November 27, 2001
By Lucille Davie
LOOKING for an unusual gift idea this Christmas? Well, what about a bay window? Architect Herbert Baker got a bay window - called an orial window - from one of his architect colleagues as a birthday gift. This window can be seen on the west side of Stone House in Parktown, Baker's own house and the first house he built in Johannesburg.
This is one of the details that emerged in the "God is in the detail" tour conducted by the Parktown & Westcliff Heritage Tour, one of their weekly tours of Johannesburg.
"God is in the detail" is an expression used by Mies van der Rohe, a German architect (1886-1969). Known for his dictum 'Less is More', he attempted to create contemplative, neutral spaces through architecture based on a universal, simple style.
This tour takes a look at several Herbert Baker houses and gardens in Parktown, and looks at the detail that makes these houses and gardens stand out the way they do.
Baker has left an enormous mark on South African architecture. He was born in Kent, England in 1862 and studied at the Royal School of Architecture. He first moved to South Africa in 1892, made friends with Cecil Rhodes, who sponsored his further education in Europe, before returning to South Africa, after which he spent 20 years here.
Baker's designs can be seen across the country: cathedrals and churches in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria, schools and universities in Grahamstown and Johannesburg, the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the Rhodes Memorial in Cape Town, the SA Institute for Medical Research in Johannesburg, Groot Constantia in Cape Town, St Anne's College Chapel in Pietermaritzburg, residential houses in Johannesburg. . .
Pilrig House
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First stop on the tour is Pilrig House at no 1 Rockridge Road, a classic Baker house built in the arts and crafts style, with a stone and mortar base up to first level, and the second storey with a rough mortar finish to imitate an earth look, painted white. It has a shingle roof with several tall chimneys and a balcony facing south, where the garden was.
Raimundo Cardoso, a conservation architect, conducted the tour.
"In 1902, Baker was a lucky man - he had the patronage of Lord Milner, and he was invited to the Transvaal to design and build residences for the British colonials," says Cardosa.
At the time you could build a house that looked like a house back in England or Scotland, by ordering the materials from catalogues - from steel ceilings to broekie lace to the latest plumbing ware. This prefabricated material was the way many early Johannesburgers built their houses. Those before them, the Voortrekkers, had built their houses using the same materials the indigenous people around them had used - mud, reed, rocks, with manure on the floors.
Of course the British and the mining barons didn't want to use these materials, and people like Milner didn't want the prefabricated look, so the answer was an architect who could appreciate what was needed.
"Milner wanted to show that the British had arrived and they wanted to live in houses that had gravitas," adds Cardoso.
Pilrig has small windows - the British didn't want too much bright sunlight entering the rooms - and has an inviting verandah with white pillars leading to a relaxing patio to sit and enjoy the garden. The garden was a large orchard, with apple, plum and cherry trees. This area is now occupied by Pilrig Place, an office block and a very unimaginative building.
On the corner of the property was the coach house, still standing and with lots of charm - with a shingle roof, and wooden slates below the roof. There used to be a tennis court in the parking area of Pilrig Place. In the garden where there is now a sunken garden, it is believed there used to be reservoir.
An interesting feature of the house is the sundial on the patio wall - it is made for the northern hemisphere and therefore shows ten o'clock to be two o'clock.
Pilrig House is a national monument and it is believed that the name comes from a suburb in Edinburgh. It is a good example of the arts and crafts style: very simple, good proportions, use of natural materials like stone, sand and timber, and the result is a very attractive house.
Next door is St Margaret's, also a Baker house and now too a national monument.
St Margaret's was built in 1905 and is not visible from the road, but what a pleasure it is to walk up the driveway through what must be one of the most stunning gardens in Johannesburg. It is designed by landscape architect Patrick Watson, who also designed the gardens at the holiday resort the Cascades Hotel at Sun City and its extension, the Lost City, in the North-West Province.
The driveway has three old oak trees marking its entrance, and charming old lamps on either side of the gate posts. The driveway then curves up a slight rise and the eye is caught by a rock structure on the right, with water cascading down the rocks, over the brick driveway and into a fish pond on the other side, with lawns adding elegance. The pond is filled with healthy looking koi fish (too big for the herons?) and demands that one stop and take in the surrounds.
"The water over the driveway symbolises a transparency or transition as it goes into the pond. It is used as a mirror with reflective qualities," says Cardoso, becoming contemplative.
The eye is caught by a gazebo up on the right above the waterfall, made of a range of materials and with diminishing proportions as it reaches roof level. It was awarded a merit award by the Institute of South African Architects in the early eighties. Above the garage there used to be a Japanese contemplation garden but it no longer exists.
Behind the koi pond hidden behind trees and shrubs is a mysterious set of six columns, also believed at one time to have been a small contemplation garden. The pond leads out into the winding stream that runs and curves down the other side of the rise, towards the house.
The entrance to the house has a welcoming arched wooden door, with each side of the doorway enhanced by fuchsias, hydrangeas, wild rhubarb yesterday, today and tomorrow shrubs and arum lilies.
The front rooms of the house are filled with wood - wooden floors, wooden ceiling, wooden doorways, wooden furniture - and brick fireplaces, recessed windows, classic black and white tiles and Persian rugs.
The house is now owned by a German investment bank and has been beautifully restored and maintained. Out the front, overlooking the valley down to Jan Smuts Avenue and up the hill of Westcliff, is a steep rock garden, with stone steps inviting one in. The house has a very pleasing profile: with tall chimneys, shingle roof, stone walls, different angled offshoots of roofs and wooden windows - god is certainly in the detail.
Stone House
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The cherry on top of Rockridge Road is Baker's house, Stone House, the first house he built in Parktown, for himself and his family.
"Now this house has gravitas," sighs Cardoso with satisfaction.
Proclaimed a national monument in 1968, Stone House was sold to the grandfather of the present owner, McKenzie, on Baker's departure for India in 1912. It was Baker's home for ten years and must be one of the few houses around that is as attractive from both the front and the back entrances.
The front door on Rockridge Road is an impressive arched wooden door, with a white-pillared atrium behind and above the door, making for an immensely pleasant space, and linking the west and east sides of the house. It has two symmetrical wings on either side, with shingle A-frame roofs. The house is built from quartzite stone taken from the ridge, and with its wooden windows and tall chimneys, is a typical arts and crafts style house.
The back of the house echoes the front arch with three stone arches on the lower floor, and a balcony above them, again with two wings on either side.
When Baker arrived on the site, there were no craftsmen, so he set up an ironmongery on site - his skills were sufficient to teach the craftsmen himself. He also had masons, metal workers and carpenters at hand. He apparently allowed the workers to deviate from his plans in an effort to encourage a hands-on building style.
Remember that when Baker built this house and looked out over the northern suburbs of Johannesburg he saw veld and rocks, and not a single tree. Those rocks were used to build Stone House but the terrain made for a very harsh, barren garden. All that has changed - Johannesburg is considered by some nowadays to be one of the largest man-made forests in the world.
Entering the garden on the west is a tennis court, a charming gazebo with a Japanese bird house on its roof, and an indigenous rock garden. Moving around the front of the house and looking down the bank, is Vera's Rose Garden, a large area filled with multi-coloured roses, and encircled by a half circle of pale pink standard roses.
The garden is completed by tall jacaranda trees, conifers, and in the rockery just below the house, is a tumble of lavendar, plumbago, rosemary, agapanthus, hibiscus and hydrangeas. Halfway down the hill is a swimming pool and in the wall surrounding the pool is a plague noting the placement of a gun over Jan Smuts Avenue, put there in the Anglo Boer War.
"This house appears to grow on the mountain itself - it is a fantastic statement. I wouldn't change anything," says Cardoso.
And if you haven't had enough of this splendour, nip across the road from Stone House and look through the fence into the garden of the office block The Galaxy, at 11 Eton Road, also a Patrick Watson garden. It consists of a very green rectangle of grass surrounded by water and masses of bright green foliage up its banks, including large forest ferns. It must be difficult to work in those offices overlooking that inviting garden.
When Baker left South Africa in 1912, after completing the masterly Union Buildings in Pretoria, he went to India where he designed the magnificent government buildings in New Delhi, amongst other buildings. Back in England he is responsible for South Africa House and India House, plus other buildings. He received a knighthood in 1926 and died in 1946, at the age of 84. His remains are buried in Westminster Abbey.
In conclusion, Doreen Greig in A guide to architecture in South Africa, says of Baker: "In the true arts and crafts tradition, he employed the finest artists and craftsmen he could find for enrichment: stained glass work, stonework and carving, wrought ironwork. All was done with an intimate knowledge of the individual task and attention to detail."
