar. Managed by the South African Jewish Appeal, which initiated and funded the project, Afridar presented a radical exception to Israel’s centralized planning approach during that period. An early example of a semi-private settlement initiative for an ethnic and class-based enclave reserved for ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Jewish immigrants, it functioned as a ‘model town’ for the immigrant population from the Middle East and North Africa, which was housed by the government in the rest of the city of Ashkelon. Afridar’s enclave reproduced planning practices from South Africa, which had been coloured by race since the 1920s. Despite its exclusive image, it was modelled after progressive experiments in the design of Native Townships. Their main objective of such experiments was to improve the standards of housing of racially discriminated populations yet, in practice, they served as a tool to implement apartheid policies. This paper interrogates this ambivalence of social aspirations and complicity with state segregation practices through examining the translation of apartheid’s planning practices to the Israeli context, and the negotiations and conflicts this translation entailed.

Histories of Exchange

During World War II, interest in indigenous South African architecture deepened, leading to studies that challenged modernism and influenced architectural design. Histories of Exchange: Indigenous South Africa in the South African Architectural Record and the Architectural Review remaps the tension between modern and indigenous cultures during the 1940s and 1950s, examining the diaspora of ideas between South Africa and Britain and revealing a new genealogy of postwar architecture. Elisa Dainese addresses indigenous South African architecture as it was seen in the postwar years from the perspectives of two architectural magazines. In doing so, she provides a new theoretical framework that probes the role of architectural journals, considering them as alternative spaces where contact took place among European and African cultures.

The NE 51 Series Frontier: The Grand Narrative of Apartheid Planning and the Small Town

The article proposes to bring the urban development of Usakos, a small Namibian town on the fringe of the South African empire, into conversation with the ‘grand narrative’ of the apartheid city. Narratives of the apartheid city were shaped by contemporary academic architectural discourses sustained by those who pioneered and promoted urban planning in South Africa. It was formulated in texts on architecture and apartheid produced in the 1980s and 1990s, which developed a strong argument about South African architects' involvement in the creation of standardised housing for Africans. Big cities constituted the main reference for both critics and promoters of South African urban planning, and their analyses subscribed to paradigmatic notions of rapidly growing cities and inevitable housing crises, slums and chaos. The analysis of the urban development in Usakos in the 20th century allows for challenging the teleological model of such hegemonic narratives. The case of a small town also integrates otherwise separate discussions on ‘white’ and ‘black’ housing. In Usakos, the transformation of urban space was primarily ideologically driven, and part of a general attempt to create a tangible and visible experience of a homogenous imperial South African space. One of the dominant material manifestations of such an imperial space were the iconic NE 51 series houses in standardised neighbourhoods, to which Africans were forcibly removed.

Review: African Identity in Post-Apartheid Public Architecture: White Skin, Black Masks, by Jonathan Alfred Noble and At Home with Apartheid: The Hidden Landscapes of Domestic Service in Johannesburg, by Rebecca Ginsburg

Jonathan Alfred Noble African Identity in Post-Apartheid Public Architecture: White Skin, Black Masks Farnham, UK, and Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2011, 314 pp., 135 b/w illus. Cloth, $124.95, ISBN 9780754677659 Rebecca Ginsburg At Home with Apartheid: The Hidden Landscapes of Domestic Service in Johannesburg Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011, 248 pp., 37 b/w illus. Cloth, $35.00, ISBN 9780813928883 It can be argued that nowhere during the twentieth century were the spatial dimensions of politics more nakedly visible than in South Africa. Even before the official adoption in 1948 of apartheid and its detailed laws governing racial classification and segregation, the South African state enforced policies of forcible resettlement and restricted movement aimed at ensuring strict separation of its population. The built environment played a key role in establishing racial identities and maintaining segregated spheres, and the legacy of this social rupture remains clearly visible in the architecture, cities, and landscapes of South Africa. Two important new books by Jonathan Alfred Noble and Rebecca Ginsburg add significantly to our understanding of the design disciplines’ relationships to apartheid. Noble and Ginsburg explore the spatial dimensions of South African politics from very different perspectives. The former analyzes specific examples of state-sponsored architecture designed to represent a fully integrated, post-apartheid society, while the latter examines domestic spaces in middle-class Johannesburg during the 1960s and 1970s in order to study closely apartheid’s concerns with gender, labor, movement, and visibility. Both books are rooted in the extensive research of their authors’ doctoral dissertations and make significant contributions to the growing body of literature on the built environment in modern South Africa. Noble examines five projects built since the end of apartheid in great depth in African Identity in Post-Apartheid Public Architecture . The diversity of architectural expression he discusses reflects the broad range of concerns driving South African architecture and landscape architecture. Most important among these is the question of how to represent a pluralistic, post-apartheid democracy and its multitude of regional cultures, geographies, and climates. Noble highlights the importance of design competitions in South Africa, which he portrays as a democratization of the design process analogous to the country’s political reforms. The author, …

“YONDER LIES YOUR HINTERLAND”: RHODES, BAKER AND THE TWISTED STRANDS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHITECTURAL TRADITION

This article considers the various strands that make up the classical architectural tradition in South Africa. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, under British rule the tradition of the Palladian style for civic buildings and of Graeco-Roman building styles for institutions of higher learning reflected the imperial ideals of South Africa’s political overlords. This was the tradition in which Sir Herbert Baker had been trained and which he encountered when he reached South Africa late in the nineteenth century. South African architecture would have been less rich without the strong influence of Cecil John Rhodes’ admiration for indigenous Cape Dutch architecture on Baker’s architectural taste. This architecture was strongly rooted in another aspect of the classical tradition. During Dutch economic and imperial rule, the northern European style of classicistic or baroque gabling on perpendicular buildings had at the Cape been translated into the gables of sprawling low buildings. Illustrations show earlier examples of classical styles at the Cape, including examples of the second classical strain (via Holland and Germany) in South African architecture, so much admired by Rhodes. The article continues with an examination of some of Baker’s best known buildings that show a blending of these two strands. It ends with some thoughts on the durability of the Classical tradition and neo-classical vestiges in post-colonial (and postapartheid) South Africa.

Building the Rainbow Nation. A critical analysis of the role of architecture in materializing a post-apartheid South African identity

Soon after apartheid was abolished in 1994, the quest for a new, ‘authentic’ South African identity resulted in the emergence of the “Rainbow Nation” idea, picturing an equal, multicultural and reconciled society. As architecture is considered a crucial element in the promotion of this Rainbow identity, the country witnessed a remarkable “building boom” with its apogee roughly between 1998 and 2010. Huge investments have been made in state-driven projects which place the apartheid memory at the center of the architectural debate – mostly museums and memorials. However, the focus of this paper shall lie on another, less highlighted tendency in current architectural practice. This paper demonstrates that, through the construction of urban community services, South African architects attempt to materialize the Rainbow Nation in a way that might be closer to the everyday reality of society.

Building the Rainbow Nation. A critical analysis of the role of architecture in materializing a post-apartheid South African identity

Soon after apartheid was abolished in 1994, the quest for a new, ‘authentic’ South African identity resulted in the emergence of the "Rainbow Nation" idea, picturing an equal, multicultural and reconciled society. As architecture is considered a crucial element in the promotion of this Rainbow identity, the country witnessed a remarkable "building boom" with its apogee roughly between 1998 and 2010. Huge investments have been made in state-driven projects which place the apartheid memory at the center of the architectural debate – mostly museums and memorials. However, the focus of this paper shall lie on another, less highlighted tendency in current architectural practice. This paper demonstrates that, through the construction of urban community services, South African architects attempt to materialize the Rainbow Nation in a way that might be closer to the everyday reality of society. Key words: architecture, post apartheid, Cape Town, South Africa, identity

Value management awareness and practice by South African architects: an empirical study

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate value management (VM) practice by professional architects in South Africa. A primary aim is to test the assertion of Kelly et al. that VM has “evolved to become an established service with commonly understood tools, techniques and styles.”Design/methodology/approachA web‐based, online questionnaire survey was employed to establish VM practice by South African registered architects. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the survey response data.FindingsThe results suggest that awareness of VM is not widespread among South African architects, and that its actual practice is minimal. Where VM was used on projects, it was invariably cost‐minimization driven in terms of both the project and the VM process itself. These findings are in direct conflict with the assertion of Kelly et al. There is also a mismatch between clients' value system key performance variables and objectives defined for VM studies. Use of VM for project brief facilitation is not widespread, and the integration of VM with risk and quality management systems is not pervasive. Where VM was undertaken, no attempt is made to benchmark VM activities against international standards.Practical implicationsProfessional architectural associations in South Africa should adopt a proactive role in promoting the use of VM by architects; facilitated by continuing professional development programmes.Originality/valueThe originality of the research lies in determining the nature of, and extent to which, architects in South Africa practice VM.

Ethical behaviour in the South African construction industry

An opinion survey of South African architects, quantity surveyors, engineers and contractors regarding ethical behaviour within the construction industry reveals that South African contractors seem to possess a reputation for unethical conduct. The range of problems encountered includes collusion, bribery, negligence, fraud, dishonesty and unfair practices. While bribery in the form of payments and gifts is prevalent, fraud does not appear to be as serious a problem. Most construction professionals believe that the industry suffers from unfair tendering practices, as well as over‐claiming and/or withholding payment for service delivery. Negligence arises mainly from poor documentation and poor workmanship. Incidents of collusive tendering encompass cover pricing and bid cutting by contractors, while the primary form of fraudulent behaviour is deceit and misinformation. The Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development's bribery codes conditions could be used to counter unethical behaviour in the construction industry.

Architectural Practice and Education in South Africa: From Local Transformation to Global Participation

The advent of a democratic dispensation in the Republic of South Africa a decade ago has resulted in considerable challenges for the country's architectural practitioners and academics. This article investigates some of the problems, opportunities, and responses of the democracy that has emerged from the repression and isolation of the apartheid era. The effect of local transformations and globalization on South African architects and educational institutions is described, and the need to develop a responsible local strategy to guide global participation is identified and considered.

Racism in three dimensions: South African architecture and the ideology of white superiority

What has been the effect of three hundred and fifty years of colonialism and apartheid on South African architecture? What role has architecture played in reinforcing and perpetuating racist ideology? Can a building or a space be racist? Racism in Three Dimensions explores these questions and others pertaining to the relationship between race, racism and architecture in post‐apartheid South Africa and seeks to define a role for the architectural profession in the struggle to heal the wounds of apartheid

Apartheid politics and architecture in South Africa

With the institutionalization of Apartheid in 1948, and the enactment of laws thereafter, South African architects were required to give substance to this ideology in their designs. This article covers early examples of public architecture which were not located in the townships, but in the established urban areas, where the segregation of facilities by race was taken up by architects as a functional planning challenge. These works have no iconographic base, but the paths of movement through the buildings imbed Apartheid perniciousness in their plans. Like other sections of white South African society, to many architects operating in such racially structured context, discrimination became an insouciant practice.

Response to Owen, Architecture and Apartheid

architectural criticism. Indeed, by basically orienting the piece around the examination of the success or failure of individual South African architects to meld influences, craft and context in the creation of free-standing works albeit within the compromise moral and political setting of South Africahe does not succeed in either breaking out of the strictures of conventional architectural

Transatlantic exchange: lessons from Brazil in the work of Norman Eaton (1902-1966)

No período do imediato pós-guerra de fim dos anos de 1940, muitos arquitetos sul-africanos estavam profundamente influenciados pelo modernismo brasileiro. O arquiteto Norman Eaton (1902-1966), de Pretoria, foi um dos responsá- veis por disseminar a influência brasileira na África do Sul. Eaton foi influenciado especialmente pelo trabalho de Oscar Niemeyer (1907- 2012), a quem ele conheceu pessoalmente numa viagem pelas Américas em 1945. Na obra de Eaton, a tradução da variante moderna do modernismo brasileiro revelou-se compatível com atributos africanos. Foi provavelmente esse intercâmbio transatlântico que contribuiu para que Eaton encontrasse sua especificidade na transposição em direção a uma identidade africana.