Neil Fraser
February 24, 2003
The 'Compagnie Generale Transatlantique', better known as "The French Line" was established in 1912 and by the 1920s had become one of Europe's leading travel companies. The French Line built its name on 'speed amidst luxury'. Its first liner, the 'France', was a veritable floating palace with its interior modelled on the splendours of Versailles. But in 1927 the company changed direction in regard to interior design - its 'Ile de France' of that year was appointed as lavishly as its predecessors but in a thoroughly modern style.
The French Line's vessels became a showcase for the leading designers of the Art Deco movement. Apart from the interiors themselves, beds, chairs, cutlery, in fact anything of note, was in Art Deco style. The SS Normandie, launched in the '30s represented the epitome of modern high-speed luxury travel. It captured the Atlantic Blue Riband in 1935 and again in 1937.
Europe's finest Art Deco artists and designers were entrusted with the ship's interior design - Jean Dupas who designed a glass mural depicting the History of Navigation, the silversmith Jean Puiforcat, the ceramicist Jean Luce, the furniture designer Jean Dunand and the glassmaker Rene Lalique transformed the Normandie into a floating palace dedicated to the Art Deco aesthetic. The liner came to an ignominious end when it sank in the New York Harbour in 1942!
What on earth has this to do with Johannesburg? Well, it is just one of the many fascinating stories that provides substance to Joburg buildings. Sadly, stories that are being lost and quickly forgotten. You see, we have a Normandie Court (designed by Leopold Grinker & Skelly) on the corner of Kerk and Delvers Streets the rounded corners of which were described in the Star in April 1938 "like the prow of a gigantic liner".
"The effect" it continued (as recorded by Clive Chipkin) "was inescapably nautical." Chipkin goes on to say; "when Normandie Court was new there was a white hexagonal mosaic floor incorporating blue inset movement lines in the entrance foyer, abstract marble inlays derived from ship imagery on the walls, and a cast aluminium relief sculpture depicting the SS Normandie.
Sandblasted onto the glazed entrance doors in Kerk Street was a shorthand depiction of the liner, reduced with a Mendelsohnian flourish to three funnels, a ship's prow and a twirl of smoke. The building's nautical climax occurs in the superb service tower, here repetitive rows of porthole windows, one metre in diameter are set flush with the walling to form deep interior reveals. And the rounded roof canopy suspended above the roof garden has an aerodynamic profile like the wing of a contemporary Supermarine aircraft."
Joburg's doyen of city heritage, Flo Bird, says; "For years now we have been taking tours into Normandie Court to show people the lift lobby - a replica of the one on the ship. And for years they have been thrilled to find the lifts still boasting the chromium plated motifs of that beautiful French Transatlantic liner."
Normandie Court is one of the 'top twenty' Art Deco examples in the city. So is Anstey's Mansions in Jeppe Street - it vied with the now demolished Escom House to be considered the highest modern building on the African continent and amongst the highest reinforced concrete structures in the world at that time!
Have a look at the Art Deco grilles in the ground floor entrance foyer Another 'top twenty' is Astor Mansions, corner Jeppe and von Brandis - as with many other buildings in the city of the 1920s/30s, the name exemplified its New York connections, referring to the wealthy New York Astors, a real estate family of note. The distinctive twin spires on top of the building were a 'plastered interpretation of the stainless steel pinnacles of New York's then highest skyscraper, the Chrysler Building of 1928-30" to quote Chipkin again. Today Astor Mansions is one of Joburg's abused gems.
There are numerous "Mansions" amongst the top twenty - Castle (89 Eloff Street); Manners (Jeppe and Joubert); Stanhope (Plein Street) and Dorchester Mansions (73 Rissik Street). This latter building boasted the name of the luxurious London hotel being built at that time, the name being actively marketed as an enticement to prospective tenants as was its elaborate façade decorations.
The list contains one "Chambers" being Dunvegan Chambers (Pritchard and Joubert); one "house", Arop House (von Brandis and Kerk) - the relief patterns on the spandrels of which reflect the links between Art Deco and cubism; two hotels, Federal (181 Commissioner corner Polly) and Dawson's (corner von Brandis and President).
The balance of the list includes:
44 Main Street (1937-9) which broke away from the skyscraper vogue of the time - Chipkin says; "This low building, unnamed with English reticence, is the seat of finance capital in South Africa, and no signage is needed to inform you of this." The building exhibits many aspects of Art Deco, entrance screens; bronze entrance door decoration (by the man responsible for the gates at Buckingham Palace, Walter Gilbert) and the superb shallow-relief animal sculptures the plaster models of which were done by Gilbert's son, Donald Gilbert.
Grosvenor Motors in Eloff Street
the Aegis Building, 34 Loveday Street and
Broadcast House in Commissioner Street - from where the first radio-broadcasting service in South Africa was implemented. The reference point for this monolithic structure was Broadcast House in Langham Place London, the headquarters of the BBC. The sculptural spandrel panels and that above the main entrance clearly have their origins in the London building of the same name as did the dummy transmitter aerial.
Gallo Africa Limited (161 President and? Troye) - "the juke-box design was thought appropriate for a major record distribution company"
the SA Mutual Building (Harrison and Commissioner)? and the SA Perm (Commissioner corner Simmonds) - "1930s statements of financial power";
the Union Castle Building (Loveday and 93 Commissioner) - look for? the "plaster panels representing Industry" and, finally
His Majesty's in Commissioner Street - a major theatre and chambers for the legal profession. The architect's inspiration was derived from the Rockefeller Centre in New York - bestowing "a powerful image of metropolis on Commissioner Street."
The late '20s and 30s, an age when these very buildings provided a quantum leap from mining town to metropolis. Chipkin refers to Sarah Gertrude Millin who in 1926 said of passengers who alighted at Park Station from the Union Express that they would take a brief look at Johannesburg and pronounce: "This is a city, now this feels like a city."
These are just twenty of scores of Art Deco buildings in the inner city, many, certainly not all, in a parlous state. Yet the buildings that they were modeled on, by and large not only still exist but have become icons both in their own cities and internationally.
The buildings that provided inspiration to local architects in New York and London and elsewhere have continued to provide inspiration and engender pride in millions of people. Yet here their fading facsimiles generally add to the blight of the cityscape and reinforce the negative perceptions of the city that still abound. Just a coat of paint or a scrub down and some basic TLC would be a good starting point for these buildings to emerge from the drabness and greyness into which they have been allowed to disappear.
Look how Long Street in Cape Town has been rejuvenated by its brightly coloured historic buildings! What about a series of articles in the media tracing the history of each of our top fifty historic buildings with photographs of then and now, and when 'now' reflects neglect and apathy, let's have a picture of its current owner or board and his/her or its balance sheet!
As I mentioned last week, it is only a tiny group of people who care sufficiently to provide their personal time to research and promote and to fight for preservation of our built heritage. Hampered by a complete lack of funds, unpaid, unsung and often reviled because they believe that a sense of place is ultimately linked to a sense of continuity and a sense of history, and is worth fighting for.
Place, continuity and history - the unique competitive assets of any city, the differentiation of one city from anywhere else.
"The trip from someplace to anyplace and the trip from anyplace to no place is far shorter than many would like to admit". If we are to avoid being 'anyplace', ultimately leading to 'no place', we need to restore pride in the city and a good starting place is celebrating its unique assets - it's not too late!
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