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Changing Faces
| Date: |
06 November 2005 12:00 |
| Producer: |
Nicole Turner
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| Show: | Carte Blanche |
Ruda Landman (Carte Blanche presenter): 'Every regime stamps its mark on the cities it rules. Post-apartheid Jo'burg is no different. The Gauteng government has unveiled plans for a precinct that will wipe out the imprint of years of oppression. To achieve new monuments, old ones must fall.'
After a century of constant change, Johannesburg remains a colonial city planned around the town hall, courts and the library. The library gardens, renamed Beyers Naude Square in 2001, have always been a site for protest. Now, if planners have their way, the square and three whole blocks to the south will become part of a vast State precinct.
Ruda: 'The plans include a dramatic clearing of space in the heart of the city. Ten buildings, including this whole block and that whole block [indicating on camera] are coming down and Market Street will go underground.'
It's all part of a long-term plan to move Gauteng government into the heart of Johannesburg. After buying the City Hall in 2001 they quietly started buying property in the precinct area. The province is now one of the biggest owners in the city, with 23 buildings to its name.
One of them is the old Reserve Bank building. Buying it cost one rand, restoring it: R50-million. The buildings around it are not as lucky. Ten historical buildings will be sacrificed to make way for the precinct. They include the Rand Water Board building - considered to be one of the finest classic structures of its kind - and its extension, Custom House. Further down there's the New Library Hotel, and across Fraser Street, the Lithorn building. The African Bank and Volkskas building on Market Street will go, as will the art deco Clegg House and SARB buildings on Commissioner [Street].
Many architects are upset about government's heavy-handed approach. They include Monty Sachs, architect of Lithorn house and Mira Fassler Kamstra, whose father designed Custom House.
Mira Fassler Kamstra (architect): 'We cannot replace the skills that are embodied in those buildings, the finest of them. If one was totally convinced that what was going to replace what is there is to die for, one would do it.'
Monty Sachs (architect): 'Why not pause and put up a reasonable, acceptable alternative and judge it from there? That's the way I think we should go.'
Ruda: 'And if it that meant your creations have to come down?'
Monty: 'That is fine.'
We spoke to renowned photographer David Goldblatt in the mothballed atrium of the Rand Water building,
David Goldblatt (photographer): 'I think these particular buildings - the ones that are earmarked for destruction, express a whole set of values. I don't particularly like those values, but they express them in quite powerful ways. And in my opinion it would be of great value to the subsequent people in this city that these things are there to be seen and to be used.'
South Africa has had countless examples of structures imposed on [the] urban landscape without consultation, by previous regimes.
David: 'So we've seen this kind of government arrogance been played out many times here. We have been told that this is the scheme and we have been told that we have until [the] 17 November to decide whether you want it or not, or to respond. This is a major scheme involving probably billions of rand and it is going to affect the city forever afterwards.'
Jack Van Der Merwe is boss of Gauteng's numerous public private partnerships including Gautrain and the new State precinct.
Jack Van Der Merwe (CEO Public Private Partnerships): 'We are conscious of the fact to build something you have to break down something. And I think the challenge that was there for SAHRA to decide on was, with the breaking down of something, would it be overshadowed by the benefit that it would be to a whole city.'
This concerns Flo Bird, constant crusader to retain all things Johannesburg.
Flo Bird (amateur historian): 'When I do the deco tours coming down Commissioner Street, which is a fantastic collection of deco, we always end just outside SAB. So we have done Clegg and SAB because this is a wonderful crescendo to our deco office blocks.'
Because they are over 60 years old, the ten buildings are protected by South African Heritage laws, enforced by the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA). Despite independent reports stressing their heritage value, SAHRA decided that the money flowing from the precinct carried more weight.
Flo: 'What I am really angry about is SAHRA's response on their grounds you should knock down all the buildings in town.'
SAHRA's PR officer, Solayman Ibrahim, says they have to look at the bigger picture.
Solayman Ibrahim (PRO: SAHRA): 'We have our Act and the Act mandates us to also redress the past's imbalances. We are going through a transformation here.'
Flo: 'But their primary purpose is to look after the heritage. As far as I can see, they are in straightforward dereliction of duty with what they have done now.'
Ruda: 'Do you believe that SAHRA still upholds the spirit of the original law, which says that it should nurture and conserve the legacy?'
Solayman: 'I think the decision taken by us, knowing full well that it is a contentious decision, emphasises that we have teeth as a Heritage organisation... that we are not scared to make such controversial decisions'
Ruda: 'There are allegations that government used political pressure to steam-roll through SAHRA'
Jack: 'We as government... we are committed to the processes. I can assure you that from my side there was no pressure.'
Architect Fanuel Motsepe was appointed by provincial government to design a blueprint for the new square. The brief was to accommodate government in an accessible precinct in a way that would transform and revitalise the city.
Fanuel Motsepe(architect) : 'We come from an environment where they were designing architecture and urban designs of terror - because we have lived through an era of bomb attacks in the CBD, marches and political rallies. And the environment was politically very tense and, in managing it, denied the public space.'
Motsepe envisages a precinct where cramped pavements give way to generous space for hawkers to trade and kids to play.
Fanuel: 'We are trying to open up the environment... to democratise it. It must be able to accommodate larger gatherings of people. It must be a freer place where a variety of cultures, a variety of cultures can find expression here.'
The new square called Kopanong - Sotho for 'coming together' -will house museums, monuments, entertainment complexes and a futuristic Tswana homestead.
Fanuel: 'We are looking at integrating modernism with tribal space making urban tribal space.'
Mira: 'It seems to me like a sentimental vacuum, where a point is wanting to be made about changing the colonial past at huge cost... which is fair enough, if what you are going to get back is worth it.'
Fanuel: 'If you weigh the transformation of our society, the need to empower and to strengthen our urban economy relative to a building, we have got to say that some sacrifices have to be made. And how do you make those sacrifices? Do you completely eliminate the building, or do you memorialise also in a dignified and in a very beautiful way?'
Ruda: 'Certain elements of the buildings that are going to be demolished will be retained. For example, the façade of the Volkskas building, including this mural depicting the history of the Afrikaner people. It is going to be laid down almost flat as a sculptural part of a planned museum. The architect calls it 'memorialisation'.'
Fanuel: 'Utilising two of the prominent facades there to symbolise first the end of colonialism and also [the] end of apartheid. In so doing, my belief is that we are making this heritage stock more collective, as opposed to exclusive.'
David: 'In the 1950s Volkskas put up what was... I mean, it was amusing; it was an attempt at a high rise Cape Dutch building on Market Street. It was a mark of a particular ideological position of that time. If the architects now, or the planners of this scheme, are going to tell us that they are going to preserve it by preserving the façade... to me that is bull. That is playing games.'
Architectural Students from Wits are not impressed either.
Eduardo Chachucho (architecture student): 'It is a really bad design. I mean, if you speak to any architecture student, I mean they can be a first year, and they will tell you it is horrible. Any first year tutor would fail you immediately. It is just like a circus.'
Guy Trangos (architecture student): 'We have a city of experience, a city of memories. These buildings were a part of the city; they have witnessed the changes in the city and now we can go and just demolish them?'
Mbongeni Ngulube (architecture student): 'Although it was done by Europeans, it is distinctly our history as well because it has shaped who we are today. And I think that we have invested in it as well and find ways to incorporate it.'
Henry Paine (architect): 'And this is a political decision. It is not an architectural decision. It is not an urban design position. It is political, end of story. Race doesn't come into this, it is bullshit.'
Ruda: 'Some people want to preserve the old buildings, others say that it is atrocious urban planning. But all the opponents agree on one point - they say that the process was flawed from the word go.'
Henry: 'From the very first day it was presented it has hardly changed at all. And I think that the public participation process was a sham.'
Eduardo: 'I think this should be taken right back to the drawing board and a competition should be set up. It should be a much more democratic way of getting this.'
Ruda; 'Why didn't you open up the process and let different architects put different plans on the table?'
Jack: 'That's exactly what is going to happen now. Remember, when your request for a proposal comes in, your architects are going to look at the constraints. The constraints are the area that we are looking at. The constraints are the buildings that we own, but, within that, they will come up with a plan.'
Ruda: 'So they can say we can do that without demolishing the building?'
Jack: 'Yes in theory they can, and we will look at it.'
Ruda: 'In theory?'
Jack: 'Yes.'
When it comes to practice, it seems that other opinions will keep being brushed aside - like the proposal to extend the square to the other side of the library where the buildings have little heritage value.
Flo: 'All the buildings we see around us are offices. The people live on that [indicates opposite] side of town. That is where everybody lives.'
A successful appeal against SAHRA's ruling will force a rethink of the R1.27-billion precinct but, with 30 million rand already spent purchasing the ten doomed buildings, there's not much room to maneuver.
Jack: 'From our side we will go ahead and pre-qualify the consortiums that will bid for this project.'
Fanuel: 'So when they bid for this, they are going to have to come up with a better proposal or, in some ways, perhaps similar. But they are going to be working within the framework that we've set.'
Mira: 'History keeps repeating itself, which is fine, but can't we learn something from the past? Can't we have something better, rather than poorer?'
Fanuel: 'Times change and we are in an era now where the demands now are far different than the demands of the past, and history must accommodate the present.'
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.
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