February 7, 2007
By Lucille Davie
BIé VENTER says she can occasionally smell the scent of perfume in her loft apartment. That's because it used to be a perfume factory.
Describing herself as an art mechanic or a cultural developer and, lately, a property developer, Venter is very happy living on the third floor of August House. On End Street, August House is on the eastern edge of the CBD.
She was responsible for hanging the 200-odd artworks in the Constitutional Court in Braamfontein in 2004. She also hangs corporate collections.
Together with several others, she has turned a rundown building into a trendy set of seven lofts, filled with what appear to be very contented tenants. Although they would like to buy their apartments, the owners are not ready to sell, the issue of sectional title being just one of the obstacles.
But the building will be more than just spacious lofts. Plans are afoot to turn the ground level into a gallery; other floors will contain a workshop and a studio. Two floors will remain as small clothing factories, the building's original purpose.
Venter wants to turn the roof level into a roof garden, with a boules court and a chessboard. Already benches, pot plants and a braai indicate that the roof has become a living space, with great views of Hillbrow and the CBD.
The five-storey face-brick building, believed to be built in 1946, is on the corner of End and Moseley streets in the City and Suburban suburb of the CBD, on the "edge of the fashion district, and the red-light district", says Venter, with a laugh.
The rooftop space will contain a bouille court, a chess game and a braai area
Her apartment is huge, with no dividing walls, running from the east side through to the west side of the building. There is glorious sunshine in the mornings, pouring through a wall of windows, and wonderful sunsets in the evenings, streaming in through the west bank of windows.
Her apartment walls are sparkling white, though some retain the pure white tiles of the perfume factory, with fat, round, fluted pillars adding definition to the space. The plain cement floor has been painted white too.
A pool table, couches, plants arranged in a base of white stones and a large open-plan bathroom with free-standing bath and shower define the living areas. Her bedroom is behind glass panels. Hanging plastic animals over the bath and art on the walls complete the picture.
"We have a fantastic community here," Venter says. Tenants are all in the creative industries, like publishing, interior design, fine art and television – artist and gallery owner Gordon Froud has a studio in the building.
And, she adds, some of the artists and designers in an exchange resident artist programme live in the building on a temporary basis. Called the Cascoland Project, it is funded by the Dutch. Artists come from Zambia, Switzerland, Zimbabwe and Holland. They exhibit their work at the nearby, reconstructed Drill Hall and, when they leave, Venter asks them to leave a piece of work behind. These are often exhibited in her apartment.
Joubert park projects
The Drill Hall, a block from Joubert Park and the site of the early stages of the 1950s Treason Trial, was burnt to the ground in 2002. Five homeless people died in the fire. Then it literally rose from the ashes to become a creative space with residential and exhibition options.
The Joubert Park Project is a non-profit collective of artists who are based at the Drill Hall. It aims to boost the cultural life of the Joubert Park precinct. Venter is a member of the project's management team.
She started the Creative Inner City Initiative (CICI), a poverty alleviation programme in Joburg's inner city, based in Wolmarans Street near Joubert Park. Through the project, hundreds of people have been trained in artistic skills, including making floats for the annual New Year's Eve street carnival.
A floor above Venter lives a young couple, Rowan and Olivia Watson. They moved from a 50m² flat in Morningside to the 270m² loft apartment. "The open space clears your mind," says Rowan, adding that the higher noise level doesn't worry them. "You get used to the noise."
At first their parents were in shock when they moved into the CBD but now they like the apartment. And they have discovered the city for the first time – taking a drive to Fordsburg, stopping in at the Shivava Café in Newtown along the way, and going to the gym at The Franklin on the western edge of the CBD, in Pritchard Street.
"We want to live here a while, have fun and enjoy the city," says Olivia. They have bought an apartment at The Franklin but would ideally like to buy the apartment they're in at the moment.
The freeways that surround the city make travelling to work easy.
Clean streets
Venter says that since the conversion of the building the City has made sure the lights in the street work and that the streets in the area are cleaned every day.
The gallery on the ground floor is to be developed this year and will be called the Seippel Gallery, a branch of the Gallerie Seippel in Cologne. That gallery is owned by Ralf P Seippel, a German art dealer. It will be contained in the large, 1 000m² space, with the same fat, fluted columns that run throughout the building. It was previously a showroom.
In the meantime, Venter says she's keen to roll up her sleeves again and do another building conversion.
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