Directory of Inner CIty Cool

Astor Mansions 1932

In 1932, Astor Mansions transported the American Skyscraper to downtown Johannesburg – dwarfing the rest of the city at a massive11 stories! Designed by the architects Obel and Obel, the buildings distinctive roof spires mimic the Stainless steel pinnacles atop New York’s Chrysler Building. Even the name “Astor Mansions” emblazoned across the 11^th floor, and visible across the entire city in the 30’s, aspired to the glamour of the Big Apple’s Waldorf Astoria, and to the appeal of all things American. Tucked away on the corner of Joubert and Von Brandis Streets, Astor Mansions remains one of Johannesburg’s finest Art Deco survivors, a reminder of an elegantly optimistic 1930’s city.

Chrysler House 1936

Chrysler House stands at the Southern edge of the city, a deserted monument to Johannesburg’s old Motortown District. Designed by the architects Nurcombe and Summerly, the Building creates a distinctive and typically Art Deco silhouette against the city skyline, the upper floors stepping back on each other-  like a giant Egyptian Pyramid. Bands of Bauhaus style ribbon windows wrap the building’s upper office levels. Most distinctive though is the West Elevation, its glazed window wall towering twenty six meters above Eloff Street! Vertical stainless steel fins once adorned the structure, heightening its elegant New Yorkesque skyscraper quality. The Chryslers modern exterior was echoed in the motor showrooms, packed with the latest American automobiles and finished in acres of glass, marble and chrome. When completed in 1936 the building housed the fastest motorcar lifts in the British Empire, hoisting cars on to showroom floors for seven levels and securing the Chrysler its status as a monument to Johannesburg’s modern age!

 The Ansteys Building 1936

Designed by the architects Emley and Williamson for Norman Anstey and Company Department store, Ansteys was the tallest building in Africa when completed in 1936. The ziggurat shaped skyscraper remains one of Johannesburg’s most recognized Art Deco buildings, situated in the heart of the old downtown retail district. To 1930’s Johannesburgers Ansteys must have seemed impossibly tall - its sky scraping form soaring above the bustling city side walks. The Ansteys structure peels back as it shoots skywards, terminating in a mast designed for docking airships! Ansteys has a rich social history. The Chairman of the JSE kept a penthouse in the building, as did the Playwright and anti-apartheid activist Cecil Williams, who was arrested together with Nelson Mandela on the 5th of August 1962. Ansteys is recognized as the downtown address of choice for off beat city artists and urban pioneers, people keen to secure their own stake in Johannesburg’s rebirth.

His Majesties 1945

Commissioned by the property mogul I. W. Schlesinger, His Majesties secured the reputation of Commissioner Street as the theater district of Johannesburg. His Majesties was Johannesburg’s very own Rockefeller Center, complete with illuminated signage and giant crowns above its twin 18 story turrets. Designed by J. C Cook and Cowen in 1937, the building was finally completed in 1945, at the end of the Second World War. Accommodating the famed His Majesties Theater at street level, the superblock structure also contained 18 floors of offices - home to the Joannesburg Bar for many years. Even Joe Slovoe had an office in the building. Schlesinger based his 500m2 office on the penthouse floor, complete with Rhodesian teak paneled boardrooms, a timber spiral staircase, vaulted ceilings, and uninterrupted views across the city! 

Shakespeare House 1936

Designed in 1936 by the architects J C Cook and Cowen, Shakespeare House is another exemplary Johannesburg Deco Building. Although worse for wear, Shakespeare House compliments the neighboring “His Majesties Building” - vertical window bands accentuating the building’s height, culminating in an elegantly articulated roofscape, complete with Art Deco flag masts. Above the entrance to the building remains the unusual and beautifully articulated name “Shakespeare House”

Innes Chambers 1961

By the mid 1950s His Majesties Building had become too small to accomodate the Johannesburg Bar. In 1961 Sidney Abromowitch was appointed to design Innes Chambers as a new home for The Bar. Conveniently situated opposite The High Court on Pritchard Street, some members of The Bar were concerned that the new building was too far away from the legal professions other favorite haunt – The Rand Club. The architect conceived the form of the building as a backdrop to the court building, and care was taken to produce a relatively low building to avoid dominating the Supreme Court. The result was a beautiful Brazilian inspired modernist building. Clad in opalescent white mosaics which shimmer in the Johannesburg Sunlight, the unusual patterned façade screen is reminiscent of a beautiful Shweshwe fabric motif. Innes Chambers is earmarked for refurbishment as A grade legal offices, with a project start slated for later in 2012.

Ponte City 1976

When completed in 1976 no1 Lily Avenue Berea -‘Ponte City’, was arguably the most coveted residential address on the African Continent. A victim of 90’s capital flight to the suburbs, the iconic cylindrical structure of Ponte City became a monument to decay, urban legend, fear, and the unknown. Today Ponte still captures Johannesburg’s imagination, as much a part of the contemporary collective conscious, as when it was built in the mid ‘70s! While the average suburbanite will probably never visit Berea, or set foot in a building like Ponte, 36 years later the giant cylindrical tower remains synonymous with Johannesburg, its elegant form imprinted on every iconic Johannesburg skyline. The Building is currently undergoing a complete transformation - already attracting a diverse demographic of new residents, from photographers and journalists, to foreign nationals seeking their fortune in the city of gold. Ponte has transcended the spirit of 70’s South Africa – adapting to a completely new and different context, a symbol of contemporary cosmopolitan Johannesburg!

Inspirational Urban Space: Main Street Mall, Marshalltown Johannesburg

Contemporary South African architects and planners seem obsessed with over regulated ready made plastic spaces. We create instant cities in the suburbs – fabricating high streets, linking no place to no destination. This trend has spurned developments like Melrose Arch, which stretch from access control boom to electric perimeter fence. There would seem to be reason for this obsession. One has only to look at the urban disaster along Bree or Joubert Street in the CBD. Suddenly over regulation seems a sensible solution for “public space” in Johannesburg. Downtown, Bree and Joubert Street and many others, portray a city on the brink of collapse, strangling itself through lack of management, regulation or design. Sidewalks choked with informal traders and litter, push pedestrians into the street and rob the city of vital public space.

Cities are not solely created through built density, but rather through the creation of sustainable, safe public space.  The great American urbanist Jane Jacobs noted, “Think of a city and what comes to mind - Its streets!” A city is not simply a collection of buildings created in a void, with streets as a left over space between. The city is a living organism and streets, as its main public spaces, are the arteries that sustain the citie’s life.

The rebirth of the city has to start on the street! When people say that a city is dangerous – perceived or real - they mean that they don’t feel safe on their own pavement; they don’t feel safe on heir own street.

Downtown, streets like the redeveloped Main Street Mall, have brought life back to the city. Streets in the CBD are not sterile and faux. Unlike Sandton, where roads were designed only for cars, downtown streets are social spaces, community nodes, and explosions of colour, energy and daily interaction. Rather than trying to control and regulate the urban environment with security boom gates and razor wire, arteries like Main Street have become safe through encouraging activity.

The upgrade of Main Street in 2005, reduced motor traffic to a single lane, creating wide New York style pavements. The widened pavements provide space for pedestrians, coffee shops and urban greenery. Main Street Mall has spurned the re emergence of downtown café culture. Office workers desk bound for decades, once too afraid to explore the city beyond their access controlled office blocks, have ventured back on to the street. Secretaries on smoke breaks, coffee shops, convenience stores, shoppers and scores of pedestrians, have created a city node alive with activity and interaction. Along Main Street the city becomes an urban interactive theatre!

It is important to remember that people cannot be forced to use streets, if they have no reason to be there. Main Street is a strategic artery - linking Gandhi Square Transport Terminus in the center of the city to the banks, mining houses, courts and the Newtown Cultural area. These diverse functions along the street ensure pedestrian activity and movement, creating a sustainable node, made safe through use and activity, rather than through access controlled booms, razor wire and electric fencing.

Main Street Mall is a case study in the development of regenerated, sustainable South African cities. The rebirth of urban areas starts on the street!

Future Cities

Historic cities, contemporary cities, and cities of the future are about more than just built density. Buildings downtown simply set the stage for action, interaction and the everyday life that creates a city.

Just as it is important to plan a city, it is important to remember that the life can also be planned out of a city. The idea of regulation of cities and public spaces still seems to excited planners, almost 18 years after the end of Apartheid. These planners are obsessed with the creation of instant high streets, plazas and promenades - connecting no place to nowhere. Authentic cities grow organically over time. This fixation with the creation of over regulated plastic spaces has spurned “instant cities” -developments like Montecasino, and Melrose arch. These pastiche, stuck on ‘emblems of cities’, are void of authenticity or evolved context - the urban ideal of the chronically dispossessed. We seem to have forgotten that more important than merely how a city looks, is how it works – a city cannot exist in the designed confines of an entrance and exit boom gate!

While the suburban North of Johannesburg is increasingly dominated by new buildings; housing projects, shopping malls and office parks - each development outdoing its neighbor in the stakes for dullness, and regimentality, old buildings downtown give the city energy, vibrancy and authenticity. Old building stock also offers the opportunity for re -exploration, adoption and re-use – key factors in future sustainable world city development.

It’s frustrating that some architects and planners still see the property boundary as the end of their design responsibility. This tendency leads to the creation of buildings which contribute little or nothing to the urban environment.

The renowned American Urbanist Jane Jacobs, said “Think of a city and what comes to mind? Its streets”. A city is not simply a collection of buildings created in a void, with streets as a left over space between – the city is a living organism, and as its main public spaces, the streets, are its arteries. In the early 2000’s Urban Ocean, the now jaded pioneers of downtown cool, used Jacob’s quote in a sales brochure– ultimately, they were predicting their own demise. At that stage the streets of Johannesburg were empty, uninviting, and unsafe- the rebirth of a city starts on the street, not the other way around.

When people say that a city is dangerous – perceived or real, they mean that they don’t feel safe on their pavement. 

Sandton Central, is a prime example of a collection of buildings which do not create a city, even though some of the office blocks in the district are architecturally interesting, they are created in an unwalkable, unsustainable vacuum. You can’t force people to use streets that they have no reason to use, and Sandton certainly has no street culture.  

Even new Sandton Buildings, like the iconic 17 Alice lane, turn their backs on the street. Instead of stairs to a lobby, this building is set back from the street, behind a giant concrete car park. Considering the current international trend toward sustainable, walkable urban environments, it seems that Sandton Central is developing on a course towards obsoletion.

Johannesburg Central is a well connected, pedestrian orientated node; the bustling city streets have brought life back to the CBD. Downtown streets are social spaces, community nodes, explosions of colour, energy, and daily interaction. A good example of a successful city retails area - Kerk Street, is a vibrant padestrianised urban mall, here the formal and informal thrive alongside each other – office workers, shoppers, school children and city residents walk, browse, interact, and create a sustainable city.

Through narrowing the trafficable street area, the upgraded Main Street Mall in the financial district now offers wide, New York-esque sidewalks. Broad pavements provide space for pedestrians  -this has in turn spurred the re emergence of downtown café culture -office workers desk bound for decades, too afraid to walk on their own pavements, now venture back into the city streets, creating a node alive with daily activity and interaction. The opportunities for a regenerated city- so far as streetlife goes – endless.

If streets are the arteries of the city, parks and urban squares should be where the city comes alive. Beyers Naude Square, Johannesburgs’ premier civic space, seems to have the makings of a successful urban oasis; it is well located, in a mixed use node, with office, civic and residential buildings on its periphery, which should ensure almost 24 hour usage, yet the space remains empty and unused. Rather than stimulating visual and sensual delight, the square exudes a feeling of dullness, emptiness and blankness. A park is like giant green convenience store – it needs to offer goods in demand in order to attract users and activity – Beyers Naude Square certainly falls miles short in this respect. Why create more parks in downtown Johannesburg when the ones we already have are poorly planned, badly maintained and underutilsed? There is tremendous possibility to ensure the sustainability and renewed redevelopment of the city through the creation of successful urban squares and parks. The city needs to tackle existing unsuccessful urban green space, ensuring that this goal becomes a reality.  

Johannesburg needs to be seen as a living organism; it is difficult to chart the trajectory of where the city is heading, but certainly the future of downtown is vibrant, creative, dynamic and sustainable!

Johannesburg embodies authenticity, grit, inclusivity, multicultural diverse democratic flavor, rich historical context, unexplored experiences, new and authentic environments, patina, history, reinvention, rebirth, exploration, and discovery. How long will we continue to accept the fake, the copy, The Truman Show, the commercially driven knock off, when the authentic original is right in front of us and ripe for the taking? The city is finally transforming from a place for people with nowhere else to go, into the destination for a generation with the world on our doorstep!