COMPILED BY Gina Dionisio PHOTOS Dook; Jan Ras; Paris Brummer; Warren Heath; Greg Cox

From Brutalist masterpieces to modernist marvels, these homes channel the spirit of the past in bold, unexpected ways. Whether it’s sculptural forms, vintage palettes or era-defining details, each space is a celebration of retro design at its most striking.

Linksfield Ridge Home

Polish-born architect Frank Jarrett left a rather eclectic collection of landmarks across the city of Johannesburg, his works ranging from the offices of Chancellor House – the original home of Mandela and Tambo Attorneys – to the slightly less discreet Gold Reef City theme park development. In 1951, Jarrett was commissioned to build a private residence on the Linksfield Ridge for Greek timber merchant Manoussos Broulidakis, who clad the interior of the modern stone, brick and terrazzo home in glowing floor-to-ceiling wood. Thankfully, many of these features remain today. The front door is Burmese teak, the floors are covered in gleaming parquet. But perhaps most breathtaking of all are the richly varnished panels of sandblasted pine that line the eastern wall between the living area and the kitchen, and which enclose a Bond-worthy staircase leading up to the home’s bedrooms.

Read the full story on this Linksfield Ridge Home.

Modernist Home in Bishopscourt

Keurbos manages the clever trick of being both conspicuous and concealed. It stands out in the architectural sense: this Gawie Fagan-designed Modernist bungalow-style home bears no resemblance to the Neo-Georgian squares and contemporary concrete rectangles that occupy Bishopscourt’s streets. And it’s hidden both physically and conceptually: built on a steep slope, Keurbos sits well below street level on a verdant hillside. It’s a discrete structure in a discrete location, accessed via a descending panhandle driveway that requires very specific directional instructions to find. If you know anything about the late architect’s approach, you’ll know that’s all intentional. This giant of South African Modernist architecture had sense of place as one of his key design principles, and his structures all show a sensitivity to the landscape – Keurbos nestles into the hill, rather than dominating it.

Read the full story on this Modernist home in Bishopscourt.

Minimalist Joburg Home

Edoardo Villa’s journey had been a long one: from Italy to South Africa as a prisoner of war, and from classic realism to abstract modernism as an artist. After his release, he chose to stay on in Johannesburg and for a time lived and worked at the home of artist Douglas Portway in Kew, a suburb on the eastern fringe of the city.

Villa soon became a prominent figure in the local art world and in the great surge of creative innovation that lit up the middle of the century. He was able to buy the Portway house in 1959, and in 1968 commissioned Ian McLennan to design a house for him on the same property, giving him no brief and a very small budget.

Read the full story on this minimalist Joburg home.

Fresnaye Family Home

There’s something altogether contrary about designing a Fresnaye house that presides over the Atlantic Seaboard without giving a second thought to the views. But when it comes to this dazzling home, there’s no desire to follow the rules. You’ll find soft curves where you’d expect sharp right angles and, while you’re cleverly protected from onlookers, glass-walled neighbours find themselves exposed.

“They didn’t care a damn for the views,” says architect Robert Silke of Robert Silke & Partners about the homeowners’ brief. “It had to be a functioning family home – that it has views is a bonus.” But take one glance at the bleached-white, three-storey structure that looks a little like an abstract jigsaw puzzle from the outside and you know there’s more to this house than just a family home. Robert insists that “it’s a pragmatic family home, not a showpiece house”, then a moment later gleefully proclaims, “It’s a bit like a spaceship arrived in Fresnaye.” Then again, this architect has quite the contrary reputation, shunning the dominant vernacular for edgy takes on Art Deco and early minimalism that feel at once retro and fresh.

Read the full story on this Fresnaye family home.

Waterkloof House

A few years ago, when a handful of curious architects made a pilgrimage to this spectacular 1970s house in Waterkloof in Pretoria, one described it as a “time capsule”. “We’ve lived here for 48 years,” says its owner. As a result, the architecture and the furniture are perfectly preserved, looking just as she envisioned them nearly five decades ago. Everything has been meticulously maintained, and the house has an almost otherworldly, hallucinogenic quality that leaves you feeling transported in time.

It was designed by architect Petrus Paulus (Piet) van den Berg, a Pretoria architect who, while prolific, hugely versatile and tirelessly experimental over his 50-year career, seems little known outside of local architectural circles. “Piet was a great friend of ours,” says the owner. She and her husband simply wanted “something different” when they engaged him to do the design.

Read the full story on this Waterkloof House.

Art Deco Hotel

You can’t miss Tropicana – at least on paper. As you can see here, the striking hotel is a dreamy piece of confection that you could as much take a bite out of as step inside. Among its mostly monochromatic neighbours, the light-blue-and-pink Tropicana looks like it’s crowned by a permanent rainbow and staffed by My Little Ponies. Except it’s deceptively hard to spot in the flesh.

Rising from a small triangular plot of land where Sea Point’s Kloof Road forks, Tropicana’s pale blue-meets-pastel pink manages a trick of hiding in plain sight. Along with its curves and soft lines, the blue half of its exterior merges with the sea and sky for most of the day, while the pink folds it into the blush of sunset. Robert Silke, founder of Robert Silke & Partners – the architects of the building – describes it as having “an almost holographic appearance, like you’re not sure if it’s pink or blue or silver”. It’s genius… and a fortuitous stroke of luck

Read the full story on Tropicana.

Renovated Waterkloof Home

The five-bedroom house is located within a large garden in Waterkloof, a hilltop suburb to the east of Pretoria with views over the city and the Magaliesberg mountains. Although the property is not listed as a heritage resource by City of Tshwane, and is younger than 60 years so is yet to be protected by the National Heritage Council, it has been recognised for its strong architectural significance.

W design architecture studio worked with heritage consultant Nicholas Clarke to illustrate and justify all aspects of the renovation and allay concerns by local architects and the Pretoria Institute for Architecture who regard the property as being a strong representation of Pretoria Architecture.

Read the full story on this renovated Waterkloof home.

Kenilworth Home

You know, I counted every single brick in this house,” says architect Adèle Naudé Santos, smiling, as she stands looking around the main bedroom of the first house she ever designed – a solid Modernist four-bedroomer completed in 1967 and situated in a narrow, leafy avenue in Cape Town’s Kenilworth.

She may not actually be joking. Their modular layout, visible through the unplastered whitewashed walls, means you could conceivably measure the dimensions of the house brick by brick. US-based Adèle may now be a world-renowned architect, but back then she was just starting her career, and this was her first-ever build. And as if the stakes weren’t high enough, the client was her father, the late architect Hugo Naudé.

Read the full story on this Kenilworth home.

Forest Town House

The Colemans are not your average suburbanites – although chatting to the humble Audrey Coleman, now 90, you wouldn’t guess it. She and her late husband, Max, were active human-rights advocates during the apartheid years, both working for the Detainees’ Parents Support Committee, with Audrey also a long-standing and celebrated member of the legendary human- rights organisation, Black Sash.

House Coleman has major cred too. Built in the early 1980s, it’s a masterpiece of clean lines and geometric shapes and, though tailor-made to be its owners’ retirement home, it’s also a piece of South African design history. “Our son Colin was a student at Wits University and insisted that Pancho Guedes was the only person for the job,” says Audrey of their choice of architect.

Read the full story on this Forest Town house.

Pinelands Home

There’s a certain witchiness to Robert Silke‘s new family home in the Cape Town suburb of Pinelands. A darkly dramatic front gate framed by a brick archway reading Caverswall opens onto a narrow garden path, which leads you to a house that’s equal parts imposing and intriguing, with a steeply pitched, clay-tiled roof, spiral chimneys and brickwork finish – all in the same burnt-honey shade. “It’s basically a gingerbread house, right?” says Robert, taking in the facade of the 1938 Arts and Crafts Revival structure he shares with partner Gideon and their one-year-old daughter Lilith.

“Pinelands was established in the 1920s, when there was a big push around the world for an approximation of English country living,” says Robert. “There was a planner in the UK called Ebenezer Howard, who invented the suburb, which he originally called a garden city. The idea gained global traction in reaction to the Spanish flu – people felt that the way they lived in cities wasn’t healthy. Pinelands was actually the third garden city in the world.”

Read the full story on this Pinelands home.

Johannesburg House

What Toni Twidale wanted even more than a house was to live among the trees. “I wanted to see green all the time,” says Toni, who owns this home with her partner Graeme. “I wanted the outside in.” And so they decided to build a house that would, more than anything, be about the site.

The couple enlisted the help of architect Gregory Katz, known locally for his creative, experimental and often unconventional approach. Toni wanted to keep all the indigenous trees; Gregory’s brief, therefore, became something of a mathematical puzzle around fitting the dimensions of a house between the trees. In the end, he settled on two long, slim “bars”, with alternating strips of open space on either side and between them for the driveway, central courtyard and swimming pool. The two wings are connected by what Gregory calls an “umbilical cord” – a glazed corridor that steps down slightly with the slope of the site. The branches of the trees reach up and over a flat concrete roof, which is planted with wavy grass, essentially lifting what would have been on the ground up a level, and adding to the greenery.

Read the full story on this Johannesburg house.

Modernist Durban Home

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.”

Read the full story on this Modernist Durban home.

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The post 12 Retro Gems That Celebrate the Best of Mid-Century Cool appeared first on Visi.

Tropicana – a new Miami art deco-inspired hotel by Robert Silke & Partners – revels in a few playful games with its architecture, its interiors and, appropriately, its price tag.

WORDS Steve Smith PRODUCTION Mark Serra PHOTOS Greg Cox

You can’t miss Tropicana – at least on paper. As you can see here, the striking hotel is a dreamy piece of confection that you could as much take a bite out of as step inside. Among its mostly monochromatic neighbours, the light-blue-and-pink Tropicana looks like it’s crowned by a permanent rainbow and staffed by My Little Ponies. Except it’s deceptively hard to spot in the flesh.

Rising from a small triangular plot of land where Sea Point’s Kloof Road forks, Tropicana’s pale blue-meets-pastel pink manages a trick of hiding in plain sight. Along with its curves and soft lines, the blue half of its exterior merges with the sea and sky for most of the day, while the pink folds it into the blush of sunset. Robert Silke, founder of Robert Silke & Partners – the architects of the building – describes it as having “an almost holographic appearance, like you’re not sure if it’s pink or blue or silver”. It’s genius… and a fortuitous stroke of luck.

“It was supposed to be white, like the Flamingo,” says Robert, referring to the nearby Bauhaus-inspired apartment block also designed by his team. “We sort of have an unwritten office policy that our buildings must be white, especially on Sea Point Main Road. But during construction, the client, Signatura, said, ‘Don’t you want to do some colour?’

“We initially fought the idea, and I felt some resentment… I thought, ‘You want colour? I’ll give you colour.’ With the gradation concept, I thought I was presenting them with something they’d never go for. But the moment they saw it, they were like, ‘Yup!’”

Like the trick it plays on the eye, Tropicana also fools around with its architectural style. At first glance, it seems a fun homage to the kind of tropical Art Deco that Miami’s famed South Beach is known for. And it is – but it’s also playfully subversive. For one thing, the way the balconies on the corners alternate and come off the colour-graded scallops breaks all the rules of how trad Art Deco would employ this architectural device.

“The scallops should have come all the way to the ground, creating the idea of a skyscraper on the corner. Ours go off at a tangent onto the balconies, which breaks the skyscraper motif in a way an Art Deco architect would never have done. It’s actually more in line with what Paul Rudolph would have done,” says Robert, referring to the US architect of the 1960s and ’70s known for his avant-garde Brutalist buildings. Strip away the pink and blue paint, down to plain cement, and you’ll indeed have a facade that’s more than just a nod to Brutalism.

“We love that people love our buildings and that they’re crowd-pleasers – but we also try to get a bit of real architectural muscle in at the same time. ‘Good’ buildings can play to both audiences – and there are some architectural in-jokes and references in Tropicana.”

Tropicana doesn’t just laugh up its powder-blue linen shirtsleeve, though; in its own way, it’s all about inclusivity. “Context is everything. Our buildings are designed to speak to the buildings around them – the pretty ones as well as the ordinary ones,” says Robert, referring to the variety of buildings that surround Tropicana, from Art Deco to ’80s and ’90s Pomo, and contemporary black brick and steel. “The hope is that if you speak to those buildings by incorporating bits of them into your design, you acknowledge them, and perhaps help uplift them as well.”

Another stroke of genius was getting Katy Taplin and Adriaan Hugo, the interior product design duo behind Dokter and Misses, to do the furniture and lighting. As with Tropicana’s exteriors, simply replicating Art Deco furniture in the interiors would have been way too on the nose for this project – so instead, Dokter and Misses designed a series of pieces that play somewhere between old, new, Deco, Memphis Group and Futurism.

“I see a strong link between early 1980s Memphis Group furniture and Art Deco,” says Robert. “When Memphis started to appear in Milan in the late 1970s, founder Ettore Sottsass’s pieces were basically all retro Deco. The Miami Art Deco revival movement started in the mid- ’70s, and was an avant garde part of design culture in the late ’70s and early ’80s, with Memphis picking up directly where Deco left off. The Joburg Memphis vibes of Dokter and Misses were, therefore, perfect.”

There is some clever fun and games going on with the interior materials, too. As game as the folks at Signatura were for Tropicana’s whimsical design, the budget was still constrained by the parameters of a spreadsheet. Fortunately, Art Deco was always about being decorative on a limited budget, creating cheap forms with bricks and plaster. If you wanted “premium”, Art Nouveau was more your bag. Deco was for the masses.

Not only does Tropicana’s curved exterior represent that affordability, but Robert, Adriaan and Katy have been pretty canny in mixing expensive and cheap materials. The terrazzo tiles in the passageways and on the kitchen floors and kickplates are, for example, quite pricey – or, as Robert puts it, “reassuringly expensive”. It allowed the team to use cheaper materials such as marble-look melamine for the bedside tables and coffee tables (as decorators actually did in Deco apartments back then), as well as employ clever tricks like installing wonderfully retro ceiling lights made from sheets of MDF, and cheese-light fittings from a local supplier.

The ceramic wall tiles are another example: they’re called Project Grey, and were purchased at Tiletoria for R130-R140/m2. You simply can’t get better value than that. What you can do is pimp them up by adding pink epoxy grout; together, they make a statement.

And then there are the blue vinyl floors. Instead of the ubiquitous faux-oak vinyl go-to favoured by most developers, Robert chose a standard vinyl that’s usually installed in hospitals. It’s not just hard-wearing but, in blue, it’s also fun – and, again, it’s period-correct for 1930s Deco. “It speaks of the sea and the sky… and the budget. It’s, like, R250/m2,” he says. “That said, I don’t think we could have got away with it if we didn’t have the Dokter and Misses furniture!”

The end result of all this is a slice of escapism, which is exactly what you want when you’re on holiday. Holidays need to be memorable – and yes, Intstagrammable – something Tropicana offers in spades. “Pink might not be your favourite colour,” says Robert. “You might not have it in your home. But you would endure it, and probably even enjoy it, for a few weeks while on vacation.” robertsilke.com | dokterandmisses.com

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The post Tropicana: A Colourful Art Deco-Inspired Gem by Robert Silke appeared first on Visi.

WORDS Steve Smith PRODUCTION Mark Sera PHOTOS Jan Ras

There are ceramics everywhere. On one wall, colourful plates feature designs by quirky South African artist Walter Battiss; on another, a mosaic of plates plays home to a school of koi; next to that, on five shelves, a collection of vases shows a range of colour from earth tones to turquoise. And that’s just the main living area.

It’s hardly surprising – the apartment does, after all, belong to Mervyn Gers, whose company Mervyn Gers Ceramics is renowned for dinnerware ranges that are much loved by high-end restaurants, luxury lodges and private homes, both here and abroad. Despite his obvious talent, you may be surprised to know that Mervyn only began working as a ceramicist in 2008 after a successful radio career as the station manager for KFM – he sold his shares in that business when it was sold to the SABC. “I played around with renovating flats and houses, and then started thinking about something concrete to do,” he recalls. For this lifelong collector of ceramics, what was initially a hobby slowly developed into something more. One of his houses had space for a studio, so he installed a couple of kilns, and taught himself fi ring techniques, as well as how to make different glazes.

Once his work began to sell steadily, Mervyn took over a failing ceramics business in Paarden Eiland on the outskirts of the city. “One of the companies I bought clay from was closing down; they offered me the premises along with all equipment. It was a great deal – it came with two big kilns, four small ones, and five people. I re-employed everyone. The original idea was that we’d produce tableware so I’d have time to create sculptures or whatever else I wanted to do. Next thing, we employ 54 people… and I’m still trying to find the time for what I want to do!”

What he has found time to do is the renovation of this beautiful apartment. It used to belong to VISI’s illustrious former editor, Sumien Brink – and one could argue that it’s a brave man who attempts to change a home whose previous owner had such impeccable taste. Not one to shy away from a challenge, Mervyn has gone about layering his own personality into the two-bedroom fl at. “I know Sumien well, and I had been here a few times previously,” he says. “One day, she told me she was selling it, so I asked how much she wanted for it. I bought it on the spot. I think that when you walk into a space, you either immediately fall in love with it, or you don’t. It’s a gut feeling.”

While buying, renovating and selling properties over the years, Mervyn always hankered after something with volume. “There’s an old, repurposed synagogue in Vredehoek that I’d often walk into and think, ‘I would love to live here.’” So, with its 3.5m-high ceilings, this apartment in the middle of downtown Cape Town was perfect. He changed the original layout, retaining the two-bedroom configuration but increasing the bathroom count from one to two-and-a-half. “It’s very different from the way it looked before. It was a rather feminine space, with a lot of stuff in it, and I wanted something a little more minimalist – something that could breathe more.”

With that in mind, painting all the walls white was a conscious decision, and one that has created the ideal backdrop to his collection of ceramics. “My interior decor taste is varied. I like Victorian, Deco, Mid-century, ’70s German Brutalism, kitsch… It’s a mix. It’s the same with ceramics. I inherited pre-Victorian stuff from my mother and I’ve always bought old pieces at markets, so I’ve got loads.”

“When I travel, I seek out rentals in the heart of a city with an aesthetic that’s soothing, and a reflection of the local environment, culture and history,” says Mervyn. “Seeing this apartment reminded me of holiday stays in Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Istanbul and Barcelona – places I rented that echoed the art and architecture of their surroundings. I’d developed and sold properties, but never entered the rental market. And I thought how fantastic it would be to create something in Cape Town’s CBD that’s not the usual holiday stay, but accommodation that’s authentic and heartfelt, a place where people want to hang out. I see this as ideal for travellers who want a true home away from home, as well as a venue for events and launches. And, of course, I love relaxing here when it’s not occupied.”

Along with working as a rentable space, the apartment is a vibrant showroom for the company, housing pieces from the start of Mervyn’s creative career, like the outsized vases and trademark Koi designs, as well as recent experiments with reactive glazes and metallic lustres. For the moment, he’s happy for it to be a bolthole from his daily life, where he can sit in his favourite Deco chair – “I love its ergonomics; you can have your cup of coffee right next to you without needing a table” – and admire his vast collection of beautiful ceramics. | mervyngers.com

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The post Inside Mervyn Gers’ Cape Town Apartment appeared first on Visi.

Join architect Brian McKechnie on a journey through 1930s Johannesburg as we continue our series on South Africa’s most iconic buildings. This time we visit an Art Deco jewel – the Ansteys Building.

Last night, I dreamt of downtown Johannesburg. The dream stretched out across acres of grey, a mirage of thousands of square concrete paving blocks – crooked, marked with pieces of chewing gum and mottled by tens of thousands of footprints. Frantic blurs of colour enveloped me – trousers, skirts, shoes, shopping bags, all offset against the concrete. The pavers began to chart a meticulously scaled map of the city centre.

An enormous living page of graph paper, anchoring urban intersections, movement and latent possibility. The dream felt like late afternoon; the sun’s rays hung long and low, heavy with that particular Highveld luminosity. I close my eyes again; the image ascends above the street and the city haze calms. A lone edifice emerges, suspended above the fever, ethereal. Ansteys.

The basics

Ansteys is located at the corner of Rahima Moosa (formerly Jeppe) and Joubert Street in downtown Joburg. The 1936 design was penned by Emley and Williamson Architects as the flagship location for the famous Norman Anstey and Company department store. The skyscraper sits atop an elegantly curved podium, clad in green terrazzo with ribbon window bands. Two ziggurat- shaped towers rise above the base, with cylindrical glazed windows at their intersection. The towers – topped by a dramatic Art Deco flag mast – accommodated offices for the store, as well as lavish penthouses on the top levels.

Not many people know that…

At a time when Johannesburg was obsessed with being the most modern, up-to-date and luxurious city, Ansteys was the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere. Playwright, activist and secret uMkhonto we Sizwe member Cecil Williams kept a penthouse on the 16th floor. When Nelson Mandela was captured by apartheid police in Howick in August 1962, he was travelling the country posing as Williams’s driver.

At its zenith

The department store was famed for its artful window displays, carefully curated behind plate glass-and-chrome shopfronts, which were curved to avoid reflections from car headlights. Evening strollers could marvel at the latest fashions from Paris and London after dining at the Carlton or an evening of theatre at His Majesty’s. The fourth floor housed a tea terrace, where waiters in tan suits and red sashes attended white-gloved ladies, while models – known as “mannequins” – discreetly presented the threads on sale in the store below. The building’s careful design provided upper-floor residences with ample sunlight, views and airy, spacious interiors. Select penthouses included floor-to-ceiling bay windows and linear balconies, opening out to sweeping vistas across the city, past golden mine dumps to distant rocky ridges.

The state of play today

The decline of high-street shopping and exodus of capital from the city centre left Ansteys with an uncertain future. After a failed bid for demolition, the building was donated to the National Monuments Council, and sectionalised in 1994, providing the first affordable inner-city housing in Joburg. At the close of the 20th century, it again became a pioneering development – no longer the tallest or most luxurious in Africa, but rather a place where people of all races and different incomes could own a home in a much-loved heritage monument in the heart of the city. Today, the building accommodates a diverse array of residents, from professionals to clothing designers, artists and ordinary inner-city families.

Why the building matters

Almost 90 years after its opening, Ansteys remains a design icon. Its resilience is testament to the enduring quality of good design.

We love it because…

Ansteys is one of South Africa’s most recognisable Art Deco structures – a steadfast anchor and an enduring monument to the faded glamour of the once Golden City.

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The post Building an Icon: Ansteys Building appeared first on Visi.

Here’s a sneak peek at Arbour Nature Estate a new development in George penned by Robert Silke & Partners. If you’re familiar with Robert’s retro-modern work, you’ll know it’s something special…

If you’re a fan of VISI, you’ll know we’re a fan of the buildings designed by Robert Sike & Partners. The apartments, hotels and homes he has conceived illustrate a signature style that looks back to anything from Deco, to Bauhaus, Tropical Modernism and PoMo, translating those aesthetics into a contemporary style that sees his thoroughly modern creations sit very comfortable in among Cape Town’s heritage architecture.

He’s got a couple of new projects on the go – and you’ve had a glimpse of the PoMo inspired Spindle – and here’s the latest… Arbour Nature Estate in George. To be completed by 2026 it’s a development that Robert describes as “Jungle Modernism”. On its riverside site, Arbour Nature Estate will offer everything from homes and apartments, to community amenities like a resort-style lifestyle centre with a double-storey clubhouse, heated outdoor swimming pool, padel court and an open-air cinema.

This is not the first housing estate you have designed, right? 

Long ago we designed Silwerkloof, a neo-Cape Dutch PoMo estate (72 houses) in Plattekloof in the 2000’s, so it’s been nearly twenty years.

So what was the brief for Arbour Nature Estate?

David Cohen (the MD of Signatura) had been talking to us for some years about his dream of developing a completely-immersive modernist environment; a “new town” where we could design all the aesthetic details, and where every way you look would be sculptural “white plastic” modernism. So when Signatura came accross 11ha of prime riverfront land in the centre of George, David called me (it might have been New Year’s Day 2022) to say it’s time for us to build that “new town” we’d been talking about.

And what inspired the design … and how would you describe its aesthetic?

The environment is the starting point of course. Half of the site is a sensitive riverine forest, and the other half is lawn. So the first decision was not to touch the forest or the river, which means that the estate has its own private nature reserve. The Garden Route’s coastal temperate climate is “sub-sub-tropical”, which means that George can have trees and plants that we can only dream of in Cape Town … and thus we conceived of Jungle Modernism, where curvaceous smooth white walls juxtapose against Strelitzias, palms, Cape Chestnut trees and the occasional Loerie.

Who is this estate aimed at and how does the design meet the needs of the community it’s aimed at?

Signatura’s starting point was to develop a new Garden Route suburb with a broad range of accommodation – something for everyone. Having said that, people don’t come to George to live in a micro-flat, but rather they come here for a better lifestyle. Thus the smallest living units range from 60m² 2-bedroom apartments ; to 140m² 3-bedroom duplexes; to 170m² 3-bedroom simplexes ; to 220m² 4-bedroom villas. But the estate also needs a heart and soul and a communal focus. To this end there’s a multi-storey clubhouse and sports centre, with entertainment deck, padel tennis court, large pool, fire pits and braai terraces – with a massive sculptural projection wall for night-time drive-in-style movies and major televised sports events. There’s even separate dog parks for small and large dogs. A Garden Route utopia celebrating the best of the South African way of life.

In designing a housing estate, what are the specific architectural challenges you need to solves during the design and construction of the housing estate… and how did you overcome them while preserving the architectural style?

Architects (whose buildings are often object-orientated) sometimes struggle with urban design, because good urban design is rather about developing a keen interest in the spaces between those buildings. The key to a successful and beautiful urban environment is to design the homes in such a way as to create desirable, sheltered and defensible spaces between the houses. We designed a system of closes and cul-de-sacs, whereby smaller neighbourhoods of houses are clustered around quiet, landscaped dead-end lanes – the kind of environment where you might still find kids playing cricket in the street.

What choice of materials and construction techniques will be used in the project, particularly with regard to creating the architectural style you’ve designed?

Our “house style” is very much centred around the traditional Western Cape vernacular of white-plastered masonry walls with parapets around their roofs. Just because we’re building in the Garden Route doesn’t mean we have to chop down forests in order to clad buildings in timber – which is environmentally pretentious and detrimental. Rather we use ubiquitously-available sand and clay and “white-wash” to make our architecture – somewhat like the Cape Dutch – and we take pure joy from extracting the maximum quantum of sculpture from tried-and-tested Cape construction techniques that intersect happily with the principles of pure international modernism.

Are there any sustainable design principles and innovative technologies that will be used to enhance its functionality and reduce its environmental impact?

The apartment buildings have very large north-facing roofs that will be fully-exploited for solar power collection for the use of the development, whilst there will be not one conventional electric geyser in any of the estate’s 179 dwelling units. The entire electrical system is designed to be impervious to load shedding. Half of the site comprises a riverine forest, which remains entirely undisturbed.

Other than that the estate is embarking on a rehabilitation process to replace exotic trees and shrubs with indigenous. 5ha of flat Kikuyu (a proverbial dessert of lawn) is being replaced with 179 comfortable new households and associated landscaping – which is in itself a gift to the environment.

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A forgotten gem – and a secret garden – were uncovered and celebrated in this curvaceous Parkview house alteration that pays homage to its hidden architectural roots.

“I think the sunset sold it,” says architect Vedhant Maharaj. The outlook from this house on the crest of the Parkview ridge stretches across 270 degrees of the city’s urban forest – and the sunsets are spectacular. The character of this unexpected Modernist gem was buried beneath various additions and alterations, not least a steel mono-pitched roof that had been plonked on top. “But it had good bones. You could see that,” says Vedhant, who founded Rebel Base Collective, the multidisciplinary architecture and design studio, in 2017. A little investigation revealed the home had been designed in 1935 by a firm called Small and Schaerer, who created several well-known Joburg buildings, including Central Fire Station. By the 1930s, they were known for “an eclectic Modernistic style, with balconies jutting out at irregular spacings” as one account on architectural heritage database Artefacts describes it. It also mentions that their designs “tend towards the picturesque” – an approach that emphasises not just formal beauty but also a sense of the sublime.

Now owned by Nothando Ndebele, this Parkview home fits that description pretty well. With the tacked- on additions cleared away, a double-storey Modernist house emerged with, as Vedhant describes it, “little pull-out balconies and cubes and blocks”. Inside, many of the original features remained intact, from the wooden floors to the sweeping, Art Deco-inflected staircase and balustrade. Vedhant and Nothando both refer to the soaring interior as having something of the “church” or “cathedral” about it.

Even more of a surprise: buried beneath the overgrown vegetation below the house was the skeleton of a long-lost garden that dated back significantly further than the house. Extensive terraces and stone retaining walls with built-in benches, stone paths, columns and even a viewpoint of sorts – a gazebo with a breathtaking outlook – were uncovered as renovations began. It has subsequently been beautifully landscaped by Tim Steyn, creating a magical park-like setting for the sleek home above it.

With the house stripped back to its core, Vedhant could figure out its proportions and understand its essence. His idea was to offset the old and the new rather than try to blend them seamlessly. He saw the additions as “contemporary clip-ons” that would emphasise the views and create outdoor living and entertainment spaces around the edges of the original structure. He also sought to soften the overtly masculine, vertical character of the architecture, while emphasising some of its more thoughtful detailing, such as the intricate steelwork and the sensitive use of mass and shadow. To integrate the old and new, a finely drawn canopy creates a graceful, curving line, expanding the living areas and extending outwards on one side to form a slender pavilion (with roof garden) that leads to a swimming pool perfectly placed to reflect those orange sunsets.

The additions are finely cast in concrete that’s been left in its raw state – not only to distinguish it from the original sections, but also to express and celebrate the craft of building, which for Vedhant is a profound part of the meaning of any architectural project. The interiors, rather than being open-plan, are more what you might call “broken plan” – interlinked but separate.

As a collector of art with an eye for vintage design, Nothando was largely responsible for the interiors. While the house was being built, she was quietly treasure-hunting in Joburg’s vintage stores, and had amassed some lovely restored Modernist and Art Deco furnishings. Without being too premeditated – “It was about how you create a beautiful space in any given room,” she says – she’s created a remarkable dialogue with architecture.

She was delighted that there was plenty of wall space to hang art. “This house was almost like a blank canvas,” she says. She’s made a pastime of visiting artists in their studios and talking to them about their work, so hers is a very personal collection. “When I see a work, I remember when I sat with the artist and what we discussed,” she says. “There are good memories there.”

Each area of the house has a lounging, gathering or entertainment space: somewhere to sit and chat, from a kitchen lounge to sleek Modernist chairs in the cellar, and even a chaise in the dressing room. Every aspect of the house, Vedhant says, offers an opportunity to “see it and feel it and experience it”. It has been designed to be lived in and enjoyed, not just to be functional.

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Renowned chef Luke Dale Roberts’ latest culinary endeavour, SALON, takes guests on a global culinary journey, with an array of dishes inspired by his cooking and travels from around the world.

Luke is well known for his predecessors, which includes The Pot Luck Club and The Test Kitchen Fledgelings in Cape Town and The Shortmarket Club in Johannesburg which all won Eat Out stars at the 2022 Eat Out Woolworths Restaurant Awards.

Luke says: “From the start, I wanted the feel of this new restaurant to draw on the concept of a traditional European salon. It’s created a space that is as much about the food and drinks as the people around you.”

The striking interiors at the restaurant (situated at the Woodstock Biscuit Mill’s Silo Building) was conceived by interior designer Maurice Paliaga. The concept of the space was to juxtapose contemporary elements with textures and tones that highlight and pay homage to the concept of a traditional salon as well as the heritage of the building.

Guests are greeted at SALON through a sparkling golden portal, a bold and modern entrance to a pared-back and traditional space featuring Victorian-style floors and marble-topped bistro tables that exude Parisian flare. To make a space that gives an encompassing feel was a task for Maurice, working with the natural grid-like bones of the historical Silo Building. To soften the square dimensions of the room, he added golden domes and Art-Deco paintings, complimented with Venetian plasterwork and vintage-style filament lamps, creative a textural and warm experience for visitors.

“Luke also felt it was important that SALON was broken up into various areas, and so our plan created a general seating area backed by an elegant bar and banquettes, while intimate dining spaces feature just behind a series of arches,” explains Paliaga, who has created spaces for thoughtful conversation and edible adventure.

The SALON menu marks something of a return to the heady days of Luke’s seminal restaurant, The Test Kitchen. 

“The ‘Dark Room’ experience was, for me, the high point of The Test Kitchen at the time, so I decided to emulate that here at SALON,” says Dale Roberts. “On the Journey menu, I’ve taken each country that I’ve worked in and created a signature dish from that country’s culinary heritage. I really wanted this menu to be small, focused and interactive. I want people to come along on a voyage that really shows my evolution and influences as a chef.”

The Journey menu takes guests to each country that Luke has worked in and showcases his evolution as a chef and his various influences along the way. Part of that journey, he says, has been building teams of talented people, and working alongside Dale Roberts in creating the menu was Carla Schulze, Head Development

The Journey menu is priced at R1100 per person, with a condensed version of four courses – The Explorer – available at R550 per person. These menus are also available as a pairing menu with dishes matched to one of the small-batch wines, beers and sake. 

SALON is open from Tuesdays to Saturdays, and guests can reserve their “Journey” or “Explorer” timeslots between 6pm and 9pm. Bookings can be made online.

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The Flamingo looks absolutely nothing like anything else on Sea Point’s Regent Road… but then again, what would you expect from the team who designed it?

Situated in the middle of Fresnaye and the Sea Point Promenade, and wedged between a combination of dated flats, same- same modern apartment blocks and an excess of commercial entities, is The Flamingo. As with all structures designed by architects extraordinaire Robert Silke & Partners, nothing about this building is ordinary. Known for his love of Art Deco, Modernism and PoMo, Robert refers to The Flamingo’s aesthetic as “Bauhaus on heat”. Unlike the uninspired steel-and-glass high-rises infiltrating Cape Town’s Atlantic Seaboard and CBD, The Flamingo – similar to the architecture studio’s Tuynhuys apartments in the city centre and Anew Hotel in Green Point – is a breath of fresh air, with curved white walls, black accents and a spectacular glass-bricked eight-floor stairwell that makes you want to up your step count rather than take the soundless and speedy lift.

READ MORE: Architecture Round-up: 6 Outstanding Projects by Robert Silke

Commissioned by Signatura, with whom Robert has worked before, the brief was to create something compact and fun. “They came to us because they’re familiar with our work, and they knew we would give them something completely different from what is generally built in this area,” he says. “The development’s main goal was to be able to offer modern, exciting, fully self-catering micro-apartments, predominantly for holiday rentals and the Airbnb market.”

Each of the building’s 71 units has been smartly designed to be as compact as possible, with clever space-saving solutions and all the essentials required for a fully functioning apartment. Every unit has a sitting area, a kitchen (with glass hob, stove, microwave and fridge), a sleeping area, a bathroom with a shower, and a tiny balcony. With the primary studio apartments (there are a few one-bedroom units too) measuring only 25m2, the word “micro” is not being used lightly. However, thanks to their shrewd design, the spaces do not feel cramped. All front-facing units are cranked at a 45-degree angle to maximise views across Fresnaye and towards Lion’s Head, while the 16 sea-facing ones benefit from views towards the Atlantic Ocean. In addition to framing the vistas, floor-to-ceiling sliding doors in each unit allow light to stream in from the balconies, which are staggered and cleverly concealed from neighbouring apartments for complete privacy.

Another notable attribute, inspired by the building’s namesake, is the muted shade of pink that ties all the components together – from walls painted in Plascon’s Grandma’s Pearl to soft furnishings that mimic the colour. The team from Weylandtstudio were commissioned to create all the custom-designed furnishings, working together with the architects to execute their vision for the interiors.

And while The Flamingo’s insides are undoubtedly stellar, its facade is simply something else. “Creating five identical, perfect silos using square bricks and plaster is no easy undertaking, but these cylindrical shapes are a defining feature of the block,” says Robert of the exteriors. “The builders, Alpha Omega, called on Mogamat Jamie, an experienced plasterer, to achieve this – and he did a phenomenal job. The Flamingo is now the pièce de résistance in his legacy of work.”

Standing on the sidewalk taking it all in, you’ll notice that Sea Point’s newest arrival certainly captures the attention of passers-by, almost all of whom are delighted by its futuristic fabulousness. Unfortunately, since all of the units were sold pretty much immediately, a fleeting look from the outside is all you’re likely to get… unless you make a booking on Airbnb.

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Memorable design will have your looks turning from lingering to lustful at New Orleans’s idiosyncratic Maison de la Luz Hotel.

Ask anyone what it means to reinvent design-hotel luxury for the 2020s, and Kelly Sawdon is best poised to answer. A partner at Atelier Ace – the studio known for its creative work on the global collection of Ace Hotels – Kelly was tasked with converting New Orleans’s 1908-built City Hall annex into what the company considers its first foray into luxury properties. The former office building, with its imposing edifice complete with Beaux-Arts flourishes, reveals little of its now offbeat interior.

Enlisting the help of Pamela Shamshiri of the brother-sister interiors team behind LA’s Studio Shamshiri multidisciplinary design firm, Kelly set about conceptualising the hotel by questioning contemporary luxury. “New Orleans is such a complicated, beautiful and layered city; we wanted to do something that really celebrates that on a more human scale,” she says.

“We asked a lot of questions about what luxury is right now, and what the Ace version of that is,” adds Pamela, citing nonagenarian style icon Iris Apfel as an influence on the maximalist aesthetic. Intimacy, a strong sense of place and New Orleans’s multicultural heritage were key to the look.

The outcome is a hotel that’s reminiscent of a worldly collector-traveller’s townhouse. “It’s almost like a quirky residence; there are aspects of it that really, truly do feel like a home,” says Pamela.

Maison de la Luz is nothing short of audacious, and a welcome assault on the senses. The Art Deco lobby makes for a cinematic entrance, one that’s given next-level impact by a chequered floor and Wes Anderson-style concierge desk. Complete with vintage lamps, period fonts and pigeonholes for silk-tasselled key fobs, the desk sets the tone for the guest experience.

So too do the original twin staircases: thoughtfully restored, they anchor the entrance. “We just dusted in the gold,” Pamela says of the colour added to their intricate metalwork to enhance their French detailing. Glass cabinets housing antique-store finds, and framed ceramic snakes forming sailing knots that reference the Mississippi’s maritime endeavours, add personality to the space.

Nothing shouts multicultural quite like an assortment of collectibles, including artworks of ancient Egyptian pharaohs, African masks, festive Indian headwear and torsos referencing Greek antiquity. Their display in the guest lounge has a fun pick-’n’-mix approach. Positioned at eye level and above, they draw attention upwards, encouraging an appreciation of the grandness of the high-ceilinged space. They are the room’s showstoppers, and are paired with understated velvet armchairs and banquettes in a playful, jewel-toned palette.

Completing the scheme are colourful custom carpets created in partnership with Christopher Farr and depicting menacing wild animals. Pamela describes the space as madcap, and one that deliberately references global iconography, thereby acknowledging the city’s diverse past.

The breakfast room offers a dramatic change of mood from the hotel’s other public areas, its airy freshness a contrast to the prevailing drama. Here Pamela celebrates the outdoors, despite it being a space that largely shuts out views of the neighbourhood beyond. Visuals of overscaled botanicals in Delft blue, and taking the form of leafy foliage fussed over by bees, grace the white walls. Wicker chairs surround scalloped dining tables. These, and the trompe l’oeil forms of the striped tent-like ceiling, conjure the decorative trimmings of a Louisiana garden party.

“New Orleans is a town of pirates and ghosts, and when you walk around, you’re very aware of different spiritual influences,” says Pamela. The private salon speaks to this, and is as rich in mysticism and Southern darkness as the town of Savannah is in John Berendt’s Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil. Saturated in night-time blues and gold, the room’s colours are not its only nod to the skies above: framed celestial maps, astrological charts and vintage diagrams of heavenly eclipses add an erudite edge. The spiritual realm isn’t far from reach, as the room’s fringed stools, studded sofas, alabaster urns and dimmed sconces intentionally lend the space an occult mood fit for a séance…

For more information, visit maisondelaluz.com.

Looking for more architectural or travel inspiration? Take a look at the Hôtel Les Deux Gares in Paris.

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Decorative and sculptural, Art Deco was a statement of progress and celebration, where form made the greatest impression.

“Buildings that resemble vacuum cleaners, refrigerators and rocket ships.” That is how Cape Town architect Robert Silke simplifies the Art Deco aesthetic. Living in an Art Deco building himself – the Holyrood apartment block in Queen Victoria Street, built in 1938 – Robert is a passionate proponent of the movement that infiltrated art, fashion, jewellery, automobiles, furniture and architecture in the years between the two World Wars.

His first major project was to turn one of Cape Town’s most recognisable buildings of this style, the Old Mutual building in the CBD, into an apartment block. The reinforced-concrete structure, clad in granite, holds another telltale Art Deco signature: stylised scenes and motifs on the façade – these portraying African indigenous cultures, carved into the stone.

Art Deco got its name from Paris’s 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes (International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts), which recognised a new post-WWI style that combined craftsmanship with materials such as ebony, ivory and marble. Notable features were geometric lines – said to be influenced by Mayan art and the structures of ancient Egypt – and a rich colour palette. This was a period to show off and rejoice.

As silent films were punched with sound, movie theatres became more elaborate in response, with many of these buildings still being some of the best preserved examples of the Art Deco style. The age of ocean travel was also doused with this air of evolution, and France’s leading decorators at the time, André Mare and Louis Süe, decked ships in the movement’s ornamented style. Christofle silverware and Lalique glassware embraced this new approach to design, and even Cartier jewellery incorporated more colourful gemstones into ever more embellished settings. “Art Deco celebrated the technology of the here and now,” says Robert, “but it also celebrated – with excitement and optimism – the possibilities of the future.”

In the US, the Chrysler Building, completed in 1930, became a high point of this style, its sunburst-patterned spire shining in reflective stainless steel. Later in the ’30s, the ziggurat (stepped) rooflines that had dominated the style transformed into curved corners and long horizontal lines with nautical features, such as the railings found on boats and porthole windows. This form of Art Deco – known as Streamline Moderne – is particularly prevalent in Miami and Los Angeles.

Our own cities of Durban and Springs were influenced by this period too; and Robert lists the Bloemfontein post office with its stone carvings, and Johannesburg’s Ansteys Building as other local gems from the Art Deco years.

Although Art Deco made way for the Modernist movement, it never fled fully. Robert considers it to have lived on in Italian Futurism and Googie architecture, and through the work of the late Pritzker Prize winner Zaha Hadid. “They’re streamlined and futuristic,” he says of the buildings that emerged from these three iterations of what he sees as Art Deco successors. “It’s not always entirely about function…”

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