Johannesburg Heritage Trust Citichat 19 October 2001

CITICHAT 41/2001 - 19 October 2001


Johannesburg Heritage Trust


This has been another important week for the inner city.

The first meeting of the newly established Johannesburg Heritage Trust was held on Tuesday 16th October and the sod turning ceremony marking the start of construction of the country's first Constitutional Court was held on Thursday the 18th. In addition, Blue IQ held an impressive event at the Sandton Convention Centre highlighting their projects for which they are seeking private sector partners and investment. Blue IQ is the R1.7 billion initiative of the Gauteng Provincial Government to invest in economic infrastructure development through 10 mega-projects in the areas of tourism, technology, transport and high value-added manufacturing in order to create a truly "smart" province.. Two of those projects are of course in the inner city itself, Newtown and Constitution Hill, whilst a third, the high speed train linking the Johannesburg International Airport with Sandton, Midrand and Pretoria also connects to the inner city.

Newtown has a number of components - the massive MetroMarket with construction well out of the ground - Mary Fitzgerald Square where the contractor is moving at great pace to make his 16th December deadline and the Nelson Mandela Bridge plus the on-and-off ramps to the M2 which are also under way. More about Constitution Hill next week except to pick up a comment made by the Gauteng Premier, Mbhazima Shilowa, in his speech at the sod-turning ceremony. Talking about the relevance of the site selected for Constitution Hill - the 'Fort' was a prison in both colonial and apartheid times where Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi amongst thousands of others were incarcerated - the Premier said that as bad as our history was, it was the only history we have it and we cannot turn our backs on it. That comment links back to the establishment of the Johannesburg Heritage Trust (JHT).

The first meeting of the Board of Trustees of the JHT was an important milestone in our inner city revitalisation strategy. Johannesburg's gold fever origins have produced a mining-camp mentality that has resulted in the vast majority of our heritage buildings being razed to make way for modern faceless monstrosities with little relationship to human scale and even less in the 'personality' stakes. We do have some gems scattered through the city, few and far between, and often in derelict state. There are probably three main reasons for their state. In some instances the buildings form part of a parcel of land bought by private sector institutions for redevelopment. They would then have ran foul of the previous National Monuments Council and were not allowed to demolish those buildings which were considered to have an historic or heritage value. In many instances the organisations have abandoned the projects allowing the 'protected' buildings to literally crumble into the ground. creating eyesores on the cityscape and adding to the sense of decay. Heartless developers, the ugly face of capitalism - sure but the State is no better if not considerably worse! Take the Drill Hall for example. A building with possibly not the greatest architectural merit (described by Gerhard-Mark van der Waal in his book "From Mining Camp to Metropolis" as somewhat "removed from the Beaux Arts mode") it has considerable historic and heritage value. The foundation stone of the building, built as the "Volunteer Headquarters" was laid in June 1904 and was only the second military building to be erected in the city after the Fort. It was prominent during the strikes in 1922 as it headquartered the troops used to quell the riots. Whilst it was related to military usage right up to the early '90s, its most famous use was as the court for the Treason Trial, before the trial was relocated to Pretoria 'for security reasons'.

The building is owned by the State which has neglected it to the stage that it is totally overrun by squatters, is a haven for gangs and a centre of criminal activity. It is a cess-pit which constitutes a major potential health hazard, a number of fires have resulted in damage and it has been condemned as structurally unsound.. Yet the State does absolutely nothing!

The third reason for dereliction is that some buildings are just totally neglected by their owners or have in fact been abandoned.

The Trust has been establisher to deal practically with these buildings with the aim of recycling them into active and economic life. In this it has borrowed from Cape Town whose Heritage Trust has done some wonderful work. The objective of the Trust is thus to "conserve the architectural, cultural and natural heritage of the City of Johannesburg and its environs for the benefit of the inhabitants of the City and of the nation at large, through the redevelopment and management of specific buildings within the city, and through creating an awareness of the cultural value and heritage in the buildings by means of campaigns and education initiatives to the general public."

We need to ensure that our historic buildings are there as part of the only history we have. Some must be there to remind us of what must never happen again, some because of the integral part they played in the struggle towards democratic freedom, others again because of their contribution to our built environment. All of this relates to the story that a city offers to its listeners, and the story about Johannesburg is a great one. Coincidentally, I'm reading a little book published in 1953 entitled "The Johannesburg Story" by F Addington Symonds that I came across in a second-hand bookstore.. The author says; "The Johannesburg story is grotesque, incredible - a melodrama acted by characters too unreal for real life, too fantastic for fiction. The very origin of the city was a masterpiece of irony." And that was in 1953!

The first building acquired by the Trust is 90 Market Street, built in 1902 as the Natal Bank but I have previously written about this. The building has been refurbished to house both our organisation and the Johannesburg Development Agency. From the lessons learned we believe that it is feasible to refurbish such buildings sensitively and turn them into revenue producing structures which add to the fabric and life of the city rather than detract as is the case and as has been historically. The Trust already has its sights on a number of 'strategic' heritage buildings, the re-use of which will have a beneficial impact on various aspects of the city's economy. We currently lack finance but that is just another hurdle to be overcome!

The twelve Trustees are Phill Mashabane (SA Heritage Resource Agency); Maishe Maponya (Council,City of Johannesburg); Henry Paine (Gauteng Institute for Architecture); Herbert Prins (Simon van der Stel Foundation); Ms Lillian Mvumvu (Community); Graeme Reid (Johannesburg Development Agency); Martin Maluleke, Dr Pieter Snyman and Franco Andreone appointed by the Johannesburg Inner City Business Coalition and Mrs Lucy Taylor, Professor Alan Lipman and myself appointed by the Central Johannesburg Partnership. The last thing we want is to work as an exclusive club and are aiming to draw in numerous persons who are as passionate as we are about both the city and its great heritage in buildings. I know the JHT can make a difference because the CJP and JDA now work out of a building which proves just what can be done.