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.

COMPILED BY Gina Dionisio

Fish Hoek House

As many couples did during the pandemic, Lauren Shantall and her husband Derek Eyden re-evaluated their lifestyle. To beat the claustrophobia of their new work-from-home regimen, Lauren, who runs her own PR company, and musician Derek would regularly pile into the car with their 13-year-old son Daniel, and make the trek from Rosebank in the heart of Cape Town’s suburbia to the Deep South – the colloquial name used for the slack-paced string of suburbs that hug the Cape Peninsula’s coastline. “We were waking up three, four times a week to go for sunrise swims,” says Lauren. “Covid meant that I suddenly lost 40% of my business – but it also meant that I could work from anywhere. We realised we could minimise our petrol bill and just move to live next to the ocean!”

The Mid-century Prairie-style house the couple ended up buying in Fish Hoek wasn’t exactly their architectural dream, but its lofty location against the mountain, with a view of both the Atlantic and Indian oceans, was. “It was one of those 1960s box houses, where you open the front door and walk into a rectangle,” says Lauren. “Derek and I knew roughly what we wanted to do. We measured the space, made little scale drawings and cut out pieces of furniture that we’d move around, trying endless configurations.”

Read the full story on the Fish Hoek house.

Kenilworth House

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 the Kenilworth house.

Greenside Home

It takes a good eye to spot potential in a fixer-upper, particularly in a city like Johannesburg. There are some real gems – almost always undervalued – but their qualities are often lost beneath the add-ons that barnacle their way onto houses over time. Christo Vermeulen and Nico Venter are serial renovators. Inevitably, after a few years of living in a house, they find their eyes wandering.

They most certainly do have a knack for recognising the signs that something special might be lurking beneath the surface a nondescript exterior. Christo is a former textile designer turned builder/renovator – with a sideline in manufacturing bespoke features, especially metalwork and ironmongery – and Nico is an urban designer with an interest in the city’s architectural history. Together, they make a formidable team: insightful and capable, with the perfect combination of vision and respect for the innate qualities of a good find.

Read the full story on this Greenside home.

Mid-century-Inspired Plettenberg Bay Home

Looks can be deceiving. At first glance, this creatively terraced home may appear small – but a stroll through the property reveals both space and a sense of intimacy, based around the focal point of the garden.

Architect Guillaume Pienaar’s brief may have also appeared relatively simple: to build a cost-effective home for a family of three, including an option to work from home. Accomplishing it was a little more complex. “We wanted to create a family home that was unique, connected to the outdoors, sustainably built, and within our rather modest budget,” explain homeowners Anthea and Conrad Buys. “It was important for the house to be equipped for both of us to work from home, but also to maintain separation between work and life.” Another requirement was the ability to host visitors from Joburg (where Anthea and Conrad used to live) while giving them privacy and space.

Read the full story on this mid-century-inspired Plettenberg Bay home.

Paris Apartment

Emmanuel de Bayser is lucky enough to divide his time between two of Europe’s great locales: Berlin and Paris. In Berlin, he runs his fashion and design store, The Corner Berlin – and when in residence in his Paris apartment, he works intensely on selecting the very best in current fashion, design and decor for The Corner.

Emmanuel’s Paris pied-à-terre is situated in a building that’s typical of the neoclassical style in which Parisian dwellings were constructed during the time of Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s famous “renovation” of the city in the 19th century – even though it was actually built a number of years after the legendary city planner’s death in 1891.

Read the full story on this Paris apartment.

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 Parktown North Home

Houses designed by the Mid-century architect Michael Sutton inspire a rare devotion among Johannesburg design lovers. And so it was for Marilyn McDowell, who lives in a house that has a special place in Joburg design lore: the cluster or “compound”, as she jokingly calls it, in Parktown North where Sutton himself lived, and built a house for his sister, the landscaper Ann Sutton.

“I have had a complete passion for Michael Sutton’s homes since I was in my 20s,” says Marilyn, a one-time interior designer. It wasn’t until her 40s, however, that she managed to bag one, and she’s lived in it for over 30 years. “He had such an amazing understanding of space,” she says. “He was a visionary.”

Read the full story on this modernist Parktown North home.

Westcliff Ridge Home

It’s rare in this country that homeowners inherit a building of distinct architectural heritage, especially in a city as young as Johannesburg. So when husband and wife Silvio Rech and Lesley Carstens, of leading architecture studio Silvio Rech & Lesley Carstens Adventure Architecture, spied the late-1950s house at the dead-end of their lane in Westcliff’s uppermost reaches, they kept a beady eye on its movements.

“What I liked about it is that it’s so simple… We’ve been over-cluttering everything,” remarks Silvio. Still, dense overgrowth concealed the view entirely, and there were those who advised the couple to simply knock it down. Architecture devotees, however, favoured retaining its roots as an American Bungalow, and when they discovered that there was, in fact, a view beyond the trees, they did what any architect would do: they respected the building’s heritage.

Read the full story on this Westcliff Ridge home.

Modernist Stellenbosch Home

A family affair is how architect Bettina Woodward describes the design of this Stellenbosch house. And it quite literally is. Bettina is the principal architect at her practice Open City, and she designed the house for (and with) her brother Roland Andrag, sister-in-law Juandi and their family.

Roland and Bettina grew up in a modernist home. Their German-immigrant grandparents had a house full of original Mid-century design and, says Bettina, “My parents were very interested in modern and abstract art. My mother always pushed radical ideas.” Bettina has subsequently restored a spectacular 1970s modernist home in Cape Town, and is fascinated with the rich vein of regional Modernism in and around Stellenbosch, created by the likes of architects Pius Pahl (who studied at the Bauhaus), Gawie Fagan and Revel Fox.

Read the full story on this modernist Stellenbosch home.

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The post 9 Mid-Century Homes That Perfectly Capture the Spirit of Modern Design appeared first on Visi.

Iconic SA Mid Century Modern furniture brand Frystark has been relaunched, with a new server and set of nesting tables that make their debut at Decorex Cape Town.

There aren’t too many furniture aficionados who don’t know Frystark, but the brand’s back story has had less airtime…

Frystark began in 1959 when brothers Owen and Derek Frye merged their furniture business with G H Starck Ltd, opening a factory in Ndabeni, Cape Town. And if you’re interested in Mid Century furniture and have spent time hunting online for pieces to buy, you’ll have almost certainly come across the servers, tables, dining room suites, armchairs and sofas made by this legendary South African furniture brand. (Have a look at our feature on local online vintage stores, if you’re into mid-century vintage).

Frystark continued into the late 60s when it was sold to the AFCOL (Associated Furniture Companies Limited), who moved it into mass production, effectively ending the classic era of Frystark Mid Century furniture, before the brand gradually faded in the 70s.

Fast forward to June 2023 and Frystark will once again be available in South Africa thanks to architect and designer Andy Goedhals, who has a special connection to the brand. Andy’s dad worked for Frystark back in the day – originally as a rep, before taking more of an interest in furniture making and working in the company’s workshop. Mr Henry Goedhals would later go one to open his own carpentry business.

Andy owned a vintage Frystark server and in 2018 decided that he wanted to bring the brand back. Over the next couple of years, he secured the trademark – its then owners delighted with Andy’s plan – and in 2022 began prototyping various pieces. 

“I had a lot learn when it comes to the process of making furniture correctly,” says Andy. “And I was very grateful for the generous input and advice I got from people like Luke Pederson from Pedersen + Lennard, and Houtlander’s Steve Wilson.”

READ MORE: Local Vintage Shops Online

He’s also been very careful to not only retain the minimalist Modernist aesthetic of the original Frystark pieces, but its core brand values too. “Frystark was about well-made contemporary furniture that didn’t cost the world. It was about being accessible, both in terms of cost and design aesthetic. The original Frystark design signifiers were evident throughout their ranges, and we’ll do the same.”

The pieces are made from solid eucalyptus saligna wood that will be painted in a range of colours – brown and light purple (as seen in these images), as well as a silver, translucent cream and cobalt blue.

The new Frystark range kicks off with a server and a set of nesting table that get their first viewing at Decorex Cape Town which opens on Thursday 22 June. And he’ll be there ready to take your order…

For more information, visit frystark.com

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The post Frystark is Back! appeared first on Visi.

COMPILED BY Michaela Stehr

While some of these shops operate solely through Instagram, a few have stand-alone websites for your perusal – and the majority deliver throughout South Africa.

1. Needful Things Online

Instagram: @needful_things_online

Website: needful-things.co.za

Need to know: Ships countrywide

2. Anouk Furniture

Instagram: @anoukfurniture

Website: anoukfurniture.co.za

Need to know: Contact 079 489 4206 for prices and availability.

3. Ride a White Swan

Instagram: @ride_a_white_swan

Need to know: DM for details on specific products.

4. Vamp Furniture

Instagram: @vamp_furniture

Need to know: Email paula@vampfurniture.co.za for availability and shipping options.

5. Maison

Instagram: @maison_capetown

Website: maisoncapetown.com

Need to know: Consigns vintage furniture. Pick up available in Cape Town only.

6. Huisraad

Instagram: @huisraad_modern

Website: huisraad.co.za

Need to know: Ships countrywide.

7. Retro Lane

Instagram: @retrolaneonline

Website: retrolane.co.za

Need to know: Email sales@retrolane.co.za for more information.

8. The Retro Chair Man

Instagram: @retro_chairman

Need to know: DM for purchases.

9. (Re)Store

Instagram: @restore_vintage

Need to know: DM for purchases. Shipping to Johannesburg.

10. Vintage Club

Instagram: @vintageclubfurniture

Website: vintageclub.co.za

Need to know: Ships to Cape Town area. Shipping can be recommended or arranged for areas outside of Cape Town.

11. Ching Ching

Instagram: @chingchingct

Need to know: Ships nationwide.

12. Re-Trend Shop

Instagram: @retrendsa

Website: retrend.co.za

Need to know: Ships nationwide.

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The post Local Vintage Shops Online appeared first on Visi.

Seeing its hidden potential, creative couple Lauren Shantall and Derek Eyden have transformed a neglected Mid-century box in Fish Hoek into a colourful retreat that suits their new post-COVID lifestyle to a tee.

As many couples did during the pandemic, Lauren Shantall and her husband Derek Eyden re-evaluated their lifestyle. To beat the claustrophobia of their new work-from-home regimen, Lauren, who runs her own PR company, and musician Derek would regularly pile into the car with their 13-year-old son Daniel, and make the trek from Rosebank in the heart of Cape Town’s suburbia to the Deep South – the colloquial name used for the slack-paced string of suburbs that hug the Cape Peninsula’s coastline. “We were waking up three, four times a week to go for sunrise swims,” says Lauren. “Covid meant that I suddenly lost 40% of my business – but it also meant that I could work from anywhere. We realised we could minimise our petrol bill and just move to live next to the ocean!”

The Mid-century Prairie-style house the couple ended up buying in Fish Hoek wasn’t exactly their architectural dream, but its lofty location against the mountain, with a view of both the Atlantic and Indian oceans, was. “It was one of those 1960s box houses, where you open the front door and walk into a rectangle,” says Lauren. “Derek and I knew roughly what we wanted to do. We measured the space, made little scale drawings and cut out pieces of furniture that we’d move around, trying endless configurations.”

Architect Ian Macduff and interior architect Charisse Johnston of StudioSALT helped the couple crystallise their vision. The previously closed-off lounge, kitchen and sunroom became one sprawling living space that spills out onto a large balcony, and another storey – with an impressive custom-designed steel staircase to match – was added to accommodate a small study and an en suite master bedroom with its own balcony.

As far as possible, Lauren and Derek repurposed the house’s fixtures or went to great lengths to source reclaimed fittings and furnishings that wouldn’t look out of place. The sunroom’s slasto stones and sliding door, for example, were redirected to the guest loo and scullery respectively, while the parquet flooring was one of those Facebook Marketplace finds that DIY home renovators’ dreams are made of. “The sellers were getting rid of it because they were putting down vinyl!” says Lauren. Another score was the retro teak kitchen unit that had been gathering dust in someone’s garage. And then there was the pink-and-black Zulu Mama Café chair by Haldane Martin that now lives in Lauren’s study, because the original owners wanted to redo their home interior entirely in black and white, as one does…

Lauren – whose career spans decades working in the design and art realm, and who is also an artist in her own right – and Derek worked together to create a tailor-made colour story for the home. It plays out from the paint palette she chose for the walls and joinery to the artworks and curios from the couple’s enviable collection – much of which is still in storage after the move. “Many of the colours reflect the fynbos around us, like this protea,” she says, gesturing to a large Leucadendron gandogeri growing in the indigenous garden below the balcony, its gradients of green, yellow and orange-pinks echoed in the open-plan living area. “My husband is a musician, and while I don’t pretend to understand music very well, I’d like to think what I’ve done here is like colour music. The colours are notes that form a melody through the house.”

The new milieu undeniably fosters creativity – not only for Derek, who now composes and records music in a plant-filled studio bathed in serene shades of green, but also for Lauren, who has a dedicated art room bathed in natural light. “I’m working on an exhibition called ‘Plant Babies’, which will open this year,” she says. Three guesses where she gets her inspiration from…

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The post Fish Hoek House appeared first on Visi.

WORDS Annette Klinger PRODUCTION Mark Serra PHOTOS Paris Brummer

“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.

“My father didn’t want me to become an architect because he didn’t believe it was a woman’s profession,” says Adèle. “When I graduated top of my class in my third year at UCT, he told me it was time to move on – so I went to London to complete my degree at the Architectural Association.”

Conspicuously different from its neighbouring properties, the house’s facade is hidden from street view. “The house was designed to be experienced from the inside outwards,” says Adèle. “My parents wanted a lot of privacy, so they asked for the bedrooms to feel like their own houses within the house. Each has its own private garden, and doesn’t look out onto any other part of the house.”

Standing next to Adèle – who had flown into Cape Town just the day before from the US – is the home’s new owner, Italian-British sculptor Marco Chiandetti. When Marco first saw the inside of the house three years earlier, the self-admitted Mid-century Modern fanboy realised he was being presented with a rare real-estate opportunity (25 years of accumulated clutter and ill-advised building extensions by the previous owners notwithstanding). “Everything had been painted with a white gloss paint, and there was carpeting everywhere,” he recalls. “But it was just one of those situations where I was like, wow, a property of this calibre doesn’t come on the market very often. And so I bent over backwards to get it.”

Marco’s artistic sensibility and knowledge of Modernist design meant that he had a reasonably accurate instinct about what needed to be done to restore the house back to its original glory – but there were a few gaps. “Through the joys of the internet, I found out that Adèle lived in Boston, where she was the dean of architecture at MIT.” Marco reached out to Adèle, and she sent him scans of the original blueprints and a collection of personal photographs of the home’s interior, taken when her parents resided there. Marco describes the restoration process as a systematic stripping back of layers until the house revealed itself as it was intended to be. “It was a bit like an archaeological excavation, really,” he says. He did the lion’s share of the work himself, most of it during the pandemic.

The only real renovation that took place was the modernisation of the kitchen and bathrooms, to which Marco introduced bespoke cupboards and cabinetry in vivid shades of teal, green, orange and yellow that landed it firmly in the mid-century. “I tried not to introduce materials that you wouldn’t have found in the 1960s, but I didn’t want the house to become a museum, either,” he says. “I tried to gauge the tone of the era while still giving it the flavour that it needed.”

And so the day finally came for Marco to give Adèle the grand tour. In every room, there was one feature or another that she’d pause at to reminisce: the little corner window her father liked to look out of when he was seated in his favourite chair; the skylights that were specially incorporated to illuminate Hugo’s collection of paintings by his uncle, the famous Impressionist also called Hugo Naudé; and, yes, the brickwork that she had so fastidiously overseen during the build that launched her career.

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A pair of serial renovators in Johannesburg have brought a mid-century gem back to life with a sense of subtlety and fun.

It takes a good eye to spot potential in a fixer-upper, particularly in a city like Johannesburg. There are some real gems – almost always undervalued – but their qualities are often lost beneath the add-ons that barnacle their way onto houses over time. Christo Vermeulen and Nico Venter are serial renovators. Inevitably, after a few years of living in a house, they find their eyes wandering.

They most certainly do have a knack for recognising the signs that something special might be lurking beneath the surface a nondescript exterior. Christo is a former textile designer turned builder/renovator – with a sideline in manufacturing bespoke features, especially metalwork and ironmongery – and Nico is an urban designer with an interest in the city’s architectural history. Together, they make a formidable team: insightful and capable, with the perfect combination of vision and respect for the innate qualities of a good find.

READ MORE: Renovated Parkhurst Home by Christo Vermeulen and Nico Venter

They recognised that they were looking at something special when they walked into this early 1940s double-storey house in the suburb of Greenside. The perfection of the sensuously curved, Art Deco-inflected balustrade on the stairs was the first clue that highly skilled builders had been at work here. “There’s not a nick on it,” says Nico, adding that there were other details, particularly in the cast concrete, that were “impeccable”. He also recognised the fine workmanship of the rounded edges where the walls meet the ceiling.

Christo soon realised there were timber floors – parquet upstairs – and terrazzo beneath the layers of carpeting and glue, as well as other “beautiful features of the era”. They were both particularly pleased with the brass fittings sprinkled throughout and the long, narrow planters outside. The overall design suggested a thoughtful architect. The home’s orientation was perfect, and details such as the cantilevered concrete overhangs above the windows had been precisely designed to keep the hot sun out in summer and let it in during winter.

“The bones of the original house were absolutely perfect,” says Christo – and all were structurally sound, which, he says, is testimony to the quality of the workmanship. His and Nico’s alterations brought those features decisively into the 21st century, so you could, as Nico puts it, live a “modern lifestyle” (and use more efficient power and water sources) while still having the luxury of being surrounded by “the feel of the old walls”.

There’s no slavishly applied ideology or principle at work in their approach. Rather, they allowed themselves to be inventive, creative and playful as they went along. They’ve clearly been respectful, taking joy in celebrating the finer historical features, but never becoming precious or pretentious. Many of the alterations they’ve made draw attention to the original architectural features of the house. They’ve widened doors, for example, to improve the lines of sight between rooms – one between the living room and entrance hall now perfectly frames the staircase – and replaced all the light fittings with spherical ones, almost unconsciously harmonising with the curves in the architecture. Christo also paid homage to the curves in the selection of new features, such as the bathroom mirrors and other fittings, recognising and emphasising this aspect of the original design.

In contrast to the bright white exterior, the interiors are dark, playing with a kind of chiaroscuro hinted at in the chocolatey floors. Christo says that he found himself studying paintings by the Dutch Old Masters, and carefully selected what might superficially look like black paint for the walls, but with undertones of brown to give it variation and warmth. “We knew that we could go dark inside because the exterior is white, so there’s plenty of light coming in,” he says.

It’s not just light, but lightness that he and Nico have brought in. Their home’s mid-century features have been given a second lease of life, celebrated in the context of a contemporary lifestyle, with as much joy as reverence.

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Cleverly constructed thresholds between a tiered garden and the interior spaces mean this Mid-century-inspired family home manages the trick of being both spacious and cosy.

Looks can be deceiving. At first glance, this creatively terraced home may appear small – but a stroll through the property reveals both space and a sense of intimacy, based around the focal point of the garden.

Architect Guillaume Pienaar’s brief may have also appeared relatively simple: to build a cost-effective home for a family of three, including an option to work from home. Accomplishing it was a little more complex. “We wanted to create a family home that was unique, connected to the outdoors, sustainably built, and within our rather modest budget,” explain homeowners Anthea and Conrad Buys. “It was important for the house to be equipped for both of us to work from home, but also to maintain separation between work and life.” Another requirement was the ability to host visitors from Joburg (where Anthea and Conrad used to live) while giving them privacy and space.

READ MORE: Buffelsbaai Home

Strongly guided by Guillaume, they went with an early Mid-century Modern aesthetic in both architecture and design, with a focus on the thresholds between the inside and outdoors. Drawing inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1939 Fallingwater design, the home embraces the idea of connecting the natural garden to the interior spaces. “The terraced garden to the north is the main focus of the house, and always present,” says Guillaume. “Every space lives out onto it, but at a different level, creating unique views and perspectives. Openings in the building’s facade to the east south and west are left to the absolute minimum, allowing cross-ventilation and the required morning sun in the main bedroom, and late-afternoon winter sun in the kitchen.”

Guillaume got creative with materials, exaggerating textures such as thick, rough plaster and double-layer concrete on the outer walls, the large- profile fibre cement corrugated roof, and larger-than-life eaves and bargeboard details. MDF cladding on interior walls and ceilings is a statement, and the perfect canvas for the family’s extensive collection of local art. The MDF also creates an amazingly cosy atmosphere during chilly winter months, and lends the house its unique geometric detailing. “It feels spacious and cosy at the same time – and from the time you enter the front door, the narrative is a series of transitions from more constricted areas to more open areas,” says Anthea.

READ MORE: Hemel-en-Aarde Holiday Home

For open-plan living at this scale, Guillaume found it important to clearly define each section and individual space with its own function. He achieved this by extending the garden terrace wall into the interior of the home, dividing the living and dining/ kitchen spaces into two different levels with a single sloping ceiling serving to unify them, and placing a combined server/ fridge between the two.

The idea was to create separation between the private sleeping spaces and shared living areas, and to connect the kitchen and living room without creating a run-of-the-mill open-plan design. “We spend a lot of time in the kitchen,” says Anthea, “so it was important to us to make this an area where we – and our guests – would be able to spend that time comfortably.” The result is a creative space that pays homage to one of the architectural greats through form following function, while being uniquely theirs.

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WORDS Robyn Alexander PRODUCTION Sven Alberding PRODUCTION Greg Cox / Bureaux

Emmanuel de Bayser is lucky enough to divide his time between two of Europe’s great locales: Berlin and Paris. In Berlin, he runs his fashion and design store, The Corner Berlin – and when in residence in his Paris apartment, he works intensely on selecting the very best in current fashion, design and decor for The Corner.

Emmanuel’s Paris pied-à-terre is situated in a building that’s typical of the neoclassical style in which Parisian dwellings were constructed during the time of Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s famous “renovation” of the city in the 19th century – even though it was actually built a number of years after the legendary city planner’s death in 1891.

It’s a small space – just 70m2 in total – but it feels spacious and expansive. This is the result of the building’s elegant “bones”, which include high ceilings that make for light-filled rooms, and interconnecting doors with original glazed panels that open up the space and allow light to move through. Accentuating the feeling of luxurious roominess is wall-to-wall carpeting in cream wool, and all of the apartment’s rooms look out over an elegant Parisian park, which means that fresh air and views of manicured greenery abound.

As a collector of French mid-century design, furniture and collectables for the past 20 years, Emmanuel describes that genre of design as “timeless – it also mixes so well with the architecture from periods before it was created. It has a patina and a lively character that somehow both contrast and fit other styles.”

His Paris home is proof of these assertions: in the neoclassical apartment, pieces by iconic mid-century designers Jean Prouvé, Pierre Jeanneret and Serge Mouille seem perfectly at home, while items by contemporary French designer India Mahdavi add sophistication to the mix. And then there are colourful ceramics by Georges Jouve, a collection of African tribal art figurines, and a final layer of contemporary artworks and books.

The tribal figurines are part of a relatively small collection, but a special one. For Emmanuel, these artworks link back to the history of modern art in France, with their influence on artists such as Constantin Brâncusi and Pablo Picasso having been well documented. Like his ceramics collections and his books, these works bring a unique and personal feel to the apartment that is very important to him.

A born collector, Emmanuel readily confesses to being continuously in pursuit of pieces by his favourite designers and artists. He also tends to need new points of focus now and then: his large collection of ceramics by French mid-century ceramicist Georges Jouve was begun in part, he says, because “I had no space for any more furniture.”

Emmanuel also masterfully articulates what makes a variety of mid-century modern designs special. For example, speaking of French lighting designer Serge Mouille, who created the wall-mounted and standing lamps that feature in the apartment’s interiors, he explains that Mouille’s work has a very industrial feel (it is made of cast metal and features angular supporting arms), yet the shapes of the lampshades are subtly curved and have a softer touch than many other industrial-style pieces. The result is “something much more sensual and interesting”, says Emmanuel.

This petite and perfectly considered Paris apartment is a true pied-à-terre – a “foot on the ground” second home in which its owner spends a limited amount of time. And it’s an ideal base from which to savour some of the finest things that the City of Light has to offer.

Looking for more architectural inspiration? Take a look at this apartment in Cape Town’s City Bowl.

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A quaint semi-detached Victorian gem in the heart of Observatory, Cape Town has been revamped into a welcoming, colourful space.

As antique and vintage design collectors, the owners of the Lizmi Cottage jumped at the task of transforming it into a Mid-century treasure trove. “This charming Victorian cottage had been frozen in time and we couldn’t wait to bring a new lease of life to the house again.”

High ceilings and wooden floors feature throughout the three-bedroom space. Originally, the home featured wall-to-wall mustard carpeting, which was swiftly removed, revealing the original Oregon pine floors. A bright yellow kitchen features as the hub of the house, with Formica tables and quirky open-display cabinetry. “When we lifted the linoleum to restore the wooden floors beneath, we discovered, amongst other items, a Sunday Times newspaper from 13 November 1977!”

The two bathrooms received Art Deco tiling in shades of mint green and cream, with fittings, doorknobs and handles sourced from local flea markets and vintage shops. The main bathroom features a classic free-standing claw bath.

The six-sleeper space is available for rental, offering Smeg and Grundig appliances, off-street parking and a private deck for relaxing lazy lunches. The cottage is also available to rent for photo shoots and film shoots.

For more information, visit lizmicottage.co.za.

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