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A trip to Cape Town
has brought into focus the need for a greater focus on historic preservation in
the city of gold.
 IN my new life I was going to keep Citichats down to once a
month but some things happen that literally force you back to the keyboard!
Last week, I experienced just how good a city can get when
everyone works together, how pride can be re-engendered and, at the other end
of the scale, how indifference and disinterest can set a city back.
Since moving to Montagu in late February, I have driven to
Cape Town airport en route to Jozi and back (2,5 hours driving, one hour
waiting if you're lucky, two hours flying in each direction) six times and for
a week a time - so let no-one think my passion for Jozi has lessened. In that
time I have been to Cape Town
and back four times, three of which have been to attend a meeting and return
immediately after.
The fourth, on Tuesday, 28 July, was to attend the Cape Town
Partnership's 10th anniversary party and I stayed overnight. What I saw in
driving through the "inner city" was huge change - a city teeming with people
day and night - in winter! Driving to my B&B in Kloof Nek at about 11pm on
Tuesday night appeared little different to when I had driven that way earlier
in the afternoon. The place was jumping! The city's buildings are all great
again - the historic buildings painted a rainbow of colours and, certainly from
the outside, in good nick. There is a renewed sense of place and a sense of
pride that I certainly haven't experienced in the iKapi inner city for years.
Leaving on Wednesday morning, I passed a "squadron" of
horse-mounted security ambling down Kloof
Street, providing a highly visible presence. Sure,
there are still problems, but nothing to outdo this feeling of things on the
move and on the boil.
A decade ago
Ten years ago I was very critical of the way the Cape Town Partnership was
structured but there can be little doubt that it has been responsible, to a
very large measure, for the turn around of the inner city. And there is equally
little doubt in my mind that the partnership's success has been due to Andrew
Boraine, its chief executive, and his ability to inspire confidence from the council,
the community and business. The list of those attending the 10th anniversary
celebrations reflected this clearly, as did the two-minute speech from Boraine thanking
the countless people from the provincial and council elite to the security
guards, parking attendants and street cleaners for what they had achieved, no
names singled out.
And his speech was preceded by a board marked "APO" - "all protocols observed" so we didn't have to
listen to dozens of names arranged in the pecking order that would have started
from the premier down! Great light entertainment - they know how to party down
there, and a most enjoyable evening celebrating a decade of great achievements.
Then back to the reality of municipal workers trashing the
streets of all our cities - great TV viewing for those thinking about visiting
the country for 2010! The Joburg "event" looked the worst and the behaviour of
the union members was disgusting and could have won them no friends.
Barbican
But it struck me that their behaviour was probably no worse than those
responsible for the other disasters we have on our hands in relation to two of
the "grand dames" of Jozi - the Barbican and the Rissik Street Post Office (and
quite a few others besides). I wrote about the disgraceful attitude of Old Mutual
last week
- since then the building has been plundered. I received a copy of this email
from an architect that simply sets out the sequence of events:
"On a visit to the city on 1 July 2009, I noticed that the
glazed roof at the top of the building was missing, along with one of the steel
French doors to the 8th floor balcony.
"I assumed that the glazed roof and the French door had
simply caved in, due to the years of complete neglect by Old Mutual, the owners
of the building. The Barbican is protected in terms of section 34 of the
National Heritage Resources Act of 1999.
"However, when I visited the city yesterday, I was
absolutely shocked by what seems to be the systematic and deliberate gutting of
the building. All the French doors and balcony railings have been stolen -
apparently by vandals, leaving gaping holes in the façade of this once
beautiful building. The Barbican has literally been doomed to demolition
through the complete and indifferent neglect of Old Mutual. What is left of the
building looks like a gutted shell, stripped out and awaiting the demolisher's
hammer.
"The building was mothballed sometime in the early 1990s. It
was subsequently illegally occupied, and most of the interior fittings were stripped
out. Once the illegal occupants were removed (early 2000s?), the building was
bricked up to prevent further vandalism occurring. When I visited the Barbican
for a university project in 2003, it was very well secured, and an alarm system
had been installed to ensure that further occupation or looting would not
occur.
Thieves
"It seems that recently, thieves gained entry to the building when one of the
walls on the first floor collapsed. Since there was a security system in the
building, it is strange that Old Mutual was not aware of this. Why were
security guards not placed at the building until the situation could be
rectified? What is worse is that this was not an isolated or once-off event.
"What was left of the building has been gradually gutted over
the last few weeks. It is not conceivable that Old Mutual was not
aware of the matter, as the building is literally on the doorstep of its
head office on President Street.
On enquiry yesterday, it seems that Old Mutual is aware of the looting of the remaining
fabric of the Barbican. However, it does not seem concerned with securing the
building, as allegedly it feels that there is nothing of value left to be
stolen.
"Old Mutual is a company which apparently prides itself on
commitment to the preservation of our environment and heritage. The reality
seems to be rather different."
Update
A later update reads:
"Apparently security guards were placed at the building
yesterday and the vandals responsible for looting the building were removed.
Surely the vandalism of a protected building is a criminal offence and these
people should have been charged and sent to prison? I visited the Barbican this
evening; the collapsed walls have not been repaired to stop further thieves and
vandals entering the building, and there are no longer any security guards on
site."
The sad thing about this issue is that I know that the
architects for the new building on the overall Palace site have been
particularly sensitive to the heritage issues related to the Barbican itself. I
also know that a heritage consultant together with the architects collaborated
in the preparation and submission of a comprehensive application, on behalf of
Old Mutual, to the Provincial Heritage Resources Agency - Gauteng (Phrag) for the restoration and conservation
of the Barbican building. The application was successful and the Phrag permit
was granted on 11 September 2008.
When Phrag was approached on the matter of the subsequent
uncontrolled vandalism, it shrugged it off as having approved the above
application, therefore the current destruction is merely part of improving the
building rather than destroying it!
So the villains are Old Mutual abetted by a naïve Phrag,
and we have heard so many times that they are going to "fix it" that this person
will only believe it when he sees it!
Respect for heritage
What I saw in Cape Town
was a deep respect for heritage expressed in the way that such buildings are
absorbed and celebrated in the culture and the fabric of the city. Here we have
landmark buildings being allowed to be destroyed because of sheer indifference.
It is us who should be toyi-toying and picketing Old Mutual and the provincial authorities
- but how does one raise the ire of our citizens to do so? Time to form a
Heritage Union!
Then, on 29 July, there was a report of a fire in the Rissik
Street Post Office. Arson is not suspected "as the building is closed for
renovations and a security company has been hired to keep out vagrants". Therefore
the fire is being attributed to "radiant heat which occurs when sunlight is
amplified through glass".
The building is NOT closed for renovations - it has been
closed for 13 years because the local government and the provincial legislature
are unable to take decisions, do not want to take decisions, have no backbone
or political will to attend to the issue. As for radiant heat occurring in our
winter sunlight being sufficient to set the place alight when 16 summers haven't
been able to achieve that - someone out there has no respect for citizens' intelligence.
That no-one could have got in "because a security company
had been employed to keep out vagrants"! Did you know that Barney Barnato's
house, owned by Johannesburg University, has been entirely gutted after a
security firm was employed and all windows and doors covered by sheet metal?
Doors windows, staircases, the wooden suspended floor - all gone! The Rand
Steam Laundries - gone, demolished illegally by a major corporation.
What are we about? Jillian Carman in her book on Florence
Phillips and the making of the Johannesburg Art Gallery, uses the apt title of
Uplifting the Colonial Philistine - that's what we appear to have directing our
cities - a bunch of Philistines!
Unesco says: "Historic areas are part of the daily
environment of human beings everywhere. [They] represent the living presence of
the past which formed them ... [They] afford down the ages the most tangible
evidence of the wealth and diversity of cultural, religious and social
activities ... Their safeguarding and their integration into the life of
contemporary society is a basic factor in town planning and land development."
The Organisation of World Heritage Cities says: "The goal is
to preserve the city's human face, thereby connecting contemporary life with
the past, and contributing to group identity and civic pride."
Economic development
I have quoted my friend Donovan D Rypkema before. He concludes that: "Historic preservation
as an economic development strategy is consistent with all five principles of
21st century economic development: globalisation, localisation, diversity,
sustainability and responsibility.
"Heritage conservation reinforces the five senses of quality
communities: sense of place, sense of identity, sense of evolution, sense of
ownership and sense of community.
"Historic preservation can meet the test of both ‘quality'
and ‘authenticity' that will be crucial elements in economic development in the
next century.
"The cultural assets of a city - dance, theatre, music,
visual arts, crafts, and others - are inherently influenced and enhanced by the
physical context within which they were created and evolved over the centuries.
If cultural resources are to become and remain an economic asset for a city,
then the physical context that has always influenced their creation needs to be
maintained. Otherwise more than just the physical buildings are at risk; the
quality, character, differentiation and sustainability of the other assets are
in jeopardy as well.
"Historic preservation allows a city to participate in the
positive benefits of a globalised economy while resisting the adverse effects
of a globalised culture.
"Historic preservation allows a city the opportunity to
modernise without having to Westernise. More than that - historic preservation
is the irreplaceable variable to achieve modernisation without Westernisation.
"For the 21st century, only the foolish city will make the
choice between historic preservation and economic development. The wise city
will effectively use its historic built environment to meet the economic,
social and cultural needs of its citizens well into the future. Early in the
20th century, Oswald Spengler wrote: ‘We cannot comprehend political and
economic history at all unless we realise that the city ... is the determinative
form to which the course and sense of higher history generally conforms. World
history is city history.'
"And the political and economic history of the 21st century
will surely be written in cities as well."
Cape Town
is writing its well; we seem to be losing the plot!
Ciao, Neil
Saturday, 8 August: Bus tour
A Woman's Tour
Almost from its earliest days there were women in the mining camp making life
more comfortable and a lot more fun. Along came the dedicated ones who started
the schools and the hospitals and demanded good housing away from the noise and
smell of the dusty town.
Shopping, parks and an art gallery were on their list while
the men folk demanded clubs, football fields and cricket grounds. Joburg women include
great writers, actresses and politicians, plus a sprinkling of prisoners and
forgers.
On the eve of National Women's Day come and celebrate
our forebears who were a spirited bunch of pioneers in their bonnets and
long skirts wielding hairpins and pick axes when the occasion demanded, or
simply mourning with black sashes when yet another human right had been
violated.
Meet Liz Parker and Franky Toussaint at 2pm at the Sunnyside
Park Hotel, 2 York Road,
Parktown. The cost is R125 for members of the Parktown and Westcliff
Heritage Trust, and R145 for non-members. Booking is at Computicket
outlets, on 083 915 8000 or 011 340 8000, or through the Computicket website.
For more information, telephone Eira Bond on weekdays from 9am
to 1pm on 011 482 3349.
Kensington 4 Charity Fun Run
An advance notice of the 2009 Kensington 4 Charity Fun Run
to be held on 30 August from 8am to 6pm in Queen Street business district,
Kensington south, to support four major Kensington projects and underprivileged
kids. Check out the Kensington Tourism website.
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