Neil Fraser
March 30, 2004
A NUMBER of outstanding functions took place over the March long-weekend - a Civic Banquet celebrating the inauguration of the Constitutional Court, the inauguration of the Constitutional Court itself, a party honouring the professional team, contractors and especially the many artists associated with the Constitutional Court building and then the opening of a memorable exhibition in the notorious Section 4 or so-called "Natives Gaol" on Constitution Hill.
If you were fortunate enough to attend any one of these functions you would have been immensely proud to be a South African, or for those non-South Africans present, to enjoy a wonderful opportunity to celebrate with South Africa.
The Civic Banquet hosted by our Executive Mayor Amos Masondo honoured some 36 international chief justices here for the Court inauguration. Those attending were treated to memorable speeches by Masondo and former President Nelson Mandela whilst the inauguration of the Court itself, by President Thabo Mbeki, was one of the most unforgettable events I have ever attended. The inauguration was timed to perfection, taking place on Human Rights Day, 21 March 2004, in this the tenth year of South Africa's Decade of Democracy celebrations.
We often talk loosely about our vision for Joburg as a World Class African City but I have never experienced such a clear sense of what that phrase can mean as at the inauguration. Here we are in a city that has seen incredible degradation, in a country where millions of people have suffered enormous indignities and injustice and in a continent that is so often viewed by the world as a basket case; yet it is a city with incredible potential to become the definitive African city. Not because of any natural beauty, nor vast economic strength, for we have neither. But because of our people and an ability to create structures full of dignity and meaning and joyfully celebratory at the same time. Wedged between the residential deterioration and chaos of Hillbrow and the sophistication of corporate Braamfontein is this amazing building, incredibly complex yet stunningly simple. African World Class. I doubt if there is a court building anywhere in the world that is so representative of the awful history of a people, yet so endowed with the hope for the future and so steeped in symbolism and rich in artistic offerings. African World Class.
Yet the other side of the coin is happening within only a few kilometres of 'The Hill' and threatens to undo all our advances. Driven by greed, developers are raping our built environment as they systematically and illegally tear down and destroy heritage buildings. The problem is as widespread as Houghton, Dunkeld, Melrose and Sunnyside. The modus operandi used by these so-called developers appears to be to encourage squatters to settle in the houses so that the alternative of demolition becomes more palatable by comparison. Then they strip the houses of all fittings and fixtures and demolition of the remaining shell takes place over a weekend. Many of the destroyed gardens were once rich in smaller heritage buildings and fixtures, such as coach houses, stables, sun dials and pavilions. Trees that are 100 years old are being chopped down.
And while much of this is happening without planning permission, of even more concern is that some of it may well be happening with Council permission. But such permission appears to be bypassing legislated processes, for the Provincial Heritage Resource Agency is evidently not being consulted in all cases before approval for demolition is given. Inadequate or no inspections of the properties are being carried out - in one case it was found that a building inspector undertook his inspection by "driving past".
Now, through a group of outraged citizens who, in an effort to protect their suburb have established the Houghton Heritage Trust, a developer who evidently illegally demolished a 1927 building in order to build cluster homes, is to be brought to court. In terms of the Heritage Resources Act of 1999, heavy fines can be imposed and the Court can even order reinstatement of the property. One can only hope that the court goes the whole way so that an example is made.
Roberta Brandes Gratz in The Living City suggests that poor planning is often at the heart of these problems: "Too often.mindless planning is still occurring - formal, drawn out, burdensome, generated from the top down, removed from the users and advocates of a place, rarely respectful of historic preservation, and often contrary to the instincts of local residents, and overly dependent on the kind of 'empirical verifiability' that reduces life to stultifying statistics and tries to turn the art of urban rebirth into a science - not the kind of planning for which citizens plead. "
Is it poor planning, a total lack of planning, no enforcement or arrogant disregard of the law? We need to see action on the part of the Council and an independent investigation into whether their processes and procedures have been carried out in accordance with the legislation would be a good start.
But why are we getting hot under the collar - surely in the name of progress we should allow large sub-divisions such as exist in these older suburbs to give way to greater density? After all, we are short of millions of homes. If old buildings disappear in the process, is it really a big deal? The actions that flow from the answers to those questions will ultimately determine if we are mature enough to one day justify the world-class status we are working towards. Our 118-year-old city with no heritage will be like all the other soulless cities that populate the world. Constitution Hill is remarkable because it offers all the sophistication of a modern building that exudes and celebrates its Africanness in an environment with the worst of memories. Replace the richness of our old suburbs with rabbit warrens - whose real object is not to provide more accommodation but to make a couple of unscrupulous people rich - and we sacrifice our vision. In 1997 Ada Louis Huxtable, the architectural critic of the New York Times wrote "What's good about preservation now is that it is part of a sense of the living city. It involves a deeper understanding of the continuity and contrasts of urban art and life. It is an index of a greater awareness of the relationships of the past, the present and the future. The definition of preservation has grown from a limited preoccupation with the individual landmark to concern with the nature of the neighbourhood and the community."
What we are busy destroying is not just structures, but the significance of place - and significance of place is the distinguishing factor for World Class status.
