Ilze Wolff

WORDS: Remy Raitt | PHOTOS: Heinrich Wolff

When architect couple Ilze and Heinrich Wolff plan their holidays, sandy beaches and palm trees are never factored in. Instead, they map and plot each trip around exciting buildings in the area.

With an intense passion for architecture and its social significance, Ilze isn’t only a practising architect but also runs the popular Open House Tours, where architecture buffs and other interested folk are introduced to the stories and architectural intricacies of significant local buildings.

Through this initiative, people get access to private houses or corporate buildings that might not be accessible to the general public otherwise. In some cases, the architects themselves accompany visitors on tours of their buildings to talk about their approach and designs.

Cape Town has been the focus of most of these tours, but a venture to Knysna and Plettenberg Bay has also taken place, and plans to explore Gauteng and Bloemfontein are on the cards.

“Understanding the significance of the work of our modern architects in South Africa isn’t always easy,” Ilze says. “We have to bear in mind, though, that there was an overall atmosphere of experimentation during the 30s, 40s and 50s that’s sorely lacking in contemporary architecture.”

Mapping out buildings by architects who experimented and broke away from trends, including Roy Kantorowich, Max Policansky, Pius Pahl and others, Ilze probes the architecture and social significance of her chosen buildings and invites others along for the ride. “I select the buildings by gut feel. The Max Policansky factory buildings (the focus of the next tour) have always intrigued me. It’s also personal as some of my family members worked in factories.”

SA architecture inherently political

The social history of buildings has always fascinated Ilze, and her Open House Tours have even been used to inform her Masters degree (an MPhil in Conservation of the Built Environment). “On these tours we don’t just look at what the building looks like, but also at what it represents. For me, South African architecture is inherently political and I hope that, in the future, we’ll be able to speak about buildings in the capacity of broader representations of the people’s social history.”

Although Ilze is embracing these tours as part of her academic studies, she doesn’t want them to be an academic exercise for the guests. Instead, they should be an experience in architecture that anyone is able to understand. She’s quick to explain that some of the tours, such as the Pius Pahl tour of private homes in Stellenbosch, are more widely appealing than the “nerdy tours”, including the upcoming Policansky Salt River factories tour, which is more likely to attract the “hard-core” academics and architecture students.

Besides the tours, Ilze also lectures first-year architecture students at UCT, while practising her trade under the firm name “Open House”. Her weekends are spent with her family, building their holiday home in Bonnievale.

Ilze’s life is built around her passion for architecture. Her ultimate fantasy project would be to design a clinic or school, and it wouldn’t be hard to imagine her creating a space where lives are changed and histories are written. With her overwhelming commitment to her career, it’s probably just a matter of time…

Ilze’s next Open House Tour takes place on 17 September and will explore seven Max Policansky buildings along with complementary short lectures on his work. The tour costs R320 and includes lunch.

YOUR CHANCE TO WIN: VISI is giving away three tickets to the tour! To enter, send your contact details to web@visi.co.za before 13 September 2011. Make sure the subject line reads “Ilze Wolff”.

More information: www.oharchitecture.com, studio@oharchitecture.com, tours@oharchitecture.com, www.oharchitecture.blogspot.com, +27 (0) 21 447 4182