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Round Studios’ Slab chandelier, inspired by the colour theories of Josef Albers, hangs next to tube light prototypes for the Wygers’ next collection. The late Paul Wygers was inspired by many design icons – including the couple’s 1958 BMW R50 motorbike, which has remained fundamentally the same since its conception in 1920 by Martin Stolle. -
The simplicity of the singular painted-steel balustrade – an element designed to be read in its purest form beside the honesty of the main building materials – is fixed only when absolutely necessary, and accentuates vertical movement. Many of architect Hans Hallen’s buildings include commissioned artworks. Similar, but larger, pieces of stained glass can be found at St Olav’s Church in Musgrave, designed by Hallen at the same time as the house. -
The simplicity of the singular painted-steel balustrade – an element designed to be read in its purest form beside the honesty of the main building materials – is fixed only when absolutely necessary, and accentuates vertical movement. Many of architect Hans Hallen’s buildings include commissioned artworks. Similar, but larger, pieces of stained glass can be found at St Olav’s Church in Musgrave, designed by Hallen at the same time as the house. -
The simplicity of the singular painted-steel balustrade – an element designed to be read in its purest form beside the honesty of the main building materials – is fixed only when absolutely necessary, and accentuates vertical movement. Many of architect Hans Hallen’s buildings include commissioned artworks. Similar, but larger, pieces of stained glass can be found at St Olav’s Church in Musgrave, designed by Hallen at the same time as the house. -
The simplicity of the singular painted-steel balustrade – an element designed to be read in its purest form beside the honesty of the main building materials – is fixed only when absolutely necessary, and accentuates vertical movement. Many of architect Hans Hallen’s buildings include commissioned artworks. Similar, but larger, pieces of stained glass can be found at St Olav’s Church in Musgrave, designed by Hallen at the same time as the house. -
In the courtyard, cast in situ concrete beams balance on brickwork screen walls with a lightness that defies their mass. Exterior floor finishes mimic the interior spaces. -
A circular skylight contrasts the angularity of the living space, while the brick walls reflect light from narrow strip windows and act as a backdrop for art and photographic prints, including works by Patrick Rorke and Colwyn Thomas. -
The house was commissioned after a trip Hallen made to Greece, and the aerial view shows the influence – a layout made up of a series of solid-walled squares and rectangles, cut into the slope of a hill. -
Designed by Paul, the Vault chandelier mimics a decorative ceiling as it hangs from concrete slabs in the dining room. -
The kitchen is a chapel of cooking, with a built-in island centred below an adjustable louvred skylight. Throughout the house, the brickwork on the floor subtly changes direction, guiding each transition into the next room. -
The downstairs guest bedroom, originally one of two, was once furnished with built-in bunk beds and desks. The Wygers paid homage to the home’s first owner by using the wood from the desks to make the headboard during renovation. -
The house allows its dwellers to choose how much light comes in. In the main bedroom, glass and louvred doors slide away to frame the view into the forest beyond, while adjustable louvres above the bed can be used to manipulate the flow of light. The oak church pew was sourced by the owners during a Karoo road trip. -
In the bathrooms, the walls soften and curve. The original easy-to-clean glossy tiles (the only light-coloured surfaces in the home) contrast with the matt tiles above, and mirror the bricks.
WORDS Jess Nicholson PRODUCTION Annemarie Meintjes PHOTOS Dook
With purity of form, nude concrete and bald brickwork, this Hans Hallen masterpiece tempers the climate, requires minimal maintenance, and has gifted its owners with fuel for inventiveness.
On first encounter, House Shaw is brutally simple: a series of three-dimensional boxes, positioned beside and on top of one another on a long, triangular site cut into one of the steep slopes that characterise Durban’s forested university suburb. It is made of face brick, concrete, louvre windows, shutters and a bit of aluminium; no need for paint, wallpaper, air conditioning – not even curtains.
The house belongs to Colleen Wygers, who lived here with her late husband, fellow architect Paul Wygers. Sadly, Paul passed away shortly after we photographed the house; with Colleen’s permission, we’ve included his observations from that interview.
Paul liked to describe the home as Modernism morphing the heritage Durban veranda home – and, when it went onto the market in 2013, the couple bought it within hours of their first viewing. Designed by Hallen and Dibb Architects in the 1960s, it had been commissioned by legal luminary Douglas Shaw. “Douglas Shaw was sitting in an Eames chair in the lounge,” recalled Paul. “We chatted briefly about art and architecture. I don’t think he wanted to leave.”
“Along with minimal maintenance, the prevailing specification back then was definitely separation,” says Colleen. “The adults lived on the top level; the five kids on the bottom. Downstairs, the bunk beds were built into triangular dormitories; there was a playroom and an escape route up to the pool – so generations need not bother one another.” Now the levels nicely separate the workspace from leisure. Along with their careers in architecture, Paul and Colleen also started a design studio that recently launched an innovative flat-pack lighting collection (read about it here) exploring the colour theories of artist and Bauhaus luminary Josef Albers. Colleen continues to run Round Studios.
“For me, this place is Hans Hallen thinking about Modernism, thinking about the site and about how his friend Douglas needed to inhabit it,” said Paul. “He is thinking about the Greek village he had just visited, his experience working on the Ocean Terminal in the Durban harbour with Polish architect and artist Janusz
Warunkiewicz. Hallen’s Scandinavian design heritage comes through too. It is not just what he had been taught or what he had been practising over the years or his thoughts on Le Corbusier. This house has so many design influences, and it is a very apt response to a very particular setting.”
Like all great modern art, it is the attention paid to detail that allows the beauty of the form to shine through. Without plaster to hide imperfections, a house made of brick and concrete must be precise to the millimetre. Electric lights must be cast in (not a cord or a pipe in sight) and skylights must be positioned to light up dark places from the start – there is even one above the built-in shoe cupboard.
“It took us years to understand the artistry of this house,” recalled Paul. “Details go unnoticed – despite us architects always looking for them – until perhaps the hundredth time you open a window, and then you understand what Hallen was trying to do. No line is perchance. Everything is thoughtful and careful. There isn’t a chunky doorframe in sight. The handles are handmade, as are the gates and the windows. What inspires me most is the way Hallen took ordinary off-the-shelf materials, experimented with them, and then made them into something bespoke and beautiful.”
On a practical level, using standard materials means not only that the building was cost-effective to build, and low-maintenance, but that the weightiness of the brick and concrete tempers the climate. “To live here is to live in complete comfort,” says Colleen. “In summer it is cool because the mass of the building acts as a heat sink, and its central positioning on the plot integrates the shady forest outside, which grows over us.”
For Paul, who spent his career working on large-scale architecture and urban design projects, being back in Durban was coming full circle. “It is like a 25-year round trip back to where I first began learning about architecture,” he said. “My work is influenced by all the places I’ve visited and lived in. Sharing this building with Colleen inspires us to continue pursuing our passion for creating and making things.”
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