Namaqua House, Cape Town

Looking back at this picture of Namaqua House in Cape Town I am amazed at how the colourful the deco building is compared to the later buildings surrounding it.

Even on this relatively dull day in 2003 the cream and coral colours stand out.

Namaqua House was built in 1929 to a design by architects Roberts & Small. The top floor features a cantilevered balcony on each of the two face of the corner-sited building. The Cape Town Art Deco Architecture Map indicates his is an early use of such cantilevered balconies.

The balconies and corresponding sheltering canopies are the most decorated parts of the building.

Glen Alpine, Vredehoek

This absolutely fabulous Art Deco block of flats is Glen Alpine in the Cape Suburb of Vredehoek.

Dating from 1939, Glen Alpine was designed by architect Dawood Jacobs.

The location is spectacular, in the foothills of Table Mountain overlooking downtown Cape Town.

Claradave Mansions, Vredehoek

I love the names that crop up on Art Deco buildings. Claradave Mansions, you can only wonder who Clara and Dave are.

Claradave Mansions are in Vredehoek, nestled below Table Mountain overlooking the downtown area of Cape Town.

The name above the door includes the year 1934 and it would be interesting to know whether the garage built into the nearside of the building dates from that time.

The arrangement of the twin staircases hidden behind stepped walls leading from the main central entrance is very attractive.

Apartments, Cape Town

I snapped this apartment block from one of our bus tours at the 2003 World Congress on Art Deco in Cape Town.

It is always great to see when original open balconies have been retained and no doubt the South African climate helps in this regard.

The windows are relatively small. Again this is probably a reaction to the local climate, an attempt to keep the flats cool during summer. And I do like the way they are cut through the corners of the block.

A Streamline Building in Cape Town

This streamline art deco building is in downtown Cape Town. I saw it during the 2003 World Congress on Art Deco but it wasn't part of the tour so I don't know what building it is at all.

I know where it is. Diagonally opposite Muller's Optomerists. Maybe someone from Cape Town can identify it for me.

It has this fabulous stepped clock on the corner above the verandah but looks a bit unloved.

Waalburg, Cape Town

The Art Deco Architecture Cape Town Map produced by the Cape Art Deco Society includes this building in Wale Street.

Now called Waalburg, it was originally the Sanlam and Sanlam insurance company and dates from 1932 by architects Louw and Louw.

Relief panels in bronze and Table Mountain stone depict the themes of life in south Africa.

A House Near Cape Town

On our visit to Cape Town we hired mini-van and a driver for a trip down the cape, spotting deco and wildlife as we went.

This house was just off the road on the side of a hill and I'm sure we all yelled 'Stop' simultaneously when we caught a glimpse of the colours and that amazing circular room at the front.

I like the red and blue stripes above the large curved window and the port hole near the door, but my favourite part is the eyebrow on the rectangular window on the left of the door which starts above the window and sweeps around to ground level.

Montreux Flats, Cape Town

This morning I tagged along for the encore Port Melbourne Art Deco walk repeated because the original walk two weeks ago had been so popular. It was part of the City of Port Phillip Walks Program and you may feel it is a long way from Cape Town. Frankly you'd be correct.

However, one of the walkers was originally from South Africa and remembered a particular block of flats in Queen Victoria Street in Cape Town with wonderful rounded balconies. I had been to the 7th World Congress on Art Deco in Cape Town in 2003 but I couldn't recall the flats she was referring to until Robin Grow, President of the Art Deco and Modernism Society and leader of the walk remembered a block of flats near the Gardens in downtown Cape Town.

The Company Gardens in Cape Town have an interesting history as I have found out from an article by Stewart Harris in the 7th Edition of the Vernacular Architecture Society of South Africa (VASSA) entitled How the garden grew: A brief spatial history of the Cape Town Gardens.

The gardens were founded in the 1650s by the Dutch East India Company and changed shape and purpose through successive Governments and the encroaching city to become the gardens of today.

The passage in Stewart's article which drew my attention concerned the development of Queen Victoria Street, bordering the gardens, which in the late 1920s and 1930s acquired more grand buildings including a block of flats called Montreux in 1936.

Now back to 2003 the Congress included a visit to Montreux to view a flat that had been furnished with locally produced pieces.

The furniture was fantastic but so was the metalwork on the stairways and internal balconies overlooking the central courtyard.

Not to mention the internal wooden doors with small diamond shaped windows and stepped vertical patterns both on the door panel and the surrounds.

I have no idea how I could have forgotten this wonderful block of flats.

Mutual Building, Cape Town

The Mutual Building, the former headquarters of the Old Mutual company in Cape Town, is a huge skyscraper in downtown Cape Town. Dating from 1939, it was designed by F M Glennie and Louw & Louw.

The building features many decorative features including elephants and baboons heads on the upper levels and an amazing frieze around the whole building just above street level showing the history of the colonisation of South Africa. The interior is also richly decorated.

Today though, I want to concentrate on the series of nine reliefs on the side of the building depicting the black tribal groups of southern Africa.

The carvings are exquisite and have been executed in great detail.

Each one is named although several are somewhat out of date.

If you want to know more about the peoples of southern Africa, particularily the black tribal groups, the South African Tourism website has an excellent write-up.

The tribal groups shown from left to right are :-

Xosa

Pedi

Masai

Matabele

Basuto

Barotse

Kikuyu

Zulu

Bushman

Majestic Mansions, near Cape Town

During the Cape Town World Congress on Art Deco in 2003 we were taken all over the city and nearby suburbs without any real idea (as visitors) exactly where we were. Sometimes we are a bit like sheep and, perhaps not blindly, but certainly hurriedly, we snap pics of some great buildings as we glide past.

Majestic Mansions falls into this category because I don't know exactly where it is and frankly the pictures are not that good. But the building is a little ripper.

I especially lke the concrete balconies with the small shade eyebrows above them.

The building also has some nice decoration in the raised section at the centre of the roofline.

Check out Randy Juster's photo of Majestic Mansions if you want to see the buildng in it's best light.

A House in Cape Town

This fantastic house in in Cape Town or nearby, perhaps down the Cape.

Great rounded end with stepped skyline. The stepped wall is also a nice touch.

Western Cape Legislature, Cape Town

The best part about the 1940 Western Cape Legislature building in Wale St, Cape Town by architects F M Glennie and Shuurman Stekhovan are the stone carvings of animal heads.

Antelope

Zebra

Baboon

Elephant

Warthog

Muller’s Optomerists, Cape Town

Muller’s Optomerists is a great little Art Deco in downtown Cape Town. The original building was built around the turn of the 20th century with the front added around 1920.

The combination of silver chrome and black surrounds really makes the front of this shop.

The door combines glass, and metalwork in a very stylish way. The bottom part of the door is metal, I guess to guard against an errant foot while the top two thirds are is glass with a thin metal frame dividing the pane and creating an overall curved look. Having it set into the curved edge of the building allows Muller’s to take ownership of their corner.

Beside the door and on the side of the building is a fantastic silver deco ornament. A conglomeration of geometric shapes topped with a pair of round spectacles.

Also along the side there are bands of silver lines. One 'steps' between the upper and lower windows while a second underlines the lower series of showcase windows.

Muller's is a modest building but it packs a lot of style.