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Mungo’s working museum of weaving makes a striking architectural statement next to the N2 between Plettenberg Bay and Port Elizabeth. Elements that hint of old English mills were introduced, such as the red bricks and water, the latter once essential for mills to run. Black steel sheeting and exposed interior steel beams and struts modernise the classic aspects. The eye-catching skin that conceals and covers the walkway appears to be folded and pinned like cloth. The raw timber, used throughout, will age naturally with the building. -
The entrance of the building, a graceful arch, was designed to be framed by the existing coral trees. -
The gentle curve at the back, added by Dax during the development phase to make the mill less boxy, affords the building a quirky, gravity-defying lean. -
The light falling through the slats onto the walkway changes throughout the day. It is Tessa and Dax’s favourite element of the mill, and the one that architect and artist Andrea Cristoforetti is most proud of. -
The corrugated steel sheeting used at the back of the building makes the mill resemble a modern barn. -
The production floor currently holds 15 looms. -
The 100% cotton warp that is destined to be Mungo’s Boma napkins. It takes about 3 hours to weave 20 m of fabric on the Dornier looms, whereas on the older Lancaster looms it could take as long as three weeks. -
Dax stands on the landing that leads to the staff canteen, offices and toilets, looking down at the production floor where weaver/technician Raoul Barnado is working on a loom. -
Weavers Lionell Williams and Mabel Plaatjies. As the mill is now open to the public seven days a week, more staff have been employed and trained. -
Sidney Jacobs inspects a bale of linen and carefully repairs a dropped thread. Every bale is checked before the next step in the process, laundering. -
A cabinet of pattern cards, with patterns punched by hand, for the Dornier looms. -
Weavers Lionell Williams and Mabel Plaatjies. As the mill is now open to the public seven days a week, more staff have been employed and trained. -
Mungo founder and master weaver Stuart Holding with his daughter Tessa, who oversees Mungo’s marketing and creative direction and the Cape Town store, and son Dax, who manages operations in Plett and spearheaded the development of the new mill.
WORDS Amelia Brown PHOTOS Jan Ras
The new Mungo Mill in Plett is the creative expression of the values, products and 20-year story of this family business, and a symbol of its continued growth.
In 1998 master weaver Stuart Holding was fortuitously gifted two Lancashire looms. Built in about 1890, they were the very looms he had performed his apprenticeship on in his hometown of Bentham, North Yorkshire, in the ’60s prior to setting off to discover the world. The adventure would lead him to South Africa, where he would settle and start a family.
Stuart got the looms running and began doing what he loves (and does) best: weaving. And, by celebrating an age-old craft, championing ethical production and committing to providing jobs and skills development to local people, he turned his passion into a business.
Mungo, in its very opposition to the cheap imports and textile mechanisation that could destroy it, would defy the odds and grow steadily. Seven years ago, Stuart’s children Dax and Tessa joined the business and started to streamline and strengthen each aspect of it and build the Mungo brand. In 2011 they opened a shop on the family’s property, The Old Nick Village, in Plettenberg Bay, a much-loved trading post successfully run for many years by Stuart’s wife Janet.
With a thriving online business and shops recently opened in Cape Town and Johannesburg, Mungo needed to increase its production: a larger mill went from being a dream to an imperative. It wasn’t quite as simple as erecting a building on the Old Nick property, however. There was the sizeable financial investment, red tape around developing the land, multiple stakeholders to consider in a family organisation, and questions about how to sensitively add a modern building onto a historical property.
One thing was certain: The mill would be open to the public, providing the opportunity to tell a story and share both the traditions of preindustrial and industrial weaving and the cut-make-trim process.
“People have lost touch with the way things are made,” says Dax, the driving force behind getting the mill built. “We wanted the customer to see what they’re buying being made, to make that connection.” This next chapter was set in motion when Stuart met architect and land artist Andrea Cristoforetti at an art exhibition – the person who was to take Stuart’s vision for a simple mill at the back of the Old Nick and transform it into a 900 m2 statement structure visible from the national road. Andrea’s challenge was to find the appropriate architectural language to describe a working weaving museum: a way to balance the milling function with the museum element, making it an interactive experience for the public without impeding production.
Inspiration for a walkway encased in an open-slatted wooden “skin” came from a photograph that Andrea took on a tour of Mungo’s former weaving site. A close-up of one of the looms, the image captures the simple utilitarian beauty of the multiple heddles that individually hold every thread of the warp. “I wanted visitors to walk through the ‘threads’ and, hopefully, experience some of that poetry,” Andrea explains.
Some elements weren’t negotiable, such as abundant natural light. Large windows not only provide observation galleries for visitors but also provide a bright environment for staff to work in, the opposite of traditional textile mills, which are notoriously dark, close and dirty.
“This mill represents our product,” Dax says, simply.It truly is a metaphor for Mungo. It grew as organically as the business itself: conceptualised by Stuart and Andrea two years before the first foundations were laid; evolved with the input from every family member; and finally refined and executed by Dax, a furniture designer by trade, who wove all these threads together with Poise Design.
And, like Mungo, it’s not done yet. Phase two, a 700 m2 double-storey, will one day go on the back of the building.
Take a 360-degree tour of the space here.
