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45 years later

 Back in 1981, when I was a final-year architecture student, one of my friends discovered a jewel of a building in the Johannesburg inner city that looked like it was imminently about to collapse or be demolished. Somerset House (built in 1906) had a glass-roofed atrium with many of the panes broken, and was being used as a shop for second-hand furniture and building materials, which were piled up throughout the three-storey building.

The team T-shirt found among my heirloom clothes

So three of us decided that it was urgent that we make detailed record, through photos and measured drawings, so that at least there would be complete information on the building that could be archived. Around this time, several historic buildings had been lost to demolition - to make way for the motorway through Parktown and other developments in this area, and down-town, the iconic Escom Building was imploded. This was the tallest in the city at the time of its completion.

But back to Somerset House. It was originally the main branch of the United Building Society, an organisation with very modest beginnings, having been formed by a collaboration of working-class people who were helping each other to raise finances to build their own homes. By 1970, the financial house had assets of R680 million, and merged in the early 1990s to form ABSA Bank. The small building, with one side facing Gandhi Square, has its main entrance on Fox Street. It is not clear when the Building Society moved from these premises, but the upper floors of the building were used as apartments in the 1930s, and at some point, these upper floors were rented out as offices, with tenants including Bowman Gilfillan, long before they became the giant law firm that they are now.

Just last Saturday, the person who had "discovered" the building in 1980, Mark Hindson, and I went on a Joburg Heritage Foundation tour of the building, miraculously a survivor despite our fears in the early 1980s. Mark had saved all our 1980s photos and drawings to his phone, so we could make a thorough assessment of any modifications. The biggest change has been of the environment around the building - Gandhi square has had a major facelift from the grimy bus terminal of the 1980s and many of the buildings in the area and along Fox Street have been given a new lease of life, largely through the energy and vision of Olitzky Property Holdings, who started on an ambitious renewal project since the 1990s.

Facade facing Gandhi Square
Inside the building, many vivid memories surfaced. The three-storey atrium is the most striking aspect, now covered in a combination of metal sheeting and translucent panels. The original carved roof trusses have been preserved, as have many of the other details.
The atrium roof with its original roof trusses
Much of the floor in the atrium is intact, with its distinctive marble and dark stone chequerboard pattern, and the floors of the upper storey corridors still have most of their original glass-block insets, allowing more light into the ground floor.
The original flooring and much of the neoclassical detailing are still intact.
My most lasting memory of the building was the tiling, with its Art Nouveau decoration and subtly varying green background. Unfortunately, we could not access the basement, where the most elaborately decorated tiles lined the walls where the safe-deposit boxes were housed, along with a massive Chubb safe.
The Art Nouveau tiles with their moulded edging strips, precisely mitred at the staircase

We were able to see the upper floors, all empty at present, and still with evidence of habitation by the ubiquitous Joburg pigeons. Mark and I reminisced about the firm of dressmakers who occupied part of the top floor when we were measuring.

Glass-block panels in the top storey corridors and evidence of the pigeons
At the time this building was completed, it was quite impressive in its detailing throughout, with wrought-iron decorative balustrades and carved wooden staircase, slightly modified in the 1920s to accommodate a lift. We made detailed drawings of each and every element such that the building could be entirely reconstructed, if only in the imagination. 
The wrought-iron balustrade with its ornate brackets.
In a city that has seen so many buildings lost to redevelopment throughout its history, it was refreshing to see this one still in use after 120 years, despite our fears all those years ago.


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