At home with the Fagans

WORDS Antonia Heil PHOTOS Desmond Louw & Antonia Heil

The Fagans are as much an institution in South African architectural circles as the buildings Gawie has designed in the course of his 70-year career. With no sign of stopping just yet, the couple concedes that they’ll consider retirement when they reach 100.

Originally published on freundevonfreunden.com

Sitting around a table with Gwen and Gawie drinking a hot cup of Rooibos tea, we listen to a collection of stories experienced over almost a century. They speak about a career spanning almost 70 years, hard work and successes, and 65 years of marriage and family life.

As one of South Africa’s most celebrated architects, Gawie’s ideas concerning connecting architecture with the natural landscape were revolutionary. Over the years, Gwen played an instrumental role as a historical researcher and landscape planner in Gawie’s practice. Together they share a love of designing new buildings just as much as restoring old ones.

Gawie, you have had a major influence on South African architecture. How did everything start for you?
Gawie: I was employed by the bank Volkskas as an architect on a salary basis.
Gwen: At that time Volkskas was starting to build small Afrikaans banks all over the country. Gawie designed 50 banks from scratch in 10 years.

Gwen, how did you get started professionally?
Gwen: I was qualified as a doctor and worked full-time in the military hospital in Pretoria while we were farming and while Gawie was working for Volkskas.

You have an amazing knowledge and a brilliant understanding of material. What does a typical Fagan-building look like?
Gwen: I would say that Gawie’s work is highly inventive. He never copies anybody else and it’s inspirational. Like this house that we built ourselves. We bought the plot. Gawie was sitting in an airplane when he got the idea about how the house should look. He didn’t have paper with him at the time and the guy next to him had a cigarette box, so he drew the house on that cigarette box. If we wanted to scale anything when working on the house we referred to that first drawing. For instance, we didn’t know how tall to make the fireplace and went back to the cigarette box drawing to scale it accordingly! We still have a photograph of that sketch. I think Gawie is pretty much inspired by the local architecture and has given many lectures on what moves and inspires him and what he finds beautiful.

In 1964 you started building your house ‘Die Es’. What made you move to Camps Bay?
Gwen: We had friends living on the plot next door. It was an open plot and they said “Come buy this plot.” There weren’t many open plots like this. This one has a nature reserve on its boundaries that runs right down to the sea.
Gawie: Nobody can ever build in front of us.
Gwen: We decided to buy. It worked out well for us.

Tell me about the building process.
Gwen: The building took two years. My son and three daughters each had a job. One had to put the water into the concrete mixer, the other one the sand, the other one the stone and I tilted the mixer. We published a book about building our house.

You built the house while working full-time and finished it in two years. How did you do this?
Gwen: I used to work in the mornings at Carl Bremer hospital. In the afternoons the kids came from school and then we started working. We also built on weekends. I think people thought we were mad.

There are certain elements of your house that are significant: the unconventional roof that emulates the waves of the ocean, the big fireplace, the views. ..
Gwen: The roof is probably the only one of its kind in the world. It consists of slats of wood. I laid all these little stones in the passage as well so this is significant for me. The house is also positioned to have its back turned to the howling winds that sweep down the slopes of Table Mountain.

Do you still enjoy living in Camps Bay?
Gwen: Yes, very much, we wouldn’t live anywhere else.
Gawie: The wind doesn’t bother us.
Gwen: The trees are all planted to blot out surrounding buildings. I planted every tree and every plant. It’s a water free garden and I hardly ever do any work in it and I don’t have a gardener.

How did the two of you meet?
Gwen: My mother died of cancer when I was 18 and then I came to Cape Town, and started my second year at university. That’s when I met Gawie.

What made you and Gawie start working together?
Gwen: An earthquake. In 1969 there was a bad earthquake in the Western Cape and Gawie was on the Institute of Architects committee and they sent him with a couple of other people to assess what harm had be done to important buildings in the area. That’s what he did and then he decided that the best thing would be to spend all the money that he had been given on this project on one town. That was Tulbagh. We wrote a book about that restoration. I was employed to work on this project with him. Also when he couldn’t go out to Tulbagh to take notes on site, I did that for him and that’s when I came into the office. He found I was quite useful and so I stayed there, and I’m still there! I work on the landscaping and interiors. I help with all the research. So whenever there is a historical building we’re working on, I do the background history. I decided to specialise further and in 1995 I got my PhD in Landscape Design. That meant that I could have a little more authority. The subject of my thesis was the influence of landscapes from all over the world on our own landscape.

You have a career of almost 70 years. What building are you most proud of?
Gwen: Your mother’s house.
Gawie: Yeah.
Gwen: Gawie built that house when he was a student and still last year it was chosen as the house of the year. He did that in 1951. But you know, once you’ve finished one thing you forget about it and carry on with the next one. You don’t dwell on what you’ve done. Your mind is focused on what you have to do next.

I know it’s a silly question, but I’m going to ask it anyways. Do you ever think of retiring?
Gwen: No. Unless we get so sick that we can’t work anymore. Why should one stop doing what you enjoy doing?
Gawie: Gwen, I think we did decide that at 100 years old we’ll consider it.

Read the full interview and see the full album here.