Neil Fraser
June 27, 2003
Thursday evening - the Braamfontein Stakeholders Forum was a well-attended meeting where the JDA provided a progress report on the Braamfontein Regeneration Project - if you have to drive though Braamies you will have experienced the effects of construction. No gain without pain, they say!
Public Spaces and Public Houses
During the week I had occasion to walk the few blocks from our offices to the JPL - the Johannesburg Public Library. The JPL, built in 1932, is an imposing building although I wouldn't have gone along with F. Addington Symonds description in 'The Johannesburg Story' - where he states that it "was said to be one of the most beautiful buildings in the world."
Addington Symonds describes the progression leading to the construction of this building from "a single room, followed by a small suite hired from the local Y.M.C.A. at five pounds per month and then a wood-and-iron building, formerly a church, where it now stood. Its original consignment of books - a mere handful bought from Mudie's in London way back in '89 - had increased considerably and it was now looking forward with confidence to the fulfilment of its dream to become a Free Public Library under the wing of the municipality, with a stock of at least 100,000 volumes."
In its early life, apart from its library function, it housed the African Museum, the Transport Museum and the Geological Museum now all dispersed as separate entities to other parts of the city. However, it is a great repository for a wealth of information about the city and the two ladies in the African Studies Library, where I had gone to source some info, couldn't have been more helpful.
But I was appalled at the state of the public space I walked through to get to the Library, what used to be called the Library Gardens, now Beyers Naude Gardens. I've got used to driving past the blank walls that edge the public space and have never had the need to look at what happens on the other side of the walls.
Well, it looks like the images that TV presents of Bosnia, The small retail units that face inwards onto the open space have been trashed, the brick paving is uneven with loose and missing bricks, the fountain is waterless, the area filthy, barbed wire is strung over many of the openings and the experience that the space presents is depressing in the extreme.
The public space was originally known as Market Square and was used for just that purpose. In 'Golden South Africa' published in the late 1880s, E.P Mathers described the Square as "the most spacious in South Africa". F.Addington Symonds points out that "the market square is traditionally the centre of all South African towns and that which was laid out in Johannesburg measured some 1,300 by 300 ft - the largest in the country."
Clive M. Chipkin in Johannesburg Style however puts this into perspective: "As for the most spacious square in South Africa, the unpaved Market Square in the dry season was a huge dust-bowl denuded of its veld grasses, the earth pulverised into powder by the wagon traffic. In wet weather it was ankle-deep in red mud." Abe Berry's 'Johannesburg recalls "scenes of buying and selling in an enormous open space where farmers brought their produce and out-spanned their ox-wagons."
Later photographs of the Square show a large grassed and groomed public space, well treed and open to the surrounding streets. Most of these trees would have been lost when the Harry Hofmeyer Parking Garage was built underground between the JPL and the City Hall. But the wheels really came off in the late '80s when the Council of the time inflicted a design on the space that totally alienated it from the city.
Stark, high, featureless facebrick walls built on the edge of the streets cut the space off from the city and created massive unfriendly barriers, preventing citizens from walking on the side of the street and blocking off access and interaction with the open space on the other side of the walls.
The outcry from the public when the Council presented the design was ignored, brushed aside by the politicians of the day who insisted that they knew better than the citizens as to what was needed. Maybe the time is appropriate, whilst our country basks in the international recognition of its new liberal constitution, to set up a court where city politicians of the past, present and future, can be charged with gross crimes against the sensibilities of its citizens.
Joburg 2030, the vision for the African World Class City, states "if we want to achieve sustainable economic growth in Johannesburg and become a world class city, some major changes are going to have to be made in the way our City is planned and laid out…outdoor life will be more pleasant and there will be …parks and world class outdoor relaxation facilities."
In terms of sustainable development, the current Urban Development Framework has stipulated that human settlements be environmentally sustainable "marked by a balance between quality built environment and open space; between consumption needs and renewable and non-renewable resources."
When are we going to turn our attention to all these admirable objectives? The Beyers Naude Gardens in the state they are in, are hardly a tribute to this remarkable man but rather to the crassness of previous administrations. Yet they constitute one of the very few large civic spaces in the inner city and well-designed open space is vital to the creation and functioning of a mixed use, 24 hour city.
I assume that the dreadful state of this public space has been partly caused through the long drawn out negotiations between the Provincial Legislature and the City Council over its ownership.
As I understand it, the space forms part of the deal whereby the Legislature has or is acquiring the entire City Hall building from the City (they are currently tenants in the eastern half only).
But the deal also includes the Harry Hofmeyr parking garage and this public space above it. Whether this is correct or not, the state of the space is a disgrace and whoever is responsible for it needs to do something dramatic - lets implode the perimeter buildings as a start!
From Public Spaces to Public Houses. The good news.
Reputedly the oldest pub in Johannesburg, the Guildhall Bar has been in operation since the 1890s - one date suggests 1888! A 1906 photograph of Market Square shows the pub housed in a lovely single storey building on the corner of Market and Harrison streets.
The current five-storey building on this same site, constructed in 1912/13, still houses the Guildhall pub and was built and owned by M.C.A. Meischke - described as 'a pioneer of Johannesburg'.
At the time that the building housing the pub (still known as Meischkes Building) was constructed by Meischke he was also the contractor for the new City Hall, completed at the end of 1914.
The story goes that delivery trucks mysteriously 'lost' some of their load just as they passed Meischke's building site en route to the City Hall site on the opposite side of the road.
The pub was described in one book as "a popular meeting place that sold all liquor except 3 Star Brandy for a sixpence a tot". Run as a pub for over a hundred years, the establishment has however gone through a bad time over the past decade. But this last week it opened under new management.
Its proprietor, Kurt, is of German origin but has been in the catering business in Johannesburg for the past 35 years. He offers a pub menu in the ground floor bar and both an a la carte and carvery menu in the first floor restaurant.
The menu reflects the boss' German origins, Kassler Ribs and Sauerkraut, Grilled Pork Knuckle, Applestrudel. Kurt is planning to provide shade on the first floor terrace where tens of thousands of people must have eaten and quaffed beer over the past century as they witnessed ox-wagons make way for trams and buses; horse drawn cabs for cars and the advent of the ubiquitous combi-taxi. They will also have witnessed the rise and fall of the public space diagonally opposite.
For the time being the Guild Hall Pub and Restaurant will trade 09h30 to 19h00 but will extend its hours to include breakfasts etc once it becomes more established. Bookings 833-1770.
