Anne-apolis

 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 H...