The Kopanong Gauteng Government Precinct - a watershed for conservation and public consultation
Neil Fraser
February 9, 2004
FEW aspects of a city provide better evidence of the relationship between the authorities and the private sector or the general cultural climate of a particular period than do squares and parks - Mining Camp to Metropolis
Comments on the proposed Kopanong Gauteng Provincial Government Precinct which encircles much of the Beyers Naude Gardens, had to be submitted by Wednesday, 4 February.
Hopefully the comments express appreciation of Provincial Government's commitment to the centre city which is demonstrated by their desire to restore the significance of such an important historic urban space. But, I would guess, many of the comments will also focus on some major negative aspects of the proposals.
Firstly, the total lack of public consultation. An historic area of national significance and various heritage buildings of local significance are considered so insignificant by the authorities that, ironically at the start of our Decade of Democracy celebrations, not even lip service has been paid to a consultation process. Are some of those who protested at the lack of transparency in the previous regime now unable to face the robustness of critical debate?
Secondly the proposed demolition of heritage buildings - yes they do represent our colonial and apartheid history, but so do the City Hall and Library. Yet in the case of these latter buildings they have been absorbed into our new Democracy with the City Hall now transformed into the Provincial Legislature and the Library continuing to play a crucial role in education just as it did for tens of thousands who were excluded from the DET schools during the apartheid era.
Demolishing buildings that impact on and lend scale to an important public space is not in keeping with true transformation and demonstrates that the insensitivity that has seen so much of our built heritage destroyed, is still with us.
Thirdly, the space that is being created. Efforts to increase and improve public space and public life must be applauded - they strengthen the role of the city as a democratic forum. This becomes more and more critical in a society that is shrinking through privatisation of space and increasing personal isolation.
Just look at the cars going to and from the workplace. Seldom do they carry more than the driver. You can't efficiently have more than one person working at a time in front of computers. Television isolates us individually even as we watch it with others. As communication has ballooned so has loneliness. We need to provide opportunities for people to use their senses and to interact directly with their surroundings. But, to quote from one of the submissions, "destruction of inherited features (with which the existing space is blessed even given the best efforts of previous councils to destroy) such as symmetry, however incongruous they may appear to one-dimensional stream of modernism, is counter productive. It is indeed more sophisticated to work with existing symmetries and axes and introduce in new intervention such features as balance in an inclusive way thus developing a rich orchestration of the old and new."
In 1886, as the outcome of a tender process, one Josias de Villiers, was awarded the surveying contract to set out a village in close proximity to mining activities. He began his survey on October 19 and on November 4 reported that he had set out 748 stands (he was instructed to increase this to 986). His diagram clearly designates a 'Market Square' measuring some 409 metres by 94 metres and bounded by President, Rissik, Market and Sauer Streets. This was then the largest market square in Southern Africa and was the largest of some six major squares planned for the city, of which only three survive.
Jan Gehl and Lars Gemzo, 'New City Spaces' point out that "although the pattern of usage has varied in the course of history, despite differences, subtle and otherwise, public space has always served as meeting place, marketplace and traffic space. The city has always been a place for people to meet and greet each other, a place to exchange information about the city and society, a place where important events were staged: coronations, processions, feasts and festivals, town meetings and executions, to mention just a few. The city was also a marketplace where goods and services were offered and exchanged. Finally the city was a thoroughfare providing access to and connecting the various uses of the city...In the past ...the uses of the city were conducted simultaneously in the same public space "
That's how it was in Market Square for a number of decades and as the city grew around the Square. Early photographs show the Square as a bustling vital focus of community life for all races. Peter Kallaway and Patrick Pearson's book 'A History of Working Class Life through Pictures 1885 - 1935' provides a series of photographs of the Square with the following commentary "Black people appear in our history not only as victims of colonialism or as exploited and powerless workers: under specific conditions some groups of them were also able to flourish in the new society and robustly turn circumstance to their advantage - whether this was as petit bourgeois traders, as purveyors of services or as a dynamic and organized working class - above all these pictures provide a salutary warning against assuming that the nature of South African society has always been as it is in the era of apartheid."
Market Square was a meeting place, a trading place and a movement space for all races.
The very early single storey corrugated iron buildings that ringed the Square soon gave way to more substantial buildings (including our own office building, 90 Market Street, built in 1902). Photographs of the Square over the period 1902 to 1910 reflect a variety of styles, but a generally consistent scale of buildings. In 1915 the City Hall was completed on the eastern section of the square.
In 1933/34 the Library was built on the market square at its western end leaving a satisfying west-east public space later known as the Library Gardens. A 1953 photograph shows a formal layout of paving, lawns, gardens and rows of trees between the two buildings. Even at that date the Square was edged with buildings generally of the same height providing a gratifying public space with a human scale.
At the beginning of the 1990s the public space was devastated by the then City Council when, against the vociferous wishes of many citizens, structures were introduced on the north and south perimeters. The fact that these are to be demolished as part of the Provincial Government plans is no less than cause for rejoicing.
The City should seriously consider throwing a great party so that we can all dance as the demolition hammers do their work. The tragedy is that the demolition hammers are not going to stop there. Two city blocks of buildings, that continue to provide a sense of place and scale to the Square, are to be destroyed along with the offensive additions.
This is what the Heritage Impact Assessment of the provincial government's proposal to demolish these buildings reflects:
Second Rand Water Board Building - In spite of the fact that the its current location does not provide good visual opportunity "the proposed demolition of the building constitutes a potentially significant impact considering that the building is of notable cultural significance and that its removal would indeed constitute a loss to the city's architectural heritage."
Custom House - "the proposed demolition of this building similarly constitutes a potentially significant impact in view of its cultural significance"
ABSA building - the proposed demolition of the building must therefore be considered as a potentially significant impact."
First National Bank Building - the fact also that the building is of cultural significance means that its proposed demolition is a potentially significant impact"
Litorn House - It has been shown that this building is of cultural significance. The proposal to demolish the building therefore also implies a potentially significant impact"
People's Bank - as is the case with the second Rand Water Board Building, the demolition of this building will entail a loss to the city's collection of prominent conservation-worthy architecture."
The two other buildings in this group, New Library Hotel and the former RSA Building are not regarded as potentially significant. Two out of eight, 25%.
But, in my mind, it is not a case of resisting demolition of even these conservation-worthy buildings at all costs. It is a case of what does the city get in return? Are we creating something so meaningful for the city and its peoples that sacrificing the buildings is sad but necessary. As far as I can see, an enlarged public space that completely distorts the symmetry created by the historic west/east axis.
An underground vehicular tunnel whose cost will be prohibitive (the proposals incidentally are ominously silent on cost!) and whose in-and-out ramps will impact negatively on the immediate urban environment. A number of skeletal facades of historic buildings. It's not enough and it is a lost opportunity! Jan Gehl says "common to cities that have recaptured public space is visionary, targeted urban policies." I don't see evidence of that here.
It isn't too late to enhance the welcome decision to consolidate the Provincial Government in a defined precinct. (It was actually a major recommendation of the CJP to Provincial Government way back in 1994/5 which was rejected at the time as impractical.) The first step must be to throw the process open, to seek and encourage robust debate and to hear what is being said.
The Provincial Government owes that to all the citizens of the city as well as to the designers. Anything less will be a sad indictment on what the Decade of Democracy represents.
