Foreword: Professor PG Raman

s an architect, artist, educator and his dictum “you can do anything you Apatron Pancho Guedes is a highly choose to do….” on which Marilyn Martin signifi cant and at times controversial builds her paper. But Pancho went further. fi gure. Had he been an architect in the If you do not use your dissenting voice west instead of Africa, the media would to practical effect you become unhappy have made lot more of him than they have and if you are unhappy in your place of done now. But then, that is what we have work you must do something about it or come to expect from our Euro-centric just leave. Quite a reasonable stance to critics and writers. His work and teaching take, one would have thought. However, has been impressive in terms of scope this should not be an occasion to delve and importance, and as the contributions into to the frailties of the great man, of his admirers in this book reveal, he real or imagined, nor should it be one of has exercised signifi cant infl uence in the justifying them. As Jose Forjas suggests, fi eld architecture, art and education. it rather ought to be one of celebration Not having been Pancho’s student or a and through it establish new references colleague and knowing him only from for our students, architects and artists. published works and reputation, one’s What then are these new references? Like CONTRIBUTORS: fi rst emotion is one of envy. How can one Le Corbusier, Aalto, Pietila and Stephen PG Raman not be envious, of someone with such a Holl, Pancho paints, sculpts, designs and Ivan Kadey high calibre of buildings to his credit? How builds buildings. But there is a difference. Ronald Lewcock can one not be jealous of someone who Le Corbusier brought a certain habit of Revel Fox paints, sculpts, teaches design, history and composition to architecture from his purist Ian and Lynn Bader anything else you care to think of, mentors paintings. For Aalto and Pietila painting Lars Lerup – not just the prodigiously talented but and sculpting were “heuristic devices” Wilhelm Hahn also the uncertain who we all know and Stephen Holl’s watercolours are about Julian Cooke Mira Fassler Kamstra are the majority, provides patronage, the simulation of intended architectural Luis Bernardo Honwana mercilessly pokes fun of the self-righteous, qualities in his designs. Herbert Prins the bureaucratic and the undeservedly For all four, paintings and sculptures Peter Rich successful, and gets away with it? There are representations of their intuition. But Joao de Pina-Cabral are those who try to emulate Pancho. But Pancho Guedes exemplifi es Benedetto Julian Beinart it is pointless because these characteristics Croce’s conception that intuition and Jose Forjaz are organic and particular part of his representation are interchangeable terms. Luis Ferreira da Silva nature and nurture. Not very many could Pancho thus sculpts his architecture and Cedric Green survive the enmity he faced at Wits and architects his sculpture – a uniquely non- Malangatana Ngwenya Valente Lewis Levin emerge triumphant. It is indeed a miracle European outlook. Tim Ostler that the Dons at Wits agreed to give him How to eschew design impulses of Udo Kultermann the Honorary Doctorate. Even now, one the fashionable and how to subvert Jo Noero meets intelligent academics at Wits who our students from doing so are the Fredo Guedes disliked his irreverence and who say that preoccupations of every good architect, Pedro Guedes they did not support the proposal. This every good teacher. Pancho’s recourse ‘Ora Joubert makes the award all the more poignant here is to history. Along with many Marilyn Martin – after all there is hope, humanity and philosophers of knowledge, Pancho would Karl-Heinz Schmitz loftiness, even in the academic world. probably suggest history is at least as Heather Dodd Manfred Schiendhelm Many thoughtful students of Pancho say revealing as any rational thought process. & Karen Axelrad that he could not tolerate opposition. How But it is fair to say Pancho’s emphasis is on can this be in such a caring and concerned erudition and not on academic learning. person? Well, it may be because he In addition there is his passion, his critical knew that petty-minded competition eye, his empathy for his students and dissipates energy and the group that colleagues who genuinely struggle. These shows mutualism is the one that survives are some of the legacies of Pancho and and thrives. The young should know that if we are serious about empowering the they have a lot to learn, take time to fi nd previously disadvantaged, we need them where they want to go rather than engage now, more than ever before. in meaningless squabbles. Nevertheless, it Published by is often said that Pancho Guedes, himself Professor PG Raman is currently Head TOTAL CAD ACADEMY a rebel, cannot accept those who rebel of School of Architecture & Planning 76 Clark Road - Glenwood against him. Was this really true? The at WITS University, Johannesburg, Durban - South Africa 4001 www.archicad.co.za sense one gets is that he wants to channel South Africa. rebellion into positive action and hence ISBN 0-620-31592-X 1 Ivan Kadey

ays after I handed in my thesis (with DPancho as my supervisor) I had this numinous dream: I was walking in the light of a moonlit night through a suburban labyrinth on small hills like those of Melville. Drawn to a warm honey colored glow emanating from one of the houses I found myself at a large, luminous window, and beyond the window Pancho, who coming to the door, greeted me warmly in welcome and sharing the view of the light, told me, “Now you know my window”. Pancho taught us to invent buildings from dreams; to go beyond waking consciousness into the realms of magicians and sorcerers. He inspired us with the buildings he’d dreamt into reality. With his plans, sections, elevations, axonometrics, models, sculptures, paintings, furniture, photographs, variations, styles, genealogies and families - with his unbounded energy and encouragement. Later, in the eighties, I developed and taught the first year course at Wits, where I thrived in the freedom created by Pancho’s leadership as Head of the School of Architecture. Never judgmental, and always guided by the quality of light given off by the work, Pancho gave us unbounded opportunity for architectural invention and production. The years since I left South Africa have served to amplify my appreciation of Pancho and his achievements. The indelible images I hold of his sparkling buildings. From the pyramidal fugues, to the sensual, animate apartment blocks - all enriched with a wealth of detail and invention. Now, December 10th 2003, I join in celebrating the University of the Witwatersrand honoring Amancio d’Alpoim Guedes with the Doctorate Degree. And dream again of standing at Pancho’s window of numinous light. Salute!

Ivan Kadey, Architect, Musician & Acoustic Consultant is currently practising in Santa Monica, USA.

2 Ronald Lewcock Breton and Gide in expressivity Freedom and independence in Dada: ancho embarked on designing ironic Habitable women for Tristan Tzara Parchitecture at an exceptionally early Thatched hospitals on the Costa Brava age and went on to achieve an oeuvre surpassing the hopes of almost all other Pregnant buildings for Duchamps architects. Technically and practically he Bachelor apartments for questionable yields to no one and imaginatively and romps humorously he is unsurpassed. With more fondness for the solid and sculptural than Round-eyed, swinging walls, in most modernists, he is nevertheless playful bouncing, with space, light and shade, and can be Hysterical construction for Ionesco as hard-nosed as anyone about scientific Exuberant in trouncing sun control, adequate daylight and good Roualt, Perret, Rousseau acoustics. Boxes of rolling waves, twisting Pancho And turning into corners, catching Daring, fearless, informed, Concavities and crevices of Smiling Lions adventurous Who hold out their paws, digits Ranging, laughing, crying, boisterous extended Wide-awake. Always watching…… A lion for love and work Cavernous, curvaceous, fluid ceilings For Malangatana’s painted heedings.

Churches turn into crosses at entrances And extremities - cubical compartments With gondolas terraces roofing

Ironic, erotic architecture Always architectonic. Periscopes watching over seas of trees In manner metronomic

Hide and seek games for old men in the sun Surrounded By children wearing strange hats for fun

Consuming fascinations With structural systems and geometrics Axonometrics And mathematical projections

Hard to emulate Impossible to equal Explosive motorcars, burning fuel Everywhere humour, love tanks, Life lived to the full. Wild riding with cameras and hydroplane Ronald Lewcock, a graduate of UCT, Rickshaws and taxi ranks practiced and taught architecture Dhows, punts and champagne. in Durban in the 50s & 60s. He has taught at the Cambridge, AA and Boudoirs and earth closets MIT. He is currently professor in the Concrete and rough bricks Doctoral Program in Architecture, Flying paths and thatch ricks Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. Flying roof and stone whats-its

Taking licence for humour in creativity Like Jarry in Ubu Roi, Eric Satie in Three Pieces in the form of a Pear 3 Revel Fox combination of home, workshop and office worthy of note, and he continues to under the capable control of his wife, photograph, measure, record and collect mancio d’Alpoim Miranda Guedes, or Dori. One would encounter three children with an unmatched zeal. APancho, as he is affectionately called – Pedro, Veronica and Fredo (Katarina The dedicated scholar is by nature a by everyone, including his students, took came later) – a couple of apprentice good teacher. So great his enthusiasm, over the Department of Architecture at the draughtsman, a visiting architectural and so witty and perceptive his delivery, University of the Witwatersrand in 1975, student, the artist Malangatana painting that he has entertained and delighted when circumstances in Mozambique made huge canvasses, the wood carver Filipe wherever he has been, and he has been it impossible for him to continue living making a Chanfuta temple under close everywhere! Inevitably, the subject most there, occupied the Chair with distinction direction, cleaners from the Smiling Lion popular with audiences is a catalogue of for fifteen eventful years, before returning apartments embroidering cushions from the magical world of the work of Pancho to Lisbon on his retirement. a Guedes maquette, and Luis Honwana Guedes. Born in Portugal in 1925, he came to with one of his short stories for comment, His departure from Mozambique the Portuguese territories in Africa as the transcription and publication. On a good came at a time when the Department child of a doctor in government service, day you might also encounter Dori’s of Architecture at the University of the and spent much of his life in Maputo, or dressmaker Luiza, Fredo’s violin teacher Witwatersrand was in urgent need of a Lourenço Marques, as it was then called. Mr de Blij, and a blacksmith discussing an new Head, and Pancho accepted that post. It was there that he began his intricate metal screen to be wrought in He was no stranger to Johannesburg, architectural career in 1950, as intensive the unmistakeable Guedes manner – the having been to school here, and having building activity got under way at the end Stiloguedes, as it has come to be called. graduated from the department he was of World War II. It was a boom which now to direct. He came to Wits with little established the demand, and provided the academic experience, but as an acclaimed opportunity for some of the most creative architect with a considerable international and prolific of architectural careers the reputation, and he turned to teaching with world has seen. In the twenty-five years the same commitment and energy that he in practice in Mozambique, Pancho’s applies to everything he does. achievements were prodigious. There can be no doubt that the Guedes Working in comparative isolation, he years at Wits will be remembered as an established a large private library and exciting and notable epoch, and a high subscribed to a formidable number of point in the teaching of architecture periodicals, assimilating everything with anywhere. Through him, students have photographic precision and instant recall. rediscovered the appreciation of great From the outset, Guedes’ career was architecture. His encyclopaedic knowledge unique. In an outpouring of creative of buildings of all ages has opened their energy, he accepted no boundaries eyes to wonders beyond the purview of between painting, sculpture, and the glossy magazines. architecture, and applied himself to all Through his own virtuosity as artist and three simultaneously. Inevitably, the fusion draughtsman, he revived the lost craft of between them became so seamless that fine drawing. Because he has lived and they could not be easily separated, and practised the art of architecture with such this interaction characterised much of his consummate devotion, he has set an work. To paint and sculpt well is no small example his students will always wish to But the artistic dynamism did not stop achievement. To “design and build enough emulate. there. Not only did he bring his influence buildings to make up a good-sized city” is In 1990, Pancho retired from his post to bear on everything around him, he something quite different. In the period of at Wits and moved with Dori to Lisbon, also became patron, sponsor and mentor a short quarter-century in Mozambique, back to his place of birth. In doing so he to local artists, sculptors, poets and Pancho did several remarkable things: He completed one circle, and started a new musicians who were attracted to the “invented” not one, but several original series of adventures. studio at 61 Rua de Nevala where Pancho and individual architectural styles. He The Lisbon years have seen heavy lived and worked. applied his ingenuity and his pragmatism teaching commitments and a continuation And how Pancho worked! The days to providing accommodation for houses, of the creative drive that has characterised were never long enough for him to schools and churches, using advanced his career. As usual he organised himself develop all the ideas and images that flow construction technology as well as the in a special way: a city base with home from his inventive mind. Fortunately his traditional African techniques of grass and studio in an attractive old building work and his life are so closely related that and mud. He employed the limited skills in the picturesque Alfama, and a country they have always occurred at the same and resources of an East African port to home in Eugaria not far from the summer place in the happy coincidence of house build architectural masterpieces that are palace at Sintra. The passage of time has and studio. internationally acclaimed. seen Dori and Pancho upgrading from Those who were privileged to visit that Throughout his life he has been drawn an attractive cottage near the main road enchanting ménage will recall a lively to whatever he has considered fine and to a spectacular Guedes design on the

4 hill above, in which I believe they are now fully installed. The problem of a precipitous access from the road above the house, which I was convinced was insoluble, has been resolved by what Pancho calls his “Highway to Heaven”, a death-defying route which he negotiates daily in his Citroen. I am told that he is still teaching at both the Universidade Lusofona and the Universidade Tecnica de Lisboa, with enthusiastic student response. And, as if that were not enough, he has several interesting architectural commissions in progress. He is completing plans for the extension of a 15th century old age home in Mesao Frio, the place where Pancho’s parents and their families lived, and where some family members still reside. He is also busy with plans for the Malangatana Foundation, a museum and cultural centre at Matalane, the family kraal of his old friend and protégé in Mocambique. A recent project has been the design for a

circus school in Cape Town on the site of an old reservoir. These are a few examples of the many exciting projects which are a part of Pancho’s current programme. When I first knew Pancho, he had not yet completed his studies in architecture, although he already had a thriving practice in Maputo. I have followed his scintillating career for about fifty years since those wonderful days, and I was delighted to hear that the university at which Pancho had both studied and taught with distinction, was about to award him an honorary degree: a well-deserved and fitting tribute to a remarkable alumnus. I join his family, friends and colleagues in wishing him well on this very special occasion.

Revel Fox is a renowned Architect practicing in Cape Town and a long time family friend of Pancho & Dori Guedes. 5 Ian and Lynn Bader unspoken dialog with experience. Lars Lerup Signatures abounded, a triumphant confirmation of identity, “amancio d’alpoim s architectural students, Pancho burst guedes” lettered in lowercase. The letters ecundity is the word I am searching Ainto our consciousness fully formed, were precise and independent, individual Ffor. Although fecondità exists in Italian with an astounding portfolio of built work, presences, deliberately placed like carriages the word I prefer is abbondanza as in a legendary membership of Team X* and a in a train on the move. So too were “ci sono pere in abbondanza” but rather published reputation as a “surrealist”. the buildings many, each individually than a plentitude of pears I am thinking His aspiratory, accented English – the independent yet associable into collections. of a alphabet of names, a school of styles, h’s had disappeared – confirmed his exotic Saturated with personification, each was and a deluge of buildings. Names like identity, declamatory, abridged, perpetually part of a family of ideas, members of a Adam, at the beginning, Amancio with its summery and confident. crowded tribal assembly. peculiar Portuguese pedigree, D’Alpoim He taught primarily by example. Pancho The work was gregarious, rich in that like allpoems (surreptitiously slipping worked quickly and spontaneously. antecedent. For it, the entire history of into English via similarity) comes in one Drawing with a staccato certainty, architecture was an easy repository of foreshortened al-poim, (is this by any his line was without pretension or syntax and ideas. Jokes, puns and other stretch of the linguistic confine pear-in ambivalence, a strategic mapping of literary caprice abounded. Portuguese?) or at least pomme as in possibility informed by an instantaneous, Pancho worked alone. His gestures, French for the globe of an apple) now personal and particular, were elegantly adorned with an apostrophe, unencumbered by ideology, the connection and Pancho like the Mexican revolutionary between head and hand, immediate. The Pancho Villa – thoroughly architectural by designs were conjured up, imaginatively the way – as in Villa Adriana. Yes I am conceived, the workmanlike mapping of an glossing on no one other but you-know- alert inner world. who: Guedes-the-guide for so many, if for The buildings had a sure-footed, earthy me only indirectly through our man Stan quality. They were mostly mathematically (Saitowitz) – yours and mine to share. conceived, but often voluptuously womb- I met him once, that is the poet Al like. His celebration of substance made Poi(e)m(e), but what I know of him is all space and light strikingly present. through Stan one of the many tributaries to He was populating the planet with his Guedes la riviére – the river, the flood, the production. If not buildings, then paintings, serpentine, the deluge, the f-l-o-w – and or figurines that often came in multiples, I wondered how could all those names, in a variety of materials, wood, glass, even styles and buildings have sprung forth from cast chocolate. Flat heads with target eyes, that impressive yes, but solitary dome? I forced smiles and unconcealed grimaces. guess that is what we mean by global that Gridded, bulging and protuberant, Pancho now like a beacon glows in its new-won was speaking a visual language he had recognition. invented, unencumbered by hesitation. What about the Stiloguedes and the Pancho was an innocent, or was his other cuts of Saipal (o pão da Cidade) unselfconsciousness based on an ethical smelling gloriously in the morning-air certainty? The world, in which Pancho of Lourenco Marques? And that huge was building, simpler then and closer memory-palace of abodes – mais ou to the vernacular, had already begun to menos exilado – from the master’s view, disappear. The dreams, which his ideas but clearly living in his mind and lived provoke, continue to assert themselves in by a new generation of Mozambicans with urgency. (imagine caressing your loved one We hear that he is currently completing somewhere in the voluptuous section of a road up to the “Eye House”. Prometheus – lucky them no aphrodisiacs needed!) And among us the architects Ian and Lynn Bader graduated reminding us over and over again that from WITS University in the 1970s, we – even if momentarily exiled from our currently practicing Architecture in imagination – are still free to do in what New York, USA. ever manner, and that behind that hesitant hand of ours are many un-evolved stilos * Founded in 1959 as a successor to CIAM it included just waiting to spring forth. So thank you Aldo van Eyck, Georges Candillis, Alison and Peter Adam – man of many names and minds Smithson as members and focused on integrating – for both apple and snake. It is now up architecture with social and environmental concerns. to the next generation to do the Paradise.

Lars Lerup is Professor of Architecture at Rice University, Houston, USA. 6 Wilhelm Hahn Julian Cooke And ventilating snouts. You showed a gate Dear Pancho, The earth is not round Like a leafy greeting According to you in a village street I’m relieved that Wits has decided to This lump of ground whose cobbles played tunes certify you as a doctor. You have been is square too. and a lamp like a dragonfly practicing so long as a doctor, without Apples fall to earth prayer to the moon. certification. When I met you in 1975 you Smoke wisps up already had many years in Mozambique Cats gave birth You scattered the grey land and the bush behind you. At Wits I To kittens, not pups, with strange bones could see for myself how you did your Or so they say and sparkled the sand rounds, how you examined, listened, But in your amphibious day with precious stones. gave opinions and prescriptions, how you You see that elephants fly attended to pregnancies, deliveries and and mountains cry Julian Cooke taught at the UCT post-partum depressions, not to mention When eagles wings sigh School of Architecture. He is christenings, where you proved yourself across the feathers of the sky. currently editor of Architecture SA. an accurate name-giver and an expert on lineage and parentage. Of course you They said clever was right yourself had engendered so many healthy Until the sunlit night families that your practical knowledge in you showed ‘tis the fool this field could not be disputed. Hears the words in the ripples Often I myself would deliver a little idea Read the signs in the stipples at tea time, only to have you turn it upside In the dark deep pool. down and, whacking it on its bottom, You’re a fool, you’re a fool. pronounce it viable, or not! But you did not neglect the later lives In a house said the wise of these creatures, either. You were ever there windows and doors ready to suggest remedies for ailing and ceilings and floors edifices or those facing a change of life. but you said: surprise You might recommend either surgical or they have eyes, they have eyes cosmetic interventions to extend the lives and nostrils, and bared fangs and lips of the elderly. and skin stretched over their hips, You were an enthusiastic dissector and real houses are ships of ruins and quite happy to re-assemble and temples, dragons and trees, discarded parts into exquisite corpses. fruit and lovers and bees The processes and experiments you nests, animals, flowers conducted in your own workshop must of sweet scented bowers necessity remain mysterious to outsiders, of stone and iron but the results suggest alchemy or even for gods to lie on. magic. You gave an inkling when you let Look you said slip that much of the work is done while See the Smiling Lion. you sleep. In 1975, I heard you say in Cape Town You showed a church with a pink that being an architect is being lost in a warm haunted house. Light, with a form Hmmm...haunted...lost... As serene as a queen Why would I not then pack my bags A glow with a sheen immediately and move to Johannesburg? With a gloss In you I had found a kindred spirit, a role With a jungle fruit cross model, en example of tireless creativity At the end of each arm and a connoisseur of excellence in art and Of the Mother of calm. life. I thank you for this, dear doctor. I remain your friend and accomplice, You showed an office With pyramid hats Wilhelm Hahn taught at WITS And orifices University in the 1980s and was In slits and slats Professor of Architecture at Houston And surfaces graded with light University, USA. He is currently And brilliantly shaded resident as an artist in Cape Town. And eyebrow spouts To spurt the rushing rainwater out 7 Mira Fassler Kamstra both Pancho and Dori were, I may have Luis Bernardo Honwana got to know them sooner and may have experienced the interior of the famous ourenço Marques in the 50s and 60s – home which I had so often passed. t is ironic that Mozambique’s advance to LPortuguese Africa by the sea – in those Only much later while supervising the Iindependence should mark the end of the days of stuffy South Africa - an impossibly building of the fountain in memory of my most important phase of Pancho Miranda exotic place of palm tree (before they were father did I speak to Professor Guedes Guedes’ oeuvre as an architect. everywhere) lined boulevards, piri-piri – the new head of the Department of In effect, considering the sudden stoppage chicken, Delagoa Bay prawns, checked Architecture at the University of the of all activity in the building industry as plastic table-clothed tables in fluorescent lit Witwatersrand – who paused on his way well as the disruption of the rest of the pavement cafes, dimly lit nightclubs where across campus and surprised me with economy, Pancho decided to leave the we sambaed and rumbaed till cock’s crow some encouraging words. country in this year of 1975, thus ending a and were moved by the haunting sadness Teaching first year followed in the cycle of 25 years of intense and profoundly of the fado. A place where racial mixing, late 70s when I was to experience at innovating work manifested in nearly 500 completely verboten in the homeland, was first hand the effect of Pancho on the architectural projects and in important the norm, where the urbanity of apartment Department – the rigour, the depth of contributions to other undertakings. buildings smacked more of Europe than knowledge underlying his passion for a For many of us, although Miranda the suburbia we were used to – a place to transcendent architecture – where poetry, Guedes had never aligned himself to any which a visit became like some sort of rite fantasy and art were seamlessly brought political group, everything he initiated, of passage. together, and whose making he shared supported or simply encouraged in the Perhaps my first view of the Lion House with us in the profoundest of parables. His difficult social and cultural environment of was from a high rise diving board – it mischievousness, sense of humour and colonial Mozambique always implied the probably wasn’t, but it’s a marvellous way generosity of spirit inspired students and ideal of the liberty and equality that would to overlay the two heady/breathtaking teachers alike. transform the country. experiences of my first L.M. trip as Some balm to the void left after their I met Pancho in 1962 when he was one exhibition diver of the Wits team! Already departure was given by special time of the great stimulators of cultural activity then we had heard of Pancho Guedes - this spent in Lisbon and Eugaria with Pancho in the then Lourenço Marques. A well- magician who built sculptures in the name and Dori when I experienced Pancho’s known South African author was visiting of buildings under the African sun with Portuguese roots and once again shared the country, and I, as a journalist, went the aplomb of a master at a time when their warmth and hospitality. to interview him in Pancho’s house where everyone else was searching for the way To assess Pancho’s influence tangibly on he was staying. In the succeeding years I forward. me is impossible. Suffice to say that he has came to have almost exclusive access to A while later the man himself, enfant reinforced my desire to honour history, to the illustrious visitors who were guests in terrible and agent provocateur materialised value the human over the mechanical, to the house at Rua de Nevala, next to the in the Dorothy Suskind at Wits to help underpin the sensual with the intellectual, Smiling Lion – a privilege earned through shake the Department of Architecture to its to never lose sight of joy. He has given the friendly relationship that rapidly foundations – an exciting and compelling- me courage to follow my intuition rather developed between Pancho and me. At though for me with my divided loyalties than my colleagues. He has shored up my the time of the interview with the South – a not altogether comfortable experience. determination to fight the fight for beauty African author I had already been in that Visits to LM in the 60s were concerned in the world – but above all, he has shown house without the owner suspecting it. with family and pushing babies in prams me what it is to be fully human. On these clandestine visits I entered on extended walks near the Polana – a surreptitiously through the service door good way to see more Pancho houses Mira Fassler Kamstra taught at WITS and made my way to the garage where and apartments – but I felt, not the best University and is currently practicing one of my colleagues from the painting way to visit a master. If I had only known as an architect in Johannesburg. classes at the Nucleu de Arte was held then of how approachable and generous in a regime of semi-seclusion. By giving him a space in which to work and a small subsidy Pancho had got him to leave his job as a servant at the Gremio Civil club, give up going to the Nucleu de Arte and stop mixing with other painters. This last condition he faithfully complied with, at least as far as I was concerned, though once we actually swapped paintings, Malangatana and I. The painting that I got in exchange for one of mine that he liked (I can’t remember which now) was one of the first versions of the famous ‘Dentist’. Of course when his strict patron realised that the painting was missing from the studio- which involved the country until the collapse of the apartheid regime. Today the city suffers from what another architect termed with a certain irony ‘the process of ruralisation’, where the essential components of the so-called urban culture progressively disappear. The fluctuations between long periods of drought and devastating floods, allied to the lack of security in urban areas brought about the collapse of agriculture with the consequent migration of the population to urban areas. Because of insufficient public or private investment in building there is a very low rate of increase in housing, garage, Malangatana had to come secretly instances in which this characteristic was and in many cases the structures for the to my house in Xipamanine and cancel our revealed to me most clearly – the project maintenance of the urban concentrations deal. of the renovation and decoration of the are totally inoperative. Pancho’s decisive influence in the Djambo Café in down- town Lourenço This situation is common to the majority launching of Malangatana’s artistic career Marques and the design of the Church of of the cities in the Sub Sahara, and is the illustrates his intense and passionate the Sagrada Familia in Machava. visible evidence of the profound crisis understanding of Art which had the effect But Pancho’s professional involvement affecting the continent. of demolishing the barriers that hemmed was not limited to the purely urban Nowadays, as I pass by any of Pancho’s in the concepts of artistic expression in that spaces of the city – or to the concerns of society. Indeed, Malangatana’s first one- the white population. The then Lourenco man show resulted in an earth-shaking Marques was for him only one third of the cultural shock to the white community city. The rest – greater in area and more – even the most lucid intellectuals could densely populated, totally deprived of not conceive that one of their African resources and services – was the “City of contemporaries, and only a ‘servant’ at Reeds”, Cidade de Caniço. Pancho urged that, could traverse the zealously guarded that it was necessary to take Lourenço frontiers of ‘great art’. Marques an integrated city. As long as the Every new architectural project of municipal authorities were not capable of Pancho Miranda Guedes became the rehabilitating the reed city by providing object of intense debate in the city. The sanitation, roads and other urban facilities echoes of these discussions reached all – the city would remain dangerously ill. segments of society, from which many But for Pancho the Cidade de Caniço of us, far from the epicentre of these was not merely a stage for the dramas and intellectual confrontations, only got the problems of the ‘economically debilitated’ impression that the architect’s works – a euphemism used to designate the did not please an establishment that we African population and echoed by the buildings in Maputo, I sometimes wonder detested for many reasons. Later, when I charitable institutions identified with the what the architect, with his enormous got to know the work of Miranda Guedes, official policy of the regime. According to provocative energy, would say about I began to recognise his buildings as Miranda Guedes the Cidade de Caniço had the widespread deterioration of various veritable sculptures placed in a rather as much cultural and human potential as areas in spite of some signs of economic unimaginative urban setting. Every one of the Cement City – and possessed reserves recovery. And I also ask myself how Miranda Guedes’ buildings was a work of of creativity that needed to be stimulated much time will have to elapse before the art that shared the same creative impulse, – hence his involvement in so many Mozambicans, instead of ‘occupying’ the the same aesthetic rationale and the same undertakings and cultural projects in the city, will take possession of its culture and expressive language of his paintings and Cidade de Caniço. be moved to recuperate the notable pieces sculptures. It was then not possible to cure the of urban patrimony – Pancho’s legacy to Like many who visited Pancho’s house disease of the city in the prevailing political the city. and studio at Rua de Nevala, I also noticed and economic climate. Unfortunately the way that some of Pancho’s projects 1975 was not to bring about the so much Luis Bernardo Honwana is a borrowed, here and there, the decorative desired improvement of the distortions renowned author of short stories, markings on local carvings, the surrealist apparent in the city. After independence, turned politician, and has now retired motives of painters he admired, and what the Portuguese had not done for lack from his post as Director of UNESCO the totem-like forms of his sculptures in of political will, the Mozambicans could for Southern Africa. wood and the embroidered designs of his not do for lack of funds and administrative own work. I remember particularly two ability – aggravated by the armed conflict Translated from the Portuguese by Dori Guedes.

9 Herbert Prins of Architecture at the University of practical experience and study but he has the Witwatersrand, placed the art of an Achilles heel: uch has been said and written architecture at the forefront. Students Pancho does not suffer the pomposity Mabout the art of Amancio d ‘Alpoim were encouraged to seek in the history and pretensions of academic life easily and Miranda Guedes; his paintings, sculpture of architecture and within themselves the on occasions he felt compelled to deflate and architecture. What Pancho, (the name creative means with which to make ART the egos of distinguished members of the by which he is best known) has said and rather than mere structure. University Senate, who did not appreciate written about and his life’s work provide This is the message propagated by his sarcasm and, at times, barbed wit. The much food for thought, discussion and Pancho’s work and in his teaching. Not reactions of the recipients of his humour admiration. Admiration for his brilliant everyone wished to/or could follow the were not always appreciative or helpful. intellect, his scholarship and his genius. example set by the master but the many Pancho’s years at Wits were memorable Genius may be defined as an who did were greatly enriched by the ones. They were significant for those on extraordinary capacity for imaginative experience and by another distinguishing the staff of the department who worked creation, original thought, invention or feature of Pancho: his humanity. with him. They were also inspiring times discovery. Pancho cares about people and is, to for the students, many of whom are today Pancho may be said to be a genius many students and colleagues, a guardian, his devoted friends. but I have chosen to write about Pancho father-figure. An extraordinary aspect As a mark of their affection Pancho’s the guardian, teacher and academic and of Pancho’s guardianship is that it rarely friends from South Africa and abroad will to leave it to others, who may be better fosters dependency. It is as though he be coming to Johannesburg to honour and qualified than I, to discuss his extraordinary empowers with confidence, those who pay their respects to him. Such tributes are talents as an artist, architect and scholar, come to learn and seek help, comfort and in recognition of a great architect who, by except to say that for some architecture support. Pancho is able to discover and sharing his beliefs, knowledge, experience is an amalgam of science, technology, uncover qualities and talents in people, and humanity, enriched the University he sociology, economics, politics, making when nobody else has seen the potential. served for many years. buildings etc. … and, in parenthesis, art. In many instances students would not But in honouring Pancho we also honour Pancho says that architecture IS ART and have stayed on to complete the course but Dori, his wife, companion and helpmate that making buildings is less important for his empathy and the encouragement who, though in the background, provided than making drawings. But Pancho’s and inspiration his nurturing afforded. support, a sounding board for ideas and buildings are superbly detailed, technically Today most of those who Pancho helped who is a willing editor of his written work. competent, functional AND sculptural. are successful architects, doing their own Together they make an unbeatable team. I Through his work he demonstrates the creative thing and none are pale reflections salute them both! importance of buildings as objects to be of the master. Perhaps this is the greatest experienced in space; that create and tribute one can pay to an academic. Herbert Prins taught for many years enclose space and are spiritually uplifting. Pancho is a born academic. Scholarship, at WITS University, actively involved This places architecture, as ART, at the in its most eclectic form, comes naturally in the profession and the Institute core but does not deny the importance of to him. Because he brings to academia a of South African Architects and is technology and the human sciences. well established architectural philosophy currently involved in the conservation It is not surprising therefore that Pancho, he is able to provide superb intellectual of South Afric’s building heritage. during his time as head of the department and creative leadership based on years of

10 Peter Rich pursuit to explore the potential to achieve Joao de Pina-Cabral in your work the innocence of perception he drawing entitled “the plan is in the of the child. It is a blessing that your son met Pancho Guedes when I was a boy, at Tmind” is a mythological representation Pedro, through his drawings, can take us Imy father’s house, and was immediately of the worldview of a highveld tribe, all there. caught by the sharpness of his wit and viewed across time and space. Coming up Upon entering Architectural School the unconventionality of his creativeness. between the bull’s horn and the distant myself, I embarked on a pilgrimage to The buildings he designed for my father’s landscape of the veld, you, Pancho, visit you in the then Lourenço Marques diocese were more than architectural have yet another idea. The idea is being (LM- now Maputo), accompanied by Diane structures, there was theology and politics symbolized as an egg emanating light, is the young woman who was to become written into them. Later, at the University charged with the potency of the creative my wife. The situation of our meeting with of the Witwatersrand, he welcomed me act. you, Dori and your family, was fuelled with and seduced me by challenging my newly fervour by the intoxication of Diane and acquired intellectual fascinations. I found I being madly in love, spawning the gift out that he knew southern Africa like of a lifelong and life changing friendship. few people did and he had an historian’s The voluptuousness of the sculptures understanding of his chosen land. The red proclaimed the space of rua de Nevala house he shared with Dori in Jo’burg was 915. Malangatana’s dreamscapes evoked a constant source of new discoveries and reflection and introspection. Naïve artists new acquaintances. Later still, in Sintra were prodigiously producing and creating (Portugal), we came to be neighbours by art works in the yard and garage. Kitty, chance. I finally realised the vastness of who was 3 years old, accompanied a site his creative genius – he is an artist for visit to the Red House under construction. whom architecture is humour, is fiction, The contactor clicked his heels together is painting, is sculpture, is … and that and bowed acknowledging the instruction for an anthropologist like me is specially from you to demolish and recast the entire valuable, a deep engagement with the reinforced concrete staircase whose bottom human world. As I read back the essays he riser was incorrectly out of alignment. wrote in the mid 60’s about Mozambique, The exposure to your work, your family, I find his voice still shocking in its daring and your home gave me the added gift of and in its engagement. Pancho’s gesture Jackson Hlungwani, the Shangaan opening my eyes to Africa through art. This of intervention aims not at changing the sculptor and fellow shaman, spoke to you is where my passion for the contemporary world but at gathering it for human use and I of the gift of having chosen your art of living African cultures had its genesis. – his houses are both functional and great creative passage in life. The gifts that you Ndebele homesteads lined the roadside fun. He does not try to totalise, to close gave those of us who chose this passage through the Transvaal en route to LM Their the world, to resolve it; he is as much an were multifold. You taught us to believe in, iconography in interpreting the changing anarchist as he is a humanist. rather than to fear, our own intuition and western fashions seen in neighbouring that the act of creation is in the doing. You towns and visits to cities, together with João de Pina-Cabral is a Senior encouraged us to practice many different the remarkable architectonic sensibility Research Fellow and Chair of the art forms, painting, sculpture, drawing, displayed in the homesteads realisation, Scientific Board of the Institute of writing, design, preferably simultaneously, prompted and provoked comment. Social Sciences of the University of allowing one art form to inform another. This discourse was to be extended yet Lisbon. He is currentlly President of Your example and presence enabled those further in working as an assistant to Julian the European Association of Social of us who engaged with our creativity Beinart on decoding and recording the Anthropologists. to fulfil and in some cases exceed our urban imagery portrayed on the walls potential. at WNT, awaking the penchant I was to You accord the same reverence to a develop over the next 30 year period for painting or design as you do to the birth recording and documenting the rural and of a child, all being part of the creative act urban settlements and spaces of African of life. Diane and I cherish the brass angel cultures in transition. For this I am eternally coat hangers that you gave us for each of grateful to you both. The accompanying our four children. drawing entitled “the plan is in the mind“ On philosophy you share the view of is a mythological tribute to that dialogue. Friedrich Schroeder Sonnenberg, that the best philosophy is the one that comes out Peter Rich is an adjunct Professor of the situation. at WITS University, an authority on In your quest for the architect to have Ndebele Architecture and runs a all the same freedoms as the artist, you practice in Johannesburg draw our attention to the importance of playfulness in design, and your lifelong

11 Julian Beinart documentation of the essential structure Jose Forjaz of a small town. But in WNT the innate o honor Pancho is to remember, with power of the popular – Pancho-inspired - I was sixteen, in 1952, and Lourenço Tlove, a time some forty years ago was what was on vivid display. These wall Marques was my second country, my when one was young enough (and the drawings were on the covers of three US second culture and my first discovery of a new Africa was as well) to be passionate and European architectural journals in the wider horizon. about possibilities with all the innocence same month, but WNT raised issues that All my life before I was passionate, and of discovery. Without the careful notations have remained ever since. Where does encouraged, to manipulate forms, carvings, of memory of John Ruskin, to recall now the trajectory from the visual to the social drawings, models of a reality that I could is to abstract, perhaps even to invent, a (Ruskin again) lead the designer? (At a only control at a small scale. past that rotates around Pancho, his place lecture at the ICA in London in 1965, I was Buildings, and the mystery of their and his family, and to rejoice that one was accused of documenting “the decorations making, slowly penetrated a deeper layer blessed to be close to it. on prison walls”). Why were the individual of my emotional and imaginary world. But One of the themes to recollect from creations of WNT not rampant inventions it was more the process than the results those years is Pancho’s singular ability to but conditioned by a communally that fascinated me. maintain the most intensive intellectual understood frame of reference? I lived in a society profoundly marked by connection with the international world Ever since those early days, Pancho’s conformity, dominated by an authoritarian midst the isolation of colonial Africa. prodigious appetite for knowing and regime, practicing the opposite of its Pancho knew everything that was feeling everything still remains the clear professed ethical principles, we were all fundamental in art and architecture. So inspiration. Without his endless energy, rebels navigating between bohemia and he could see both sides of the coin at we all struggle. But we constantly need political extremism. the same time: the drawings of Klee as to remind ourselves that his model of It was exactly at that stage that Pancho well as the Potemkin Village reed-house commitment was not only to ideas but came to be a presence in my need to find a paintings on the road from the airport. also to his own passions. For if Pancho different, and rebellious, world. To be different was necessary. Pancho was different and, as such, admirable. In a small, provincial universe, his buildings did not leave anybody untouched. They were provocative, unavoidable presences standing out of a generally boring, or so we felt, collection of concrete modernist boxes or revitalist exercises vaguely suave Portuguese or with a taste of South America, or plainly attempts at a mediocre neo classicism passé. At seventeen, exactly fifty years ago, I went to Pancho and asked to work for him as a draughtsman. By then I had a few months in the Public Works department as a “task” draughtsman under a tough master, Fernando Mesquita, an architect, himself an admiring critic of Pancho’s production. He taught me the virtues of rigour, rationality in thinking, the necessity My writings of that time about the teaches us anything, it is that you stand up of culture and the value of work. painters Malangatana and Motjuoadi, the for what you believe : he, above all, has It was a dry environment, only mitigated recordings of African jazz, the rubbish-door carried, no matter what, the acclaim and by a pervasive sense of humour shared by cover photographs for “The Classic”, stem burden of his own transcendant inventions. all around me. from his transforming evocation of the I am honored to be part of this With Pancho the experience widened to popular. So did the five summer schools, symposium. But, above everything else, it another side of the spectrum. originating in Mocambique, held between gives me a chance to tell the world just The need for invention came first. Lack 1961 and 1965 in five African countries how lucky I have been to know Pancho. of imagination was a mortal sin and the where the design curriculum tried to mesh manipulation of form was an obligatory Bauhaus basic design with the spontaneity Julian Beinart taught at WITS in the exercise, carrying forward the last of untutored Africans. 60s. He is well known for his research explorations published, and avidly studied, My work in Western Native Township into Western Native Township and is in a copious literature that, for the first followed the trajectory set by Pancho. In currently Professor at MIT, USA. time, I could access. Italy I had experimented with the complete And then there were the building

12 sites. I was taken along, given doors It is a lesson of attitude, and window openings to measure, old not of form. Form is as buildings to survey and, most of the times, personal as the shape of just to be along and to see and enjoy that your nose or the figures and tremendously exciting atmosphere of a shapes in a zebra skin. building growing from nothing to become Even process is personal a work of art. and circumstantial, beyond The intensity of the place was never the discipline. less than vibrant. The work, the books, But attitude is to be the clients, the builders, even the break learned, emulated, understood. he given us, above all, is a body of work for tea and Dori’s biscuits, it all revolved In Pancho’s case the roots of success, of exceptional quality, the authority of around this obsession with architecture, or, as the French say, of his grandeur et having designed and built many buildings, and painting and sculpture and the arts. misére, his greatness and his misery, are painted many canvases, manipulated many Malangatana, the painter, had started by that enormous capacity to fabricate and materials, reflected on many levels of the then, in the garage, the beginning of his keep alive an inflexible faith in himself, in business of looking, seeing, learning and extraordinary production. the truth of enjoying what he does and in producing art form. Others were coming and going. keeping doing it. Pancho was never a politician, a Embroided fabrics and sculpted wood Many years passed. The world went speculator, or a socialite. The work came flowed from that garage, around ideas around, servants became masters and old to him from a society that recognised his sometimes so childish that they could masters faded or were substituted by new value, his efficiency, the novelty of his almost fool you for a naiveté arrived at, not masters. poetical impulse and the strength of his a departure point. By then I had left and The seventies were years of great faith in the redeeming value of art. came back to and from the Fine Arts School options and choices. I have a deep sorrow and little of Oporto where it all seemed stifling, out We both, and so many others, changed understanding for the lack of demand of date and, perhaps, too sure of itself. places and masters. Pancho became a for his work from the two other societies Pancho and Dori had started a business university man. I could not follow him. where Pancho has established himself, and of importing and selling decorative and We were separated by the geography of proceeded with his creative work. But this art objects and, for a while, I did search two extreme regimes. is not the moment nor place to be sad or and buy in Portugal, for them, some very I suspect that he had a lot of fun. Pancho less than excited. interesting pieces of popular art. This gave has always been a communicative person. The most famous of the Portuguese me a deep contact, and a respectful insight And he has a lot to communicate. So much poets, Camões, spoke about “those that, into the seriousness and the quality, and so that the logic of his associations and through their valuable works, liberate the formal traditions of the non-erudite the ramifications of his cultural references themselves from the law of death...” artists. are not, always, easy to follow, albeit, to meaning that they will be present forever Through Pancho’s office, and my life, accept. in the memory of the people’s of this many good friends passed by for the glory He speaks a codified language of world. of architecture and the brotherhood of this images and metaphors that have to be My point in this eulogy is that we obsessed gang. They were the architects learned to be fully appreciated. His giggle should not only recognise the value of and the artists. They were the others, the can be chilling if you grasp the depth of Pancho’s work, and celebrate it, but look cognoscenti and the intellectuals, even the its irony. But his enthusiasm is always to that work as the result of an attitude politicians. The major ingredient for those contagious. This, plus the capacity of and a lifetime of dedication and love for friendships was always the commitment identifying instantaneously the virtues and what we also love. This is why, through to enjoy the products of creativity, of the weakness of a design, makes him a this celebration, we are establishing new expression, of freedom of thought. formidable critic and master. references for our students and for our There was, however, a dogma - to I could guess that the university professionals and artists. This is why we be anti dogmatic. To live this way is not environment may have been for him, at thank Pancho and congratulate him for this that simple or that easy. We have, all of times, asphyxiating, boring, unnerving, recognition. us, learned the price of taking risks, of irritating and limiting. I feel the same after It would be unfair to finish without breaking ground, of defying convention, 20 years of suffering it. But I can also giving Dori her dues. Her faith in him of inventing. We have, unwillingly, guess that Pancho had a lot of fun pulling and her support were essential to his created enemies, sycophants, intellectual the carpet from the bottom of so many achievements. Thank you Pancho, Doctor antagonists, envy and false disciples. certitudes and established mores. He, I am Pancho, thank you Dori. I am glad I had A lesson I learned from Pancho, and that sure, found and stimulated the universal this opportunity to say this in public. is still as alive and valid as it was then, potential of student’s creativity and fifty years ago, is that the adventure of curiosity, passion and the joy of discovery. Jose Forjaz has a long standing architecture, of inventing the spaces where In that he is an indisputable master. relationship with Pancho and is man lives and loves, is so irresistible that He proposes, almost obsessively, an currently a practicing architect and it pushes us, everyday, to one more step, attitude of defiance to the formality of the Head of the School of Architecture, one more job, one more discovery, one establishment, of freedom of thought, of Eduardo Mondlane University, more effort, one more joy. informality of mental behaviour. But what Maputo, Mozambique.

13 Luis Ferreira da Silva expected, his reputation preceded his very had I gone to Wits, Pancho’s formidable presence, and the vignettes of Pancho’s presence in a way, would have left me ourenço Marques in the 50s and 60s dealings with clients, builders, the paralysed and incapable. Lwas an exciting and social interactive authorities and the establishment at large, As I struggled along in the junior town, where the Polana, the Military Club became legends larger then life, a giant years with communication, identity and and the Gremio, with its transient society that I wondered if ever I would be given a inspiration, to my disbelief, Pancho started of Army Officers, their families, and the glimpse of. contacting me, enquiring about my European influence of those arriving to It was therefore with trepidation that progress, encouraging me, caring. Pancho settle (together with the experience and I started frequenting the Military Club, not only remembered me, but he actually feed back of one’s holiday abroad), made while taking fencing and tennis lessons, cared!! Well, I was not going to let him up to a rich and cosmopolitan playground, and I used to walk past those high walls, down… a café society of sorts. where the Guedes family lived behind, It was since then, Pancho, and along all Inevitably, any news spread fast, and and that just happened to be situated in these years, that I have tried to live up to would be glamorised to a golden status. front of the Club. And then one day I had your energy and expectations, and I am It was then that one day I heard at the a break through: During the school

dinner table, my parents and friends talk holidays, family friends arranged for my very aware of the way you so unselfishly about this young genius, an architect best mate and I to go and help Chissano give encouragement and credit to me and with an attitude intent on transforming and Malangatana producing their artwork many many others, a true sign of the great the population’s sedate and predictable in Pancho’s backyard. The exhilarating man you are. lifestyle. experience was dampened only by the fact As the great architect and academic, Not long after, one by one, these that even then I never actually met the the person, the raconteur, the family man, amazing structures began to appear in the man himself, having to settle for looking I have always been one of your greatest more experimental, sophisticated suburbs, at the incredible collection of sketches, admirers, and thank you Pancho for having and in my fired up imagination, they drawings, models and sculptures in his been such an integral part of my life. appeared to smile, to walk and even talk studio, that I could see through the back to me. Beautiful whimsical shapes, forms, window. But the memories remained and Luis Ferreira da Silva graduated from textures that changed the cityscape and my the images even grew stronger… the School of Architecture, Natal head space forever. Many years later, when architecture University. He pacticed in Durban for By then the whole world was talking replaced horses in my every day several years and currently has offices about Pancho Guedes, and the elite felt concentration, I found myself studying it in Cape Town and Johannesburg. vindicated in their initial prediction. As in Natal, relieved with the thought that

14 Cedric Green Lewcock. In 1960 I graduated, got married organised by Pedro Guedes. His effect on and Margaret and I went to Laurenço a few of our students was as electrifying n the mid fifties a rumour circulated Marques, met José there who took us on as the effect of his work on me 20 years Iamong students in the School of a tour of Pancho’s latest creations. Again before. Tim Ostler in particular, flew out Architecture in Durban that there were we failed to meet him, but had a brief tour Johannesburg to research Pancho’s work some extraordinary buildings appearing in of his studio and office, and got a glimpse for a dissertation. A few years later Pancho Lourenço Marques. Those few of us who into his extraordinary creativity and way invited me to come and do a project with perhaps should have gone to Art school of working. I went to work in Rhodesia, Wits students - to build a «solar tent», but found ourselves studying architecture, inspired to try to emulate his integration and there I saw much more of his work, were intrigued, and in my third year I went of sculpture and architecture in my own and gained an insight in the personal to LM with José Cotta to see them. José, way. I only succeeded in one building, magnetism that enabled him to persuade who knew everyone, tried to arrange for before deciding to emigrate to Britain. On clients to accept his designs, to persuade us to meet the architect, but he was not arriving in London, I found that Pancho builders to construct them, and his success available - on site somewhere interpreting was there to give a talk at the Institute of as a teacher of architecture. Subsequently,

his puzzling drawings for a builder, or Contemporary Arts about his work. With Margaret and I have been to Lisbon to stay setting out a design for a mural. The a group of expatriate Natal ex-students with Pancho and Dori several times and I legend grew, photographs were passed – Dennis Claude, Alan Amoils, Patrick am always astonished at his irrepressible from hand to hand; there was something Holdcroft and others – we went to hear energy and optimism, continuing creativity slightly wicked in an interest in buildings him, and see the man himself. His talk was and ability to overcome every kind of with such sensuous curves, rich colours only partly about his own work, but also obstacle. As my little tribute to Pancho I and textures, suggestive art works on about local Mozambique artists he had have created a website which I hope can the buildings and in his studio. At a discovered and encouraged by giving them grow into an internet archive of his work: time when the Mies/Gropius glazed box studio space and materials and buying www.guedes.info. I would be very glad to minimalist aesthetic was gaining ground, their work. It was not until the mid 70s receive any material to add to the site. being influenced by Pancho was a mild that I was in position to invite Pancho to form of student protest - I made copper come to lecture my students at Sheffield Cedric Green, architect, is currently sculptures, painted murals in the studios, University, while he was in the UK for an based in London and has a web and produced a few bizarre designs, but exhibition of his work at the Architectural site on Green Architure and Pancho was supported by Barrie Biermann and Ron Association School of Architecture, Guedes.

15 Malangatana Ngwenya I was still working at the Lourenço wanted me to come and live in their home. Valente Marques Club. One day Julio Navarro told Pancho Guedes drove to Matalana in me that architect Guedes wanted to get his black Mercedes which got stuck in me out of the club so I could come and the sand many times before he reached n 1951 I was employed to look after little live in his house. I was wild with delight our house. My father was a great cook Iwhite boys. That was at 33 Couceiro but trembling with fear at the same time. I and prepared the food together with da Costa, at the Adao dos Santos family hadn’t ever lived on a familiar footing in a my mother and his other wife. My uncle home. My little charge was Antoninho and white man’s house before. spiced up the meal with music on the my colleague Orlando Mulawu took care Indeed, Pancho did ask Otto Barbosa da concertina and dancing, which pleased the of Carlitos. We were very good at handling Silva, the president of the club, to release Guedes family a lot. our two dear little boys who were lively me from my contract, to leave behind In January 1960 I presented myself and restless like any other children. We at the Guedes family home after saying had to think up all sorts of games to keep good-bye to the people at the Lourenco them amused, and Pancho the ‘senhor’ Marques Club. Pancho introduced me with the MG and hair flying in the wind, to his family and showed me round the didn’t know that he was our favourite house and the garage where I would entertainment. paint. But he said, ‘Go back to where you As he sped along Couceiro da live and stay for 30 days away from your Costa we all shouted MG, MG, MG, family’. mg...mg...mg...mg…….. until his car I went on a journey well into the interior stopped quite nearby. He would jump out of the bush. He wanted me to absorb quickly and disappear into the clutter of a scenes, expressions, visions, that I would building under construction at the corner see, hear and feel, and relive my past/ of Pinheiro Chagas and Couceiro da Costa. present. He wanted me to be with my All four of us would wait until the white ancestors to search out the unknown that man came out – looking very I knew without knowing. Those elegant, I must add. The fun and stories told to me by the young games would be repeated when and old people in that remote area he got into his car and pulled off led me into a cultural and spiritual at great speed, accelerating like gold mine. He well knows how to a racing driver. shape people. Pancho sculpted and Well, later I met his brother, burnished my soul, anthropologised Engineer Miranda Guedes, and me internally, made me dig into my I didn’t have the slightest idea entrails to lay bare the mythologies they were related, because I within. really hadn’t even spoken to The Guedes family had offered Pancho. My only ‘meetings’ me a stay of three months, but in with him were when he drove truth that bursary lasted for a whole into Couceira da Costa at three years without stopping. such a speed. His brother was When I came back from my a member of the Lourenço session in the bush, he asked me Marques Club where I used to serve him questions and helped me to give answers and his wife at the bar. that I didn’t know I knew. He agreed that One day in about the mid fifties when I should go to the decorative painting I was at the Nucleo Art Club with one of class at the Industrial School, but for the student members, Pancho appeared. some time didn’t want me to go back to I didn’t expect to be watched by that kind my colleagues, my salary, and those the Nucleo Art Club or to visit the better of person while I was painting – they were ‘general’s’ uniforms we had to put on as known painters, to be sure I would avoid my first attempts. He was accompanied by servants of the bar. I didn’t accept the ‘pollution’. He began to take me to see his wife Dorothy and the Frank Mc Ewans, invitation immediately and asked architect his architectural work in construction, and friends of the Guedes’. They spoke to each d’Alpoim Miranda Guedes to give me I became aware of his fantastic creative other in English and began to look intently some time. We were then in 1959, I was imagination. His demands on the builders at my naïve pictures. already married, and I wanted to talk it were perhaps as great as those he made Pancho introduced himself to me and over with my parents. on himself. asked if I was willing to sell him three They lived in Mapuleni, a place very I often I saw him drawing line after line paintings a month. I didn’t understand near to Matalana. They were very happy, which he assembled on the surface of the why he wanted to do this , but all the but had some doubts. They told me to ask paper. After being set up on the ground same I began to take my pictures to 915 that man to come to Matalana and explain and in space they became marvellously Rua de Nevala where he lived and had his exactly what he wanted of me. My wife sculptural buildings in his unique and architectural office. was also curious to see this family who unmistakable style. No architect in

16 Mozambique had ever linked architecture unitex. have been in contact with him to qualify to indigenous culture. Only in his designs Architect Miranda Guedes helped me and become self-sufficient for the future. do we see a geometry reflecting the organise my exhibition, sponsored by Pancho always granted requests for tattoo-like patterns so characteristic of the Nucleo Art Club, which culminated in help in building institutions, schools or African mythology. speeches given by him, Joao Vasconcelos, nursery schools - always with a thought Pancho had a studio in which he and Augusto Pereira Cabral. Later Pancho for the future. I well remember his work designed and another space where he took part of this exhibition to Cape Town in support of the Swiss Mission in the directed the work of his sculptors and for a show called ‘Imagination 61’. He also then Lourenço Marques, Xicumbane in embroiderers. He knows (and who better arranged for an exhibition in the Camden Xai-Xai, Antioka in Magude, Rikatlla in than I to affirm it) how to transmit his Art Club in London, Musee de L’Homme Marracuene, and also in support of the thoughts to others. It is thanks to him in Paris, Mbari Club in Nigeria, and in Sisters of Charity for their many projects of that I can now search for the ideas within the USA. Black Orpheus is one of the social work. Man and in the depths of Culture. He is magazines in which, at his instigation, my For Pancho it was painful to see the capable of provoking a discussion without first poems were published. contrast between the dilapidated ‘City concluding it, leaving his audience to draw But it is also important to say that in of Reeds’ , so lacking in hygiene and their own conclusions. the travelling that he did during the time I the most basic facilities, and the ‘City of This contagious kindness is spread was staying at his house, he saw to it that Cement’, which were right next to one around other people’s minds so strongly my name was made known wherever he another. In the sixties he wrote a long that it takes root and perfumes the soul. went. For instance, when I first went to article about this, with the intention of Pancho perforated my psyche, creating Lagos and met up with the local artists, drawing the attention of the colonial lightness and multiple insights. I was surprised to be treated as a friend. government to the problems, and he was His house at 915 was not victimised after its publication. only an education because Even the Municipality reacted of his activities, but also against him. But he didn’t mind. because of the people He wanted to find a solution who came there from all that would at least bring some over the world. This only measure of relief, however happened because Pancho small, to these people living was like a honeycomb in such abject poverty. The whose sweetness never Portuguese bourgeoisie aligned dried up. In his house I itself with the official attitude could taste the joys of and also disapproved, but the meeting people like the populations of the depressed musician Hendrik de Blij, areas greeted Pancho’s stand Tristan Tzara the surrealist with jubilation, remembered poet, the South African even to this day. At this time architect Julian Beinart, the Pancho’s wife Dori often visited South African poet Breyten the centre of the ‘Associacao Breytenbach, the German dos Negros’ of Mozambique, anthropologist Ulli Beier giving English lessons free of and his artist wife Susan charge to various secondary Wenger. school student members. A super happening, and I would like to say that all the a very important one for experience I gained while with me, was when he brought this family was, and always will me together with Eduardo remain, useful and valuable Chivambo Mondlane and his wife Janet Wole Soyinka welcomed me warmly and to me. Today I discover in myself a man Mondlane. Thanks to Pancho this night took me to his university and the Mbari that I never knew existed before. I will transformed me. Eduardo Mondlane gave Club, the breeding ground of Nigerian do everything in my power to profit from a reading of my work which showed me intellectuals. Pancho had this faculty of what I learned with the Guedes family. things I hadn’t seen before. The long creating a current linking together the Without the spellbinding hand of Architect discussion between Mondlane and Pancho people he knew. Miranda Guedes I would not have been about Mozambique took place among my Pancho is also a witch-doctor without given the guiding lights that illuminate the humble paintings displayed around the bone throwing. His acute insight enables zigzag paths through life. sitting-room. Unfortunately the sudden him to discover talents and promote departure of the Mondlane family to the creativity. For him a withered tree still has Malangatana is an internationally United States of America prevented him life – the special humus that only he can renowned Mozambican artist, and from inaugurating my exhibition of 10 apply gives the human plant a strength roving cultural ambassador. April 1961. It was my first exhibition, and vitality that afterwards makes us showing fifty seven paintings in oil on wonder. He always enables those who Translated from the Portuguese by Dori Guedes

17 Lewis Levin is great joy in both the colossal and in the of possibilities. We can compress the face, detail. or section the beast. Pancho shows us how ancho was my first contact with the Find our own voice by digesting to collide, extrude, rotate and layer cut- Pworld of Architecture. I remember being others’ work: Buildings, Pancho tells us, outs and contours to assemble anything an anxious first year student, sitting in the are like people – they grow out of each we wish. Dorothy Susskind Auditorium. We were other. We learn by impersonating other Our unrealised work is our great being sternly lectured to by a threatening Architects and Artists; by performing in treasure: When the forces conspire and humourless Dean. “Architecture is their style. As we wander through the against realisation of our inventions, what serious work”, he said, “you only have “port of Copyatica” and enter the “city of we do get is a marvellous collection of one chance to get your work in and to Eclectica”, we discover that the strange drawings and models. That is more than pass. You must all aspire to become voice we hear, has become our own. worth it. professionals”. Laughing at buidings: If we are not Become obsessed: We all need a few The Dean then strode out of the lecture laughing when we are designing, we are creative obsessions to produce anything. theatre. Pancho made sure the doors were doing something wrong. Our client’s needs Come back fighting:When we ask for closed and then turned to the students, are often quite absurd – but indulging the moon and we face rejection, Pancho “Architecture must never be serious work; them can be very entertaining. urges us by example, to come back and only lawyers and doctors are serious. You Words can trigger the mind’s eye try again. We harness our disillusionment must all learn to play – but take your play to imagine great inventions: Often a and reinvent ourselves. The work invariably very seriously. You will always have a conversation with Pancho will leave our gets better and we might just succeed. second chance, a third, and many more; mind brimming with ideas. An Artist is a collector: Pancho urges for the rest of your life. You need not aspire We will have visited fabulous places, us to take Picasso’s advice that we must to become a professional. It’s far better to seen great wonders and glimpsed curious create artworks for ourselves that we remain an amateur.” objects. The sensation is like seeing an have not been able to find. If we desire Those were the first of many Pancho amazing film that we can’t quite recall. We a great painting, we should make a copy voices that I still hear in my head when emerge in a furious panic, eager to distil ourselves. I go about trying to invent and design our experience into drawings. The Dream’s the thing: The Dream anything. Here is a collection of few others: Invent our own proportional cannibalises all our images and obsessions. system: Why bother with the modulor It then delivers them back to us as a great or the golden section? Make up our own. feast of material for our manipulation. All Divide up our site, system or palette; it’s a we have to do is draw. great way to start. Rework the ideas forever: It’s never How fair art thou, square and circle: too late to rework our ideas. Pancho will Pancho invites us to revel in the simple find an old drawing and produce multiple mysteries of elementary geometries. These variations and permutations. Ideas that we will never cease to delight and inspire. had long ago might burst out, after a long The strangeness of the human hibernation. character is an infinite resource for Personal hardships must be filtered Architecture: Human biography, secrets through Art and Architecture: By his and gossip can be made into sculpture and extraordinary personal example of exile, All Architects and Artists, past space. When speaking to Pancho about dislocation, and loss, Pancho has taught and present, are a great fruit salad other architects, he often tells us first about us that our one great companion through of friends: Pancho invites us to dine at the idiosyncrasies of their character; their life’s trials is the joy of invention. We can the great smorgasbord of Architecture. relationships, obsessions and losses. He harness our misfortunes and turn them into Nibbling here and there, we explore the shows us that the personal has influenced poetry. obsessions and adventures of others. We their experimentations. Designing Hearing our own voice: The eat, borrow, observe and sift through what buildings, we understand from Pancho, is wonderful thing about learning from these friends have invented before us and not a pure and rational task. It comes from Pancho is that he invariably makes us listen alongside us. an introspective voyage into desires and to our own voice. He makes us reach into Feign madness and turn the fantasies. This was most liberating for us ourselves to recover and develop our full familiar on its head: Pancho teaches as students; knowing that the source of our potential. us to dislocate the images in our world. invention could be our own experience. Being around Pancho induces a kind Anything can transform or fuse into Clumsy beginnings are fine:We all of manic euphoria. We wade with him something else. The River can become a grapple to get a foothold. Look at a few through a dense atmosphere of ideas train; the building a cake; the aqueduct a early sketches of Le Corbusier and Wright. and emerge with multiple options and snake. By disorientating ourselves with the It’s a great boost to confidence. possibilities for our work. “Which one do familiar, we unleash expanded possibilities The profile and the contour are a we choose, Pancho?” “Do them all!” he of invention. secret magic trick: The profile reduces replies. How fortunate we have been! Nothing is too big or too small: We the nature of buildings and objects to a can attempt to design a city, a ship, or a line, while preserving their essence. With Lewis Levin is a former student of jewel. Nothing should frighten us. There the outline, we can explore a whole range Pancho and is an architect, artist and sculptor in Johannesburg. 18 Tim Ostler

first came across Pancho at a conference Iin London in the Summer of 1976. In a converted garage just off New Oxford Street, an unknown architect from a (then obscure) third-world country proceeded to bombard an unsuspecting audience with pictures of buildings like nothing we’d ever seen before. I had trained at a provincial English university where, over a period of seven years, normal adolescents with a reasonably healthy interest in life were gradually transformed into members of a professional tribe, alienated from the rest of society. Already after three years I had largely lost touch with my real feelings about architecture. Pancho’s work was a revelation, showing me that there was a way of connecting architecure with real human emotions. One of the things it made me recall was my childhood perception that every object had an expression. It was not expression in the artistic sense (although I suppose it could be thought of in that way), it was not even necessarily a human expression. It was a literal, facial expression on its own - only without a face. Perhaps it was what Lewis Carroll was thinking of when he talked about the grin of the Cheshire cat. the eyes of an animist – an animist, that others ugly, some flat and clever – real What I had realised was that everything is, who had hitched a ride with African art – like people?” has a character, there to be read by on its way to being discovered by Cubism, Yet for all his poetic imagery, Pancho anyone who chose to be receptive. And Dada and Surrealism, then stopped off in also demonstrates how important it it was to this part of me that Pancho Vicenza to exhume and revive the body is in practical terms for the architect spoke when he talked about all those odd of Andrea Palladio. Looking at buildings himself to have a personality. For without buildings of his. He talked about his jobs as people is really a rather illuminating his relentless drive and his power to as “adventures”, his styles as “stories” or way of looking at architecture. On one charm clients, builders and officialdom “families”. This, too, from a man who, level it is the logical extension of the wherever he works, how many of these in the light of his prolific output, could Renaissance practice of basing columns, extraordinary buildings would ever have evidently exist in the grown-up world. Yet plans and elevations on the symmetry and been built? there he was, talking about his buildings proportions of the human body. Why not in terms such as “a foolish round house indeed extend the metaphor to a human Tim Ostler, a UK-based architect, has outside the world of money, my feathery personality? The effect is to place less carried out extensive research on hairy building” (Swazi Zimbabwe), or “a emphasis on universalism and more on Pancho. mommy house surrounded by children in individualism: on the limitless variety in funny hats” (Sagrada Famila da Machava). which the human personality can exist. As Pancho seemed to be talking about Pancho put it: his buildings as if they were living “How can buildings become what they personalities. He saw architecture through need to become, some pretty, some dark,

19 Udo Kultermann world of the future.” This statement by In the years after the Congress in Tzara may have been too optimistic, but Salisbury I step by step learned about he first and only time I met with it was the underlying perception of a few the then already existing world of his TPancho Guedes took place at the First creative writers and architects at the time buildings in Lourenço Marques (today International Conference of African Culture shortly after the gaining of independence Maputo) in Mozambique, his housing which was arranged in Harare, the former of several states in Africa, and it created estates, churches, social institutions and Salisbury in then Southern Rhodesia, an atmosphere of a creative vision. in each case uniquely determined by the in 1962 by Frank McEven and had a From then on, for me, the steadily specific and unique site situation, and in lasting impact on my then rather limited increasing enthusiasm towards a genuine each case transforming the vocabulary of perception of what African architecture African culture experienced in the the earlier architectural developments into was and could be. I was invited to give conference in Salisbury and specifically the a new and unique manifestation. There a talk about the relationship between lecture by Pancho Guedes had numerous were none of the rules which existed for traditional African architecture and the reverberations. Not only did I return to most other architects in different countries, contemporary situation, and there were different parts of Africa in order to learn no limitation of his exploding fantasy. at that time no earlier investigations what still was then a terra incognita to Pancho Guedes built over 25 years in available on which one could rely. And most scholars, I more and more also the remote country of Mozambique an – much more important – there were saw the visions of Pancho transformed architectural world in which old and new, up to that time, to my knowledge, no into reality. Not only that there can be European and African, fantasy and radical visionary projections in which way the no separation of disciplines such as requirements were no longer contrasting contemporary activities could and should architecture, sculpture and painting, each other, but were unified into a new be related to the great African past. literature and music, no division of whole, a Gesamtkunstwerk in which all The lecture by Pancho Guedes at the theory and practice in the earlier Western the included values were enhanced and Congress in 1962 was unique, as it elevated to a new level. created a brilliant amalgam of personal In the church of the Sagrada Familia visionary projections and at the same da Machava of 1962 – 1964 Pancho – time a fresh reinterpretation of the past, for example – created an ensemble of which worked for me as an eye-opener. spaces which were within the image of In spite of the fact that several lectures a mother surrounded by small children. in the Congress were outstanding Pancho’s own interpretation makes academic presentations, among them this most evident: ”It is a mommy by Roland Penrose and William Fagg house surrounded by children in funny from England and W. Bascom and Alfred hats; a wedding hall with a roof like a H. Barr from the USA , the crystallising gondola. The ship of life guarded by event was the lecture by Pancho Guedes four broad two-way crosses, with a and his ability to open perspectives into side periscope watching over the sea a future which was not yet there. It was of trees and rolling walls turning into surprisingly in line with the presence of corners, crevices and concavities; for another participant in Salisbury, the poet old men in the sun, for hide-and-seek Tristan Tzara, who not only had been games, for lovers, for youthful gangs.” one of the pioneering initiators of what The body of work in Lourenço later was called Dadaism, but also one of tradition, but also that there has to be Marques not only existed in reality, it also the earliest to come to an understanding an unending interpenetration of all the was given a theoretical context in which of Africa and its culture in the context of aspects of life and work, of imagination their unique features became explained world culture. It was not by accident that and practical understanding, of human in writings and drawings. Legitimate Pancho’s lecture found a great applause values and the all-encompassing forms of representation were invented from Tzara. In one of Pancho’s publications expression of joy, as it was visible in in which the totality of architectural he referred to Tzara by quoting him: ”Art much of the African past and in the new developments became references, such is an endless procession of difference.” attempts to continue this past in a creative as the terminology of “Euclidian Palaces”, And Tzara articulated the results of the way. It was especially Pancho Guedes who “Buildings in the American Egyptian meeting in Salisbury when he later wrote was able to attack the then dominating Style”, “The arched and somewhat Roman about Pancho’s buildings in Mozambique: rules of modern industrial architecture by manner”. Admired architects such as ”A whole architecture of the imagination, demanding a wider and more authentic Gaudi, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier which, of course, links Guedes with the form of building the human environment and Louis I. Kahn became important Dadaists and Surrealist schools, and I as he articulated it most brilliantly: for a different ambition. Although am very happy to have met him here ”…our hunger for buildings as symbols, Pancho admired their revolutionary and to be able to say in Paris that certain messages, memorials, chambers of ideas achievements, he made no attempt realizations, which they cannot have seen and feelings is so strong that even if to copy them. It was the genius of the in the West, are coming to fruition in this their faded medicine has lost the original masters who inspired him to continue new world, which is in a state of ferment potency of sign and idea, our need their work, but adapt it to a very different – Africa – which is clearly going to be the constantly recharges them.” geographical and cultural environment.

20 The architectural historian Nnamdi Elleh in a constellation which was once Or with broken window panes, described Pancho’s capabilities in his established in the ruins of Great Zimbabwe haunted, in a wild and overgrown book “African Architecture. Evolution hundreds of years ago, but transforming garden – a young gang’s club house.” and Transformation”: ” There are very the internal functions according to the few architects, who can speak as many requirements of a contemporary family. Pancho’s project for “The Habitable languages and dialects of architecture The central idea for Pancho in this project Woman” is his most radical expression with comfort and professional fluency in was:”My brand-new Zimbabwe is now of what he considers architecture to be. this age of specialisation. Yet, Guedes a big rounded house, almost habitable. Unfortunately it was never completed speaks the language of classicism, the At first it was a square with rounded and beyond the basement. In his own Renaissance, and modernism and, in irregular corners; then the walls moved description it is: ”A vigorous, personal, each case, relies on his African roots for to angular positions with soft joints. Later erotic, obscure, suprafunctional, inspiration. Each project bears a theme whole walls curved and flowed into each suburban citadel…an anthropomorphic and leaves unforgettable, mesmerising other. Afterwards the walls separated wonder house. a round-eyed house of images drawn from an inexhaustible into curved clip forms marking out round cavernous passages built into the rock. source of energy.” spaces which connected with each other A house with a baby house inside her. A One of the most fascinating features of through the gaps… The idea of the roof pregnant building – My most hysterical the works of Pancho Guedes is his ability came early and remained much the same construction.” to integrate his work as architect, sculptor throughout all the other changes and Pancho Guedes is today considered and painter into the process of shaping searches. It was always a number of heavy one of the most important architects in the given environment. In 1977 he wrote: concrete bonnets with wide rainwater the last decades shaping and determining ”I believe that the crippling European and spouts discharging into tapered chamfered of a new architecture in Africa. There are American amputations an artist has to go water troughs. The spouts reached it still enormous potentials not yet seen or through torture himself into only one are further and further as the idea moves and defined in the vast continent, but Pancho’s a severe limitation. He reduces himself to metamorphosed. The balustrades were work is a beginning and points into a mere part in his attempts to suppress originally solid but later became nervous directions toward which other architects his contradictions, his confusions and his and agitated pipe, bar, and mesh bands, will be able to go. The kind of architects conflicts. As for myself, I do not care - I am and trestles. The fireplace is a huge egg that will take over and determine more than one. I am often the opposite, hatching on a shelf, the chimneys are the coming developments that were I am sometimes the other.” The general personages, horned and fierce guardians defined by Pancho: ”We must become outlook of Pancho’s work is based on a of the rounded house.” With different technicians of the emotions, tear-jerkers, complex and independent philosophy functions of living, dining and kitchen exaggerators, spokesmen of dreams, which penetrates all his different activities as well as terraces and servants rooms performers of miracles, messengers; and and creates a new whole, which can find on the ground floor and bedrooms with invent raw, bold, vigorous and intense manifestations in paintings, sculptures, balconies on the first floor he ingeniously buildings without taste, absurd and buildings, but also in lectures, writings reinterpreted the tradition of African chaotic – an architecture plugged into and scholarly publications, such as those architecture into a new level. people, an architecture the size of life. about the sculptures of Le Corbusier. As The total fantasy is also visible in a Our buildings will be artificial organisms, buildings by Wright, Gaudi, Le Corbusier poem in which Pancho makes the attempt mechanical dolls and monsters, purring and Kahn were referential features for his to describe the unique feature of his Swazi and puffing, blowing and whistling, own buildings so were works by painters Zimbabwe: containing chambers with the muffled such as De Chirico, Dali, Magritte and “A foolish round house outside the roaring of sea shells, black rooms, Miro. Their works are part of the arsenal world of money, lascivious passages, halls of infinitesimal from which inspiration has taken him My feathery hairy building. multiplications, visceral houses turned without ever borrowing or transforming You, too, if you dream hard enough – inside out.” already existing forms. You, too, can make half of your dream He comes to a conclusion important Forms in the complex adaptation come true. not only to Architecture in Africa, but for by Pancho are fluid and have an When is the building most real? all parts of the world: “We must listen to organ-like quality which makes them When it is a bunch of ideas? A rough the voices that speak to all of us. From the an ideal communication with human scribble? other side of dreams – we must watch for forms and uses. They also relate, often When it is many sheets of municipal the sights and signs within ourselves so programmatically, to the local tradition linen prints? that the archipelago of necessities, ideas, and have affinities with the given past of Is it when the bones are up? dreams, desires, obsessions will reveal the the site. So it is not by accident that two When the plastering is done? total function. Building shall yet belong to of Pancho’s most significant projects are When the owners move in? the people, architecture shall yet become related to a widely unknown but inspiring When it catches fire? real and alive, and beauty shall yet be tradition. His Swazi Zimbabwe from the Or when the first owners move out? warm and convulsive.” late 1960’s is a direct reference to the Is it not real exploding? tribal tradition of Swaziland, just across Is it real riddled and shattered by Udo Kultermann is an architectural the border from Mozambique. It consists bullets? historian, author and educator for 27 of a sequence of circular units arranged Or faked new by a new owner? years before retiring to New York.

21 Jo Noero by being at Wits and being able to be home in Melville – I still have the photos around him when he taught, spoke about taken by Pancho of my eldest daughter ales of extraordinary work in architecture and gave crits – I attended, Sophie at the age of 6 weeks in the TMozambique – memories of a lecture simultaneously as a teacher and a student, garden at their home in Mellville – When as a third year student in 1975 at Natal his early morning lectures to the fifth years we arrived in Joburg we knew no-one and University with Pancho, Hans Hallen and on the Renaissance – about Borromini. Pancho and Dori were like our parents Danie Theron debating the influence Brunoleschi, Guilio Romano, Palladio, and Herbert Prins was the generous of Palladio on their own work. Pancho Bramante and Serlio and others which uncle. No story about Pancho would be was scintillating and he swept all before were wonderful and have influenced the complete without talking about Herbert him – I was alternatively appalled and way I think about architecture ever since – he often rescued Pancho at those times exhilarated since his talk was all about – I cannot begin to imagine what this when Pancho’s behaviour was so extreme style and form at a time in history when must have meant to the students who that even his legendary charm could not discussion of those kinds of issues was were taught by Pancho during this period. rescue him from John Muller’s anger or taboo – but he won the day because He could also be infuriating – he had his the university’s approbation – thank God his drawings were beautiful and the favourites and if he didn’t like you – you for Herbert – he would always be there architecture was great – we were all were in trouble. to provide a timely bit of advice, a rescue hooked. He hated the pretences of the University plan. I remember visits to Mozambique bureaucracy and treated it with the kind Despite all this – or in spite of this and particularly Lourenço Marques, of disdain that it deserved – unfortunately – Pancho revelled in discord – there Vilanculous, Beira and Xai Xai – visits in whilst this was supported by the school it was a sense in him that real, authentic those days were mixed up with creativity grew out of dissent ideas of sedition, of the exotic and discord. Following this lead – there was Long John Berks on staff took sharp position vis-a vis LM Radio, Playboy Magazine each others teaching programs was on sale on the streets and architectural work – rumours and one could find the most bounded about what had been salacious nite-clubs this side of said to whom in what class about the Zambezi – also there was a what staff member – this led to racial ease about life there across confrontations in the corridors as the border – people seemed at well as sharp criticisms levelled at ease with each other unlike back the presentation of work by staff home in Durban where there was members at the infamous Monday a palpable sense of fear. In LM there was cast us in bad odour with the rest of the morning school meetings - all of this, Pancho, Dori and their home which was University which meant ultimately that we however, happened in a spirit of total filled with people who made things, who sometimes didn’t get the support that we commitment to Architecture. talked with passion and with energy. To deserved – however in retrospect it was I taught very briefly at the AA in the visit Pancho’s buildings in those days was worth the sacrifice – by keeping above the early 1990s and it seemed from what I a revelation – they were unlike any thing mess of the University we simply got on heard there that this kind of atmosphere one had seen anywhere else and they and did what we did best – to teach and was similar to that which prevailed under fitted despite their crazy shapes and forms produce good architecture – they were the chairmanship of Alvin Boyarsky. During – it was as if they had been invented for incredibly productive years. this period he mentored a number of that place and nowhere else on earth. Because of this attitude, Pancho people – as either teachers or students Then there was the shock in the late gathered around him a host of people – who today are eminent architects, 1970’s of learning that Pancho was who did not necessarily fit the University teachers and theorists – Rem Koolhaas, moving to South Africa to head up Wits prescription of worthy academics – our Zaha Hadid, Tom Heneghan, Peter Salter architectural school which was so different School was a home for dissidents – they and Bernhard Tschumi amongst others. I from LM – yet he fitted in effortlessly or so were made welcome to come to teach and have a sense that the same will emerge it seemed. write and draw. I remember particularly from Pancho’s reign at Wits – lets wait I returned to Johannesburg in 1981 people such as Jean Pierre Delport – a and see. after studying in England and met the South African post-structuralist from the Pancho was difficult, absolutely brilliant, ever gracious Herbert Prins who in turn East Rand who reinvented himself as a totally committed to his art, infuriatingly introduced me to Pancho who promptly Frenchman replete with fake accent – this partisan yet also generous, spellbindingly offered me a job at Wits – his view was pretence was carried for a number of years erudite and supremely talented, a truly that you needed to teach to practice well – he was spellbinding in his thick French great architect capable of turning his hand – I never figured out why he said this accent and carried the deception forward to almost any architectural problem and since his most productive years were spent with such uncanny conviction that after a issue with an almost contemptuous ease. in LM not teaching but simply making time no-one in the school doubted that he architecture - but then Pancho was always was French. We were a family – whenever Jo Noero is currently the Head of the infuriatingly enigmatic. anyone got married or had a child there School of Architecture at University I learnt a huge amount from him just was an official annointment at the Guedes of Cape Town.

22 Fredo Guedes Chicumbane and Antioka... shocked at the destruction of our The urgent retrieval of your note book home and the cooperantes who had torn am not an architect... but the book is every time you saw something that caught up the furniture left behind... Ialso about memory… here are some of your attention and the way you would Your war with Machel through the mine, Dad... record an idea for later use... paintings of him eating your creations... I remember how, at the beach, you The relative value of things... The time I got ‘run over by a tank’ and made us all laugh by walking behind When I was a student and wanted a you decked a policeman to get to me Karen imitating her walk... good meal you would say the cost of the then fainted when you saw me covered in The time you painted Rua Nevala red meal was worth so many books… blood... upsetting the colonial authorities... And later when Eugaria became the The Bunuel movies and how you Always running out to the back yard of obsession that the price of the books inspired me to work in film… your office to inspect Filipe’s progress would buy so many bags of cement... The builder who would give you a as he chopped away at the wooden The time PIDE took you away for child’s toy every christmas... sculptures. The instructions drawn directly interrogation and we did not know if you Going through all the hidden drawings on the wood. were coming back... of your projects with Andre and smuggling And when you left they would giggle Fondling Sol Kerzner’s stomach to them out on the train... at the sensual way you had fondled your put him in his place during the mad You were so excited to get them back latest creation... negotiations to get the Nossi-be project again... When everybody deserted Michael off the ground... How, after liberating all your things, Stern at Waterford during the attempted Evergreen magazine. The anticipation a customs officer seized the Evergreen coup you stood by him on principle even and thrill of the next update on Avant magazines and they appeared on the though you sacrificed other friendships.... Guard culture... banned list in South Africa... Saipal was the first pilgrimage site Going back to Rua Nevala and being The way you are always working on ten because it was abandoned and had different things.... remained true to the plans... Every time you visit someplace you take And later, you wanted me to pictures and more pictures... photograph all your deserted buildings Slides everywhere... in newly named Maputo because you And your philosophy that you must preferred them as ruins… never take yourself too seriously and The installation of your own PA system always be prepared to laugh at yourself.... to compete with the continuous cackle of announcements from the military base Fredo Guedes is the second son opposite home... of Pancho, has worked as a War The carbonized steaks on the way Correspondent in the World’s to the Swiss Mission building sites in Political hotspots and is now settled with his familly in the UK.

23 Pedro Guedes the job with the exception of the reinforced redrawn. He would work on them late concrete. into the night long after I’d gone to bed n writing this I have erased recent I never saw any cement or mud on and would be at his drawing board when Imemories and would like to take you Pancho’s shoes. Whenever we went to a I woke up. He never employed more back with me to a unique view of Pancho’s building site together, I would return home than two draughtsmen. They worked practice at his “Office at Home” at Rua de with some reminder on my clothes. He was on tracings for drainage and electrical Nevala 915. extremely dapper in his dress. Whenever layouts and drawings for the Municipality Everyday at lunchtime we went to the he had to inspect drains he would not recording the buildings as built. I was beach. No more phone calls from clients shrink from the task, but as he approached allowed to ink in and later to trace the shamelessly pouncing on their architect the open manhole, he would have a clean hand drawn letters laboriously prepared for with last minute queries, instructions handkerchief bathed in eau de cologne every drawing. It was a long time before I and changes of mind. The family could held elegantly to his nose. He avoided was allowed to draw on the drawing itself. be together for an hour or so without formal occasions, but to those he had to I would often spend hours doodling and interruptions. This drastic exclusion of attend, he would wear suits of his own drawing on a table next to Pancho in the architectural functions for a small part of design, always without collars. I remember office. When he was engaged in routine the day was a hard-won victory for Dori. going to his tailors with him and being drawing tasks and not working something Even though, looking back, I enjoyed astounded at how much thought and out in detail in deep focused thought, we playing by the sea, I still have an aversion endless adjustments could go into a simple would chat or the radio would be playing. to sand between my toes and particularly black suit. Sometimes I would make suggestions in sandwiches. Living in our “Office at I loved visiting the workshop of Feliciano about projects he was working on and Home” brought many excitements and the welder and blacksmith who fabricated would do my own drawings of them. I adventures. My earliest memories are of all the steel screens and furniture on the was very proud when he used a drawing visiting building sites in the gold coloured many projects. He was a likeable and I did of the Smiling Lion as the basis for a MG. The open-topped sports car was the patient man with great skill at managing painting of the building before it started envy of all my school friends. Building was with meagre resources. He made his own on site. On another occasion, when he so much fun: piles of sand, machines for acetylene with a carbide generator that was designing the interior for a tearoom, making cement blocks and friendly people. one day exploded and sent him badly I made a sketch of lettering spelling its All, except the clients, with very rough burnt to hospital. name in spiky festive child-like letter-forms, hands. I remember vividly a day when there which he liked a lot and used for the main Pancho was well liked by nearly was a terrible commotion. Lots of shouting, sign and as a design for the cake-boxes. everyone on the building sites. He lingered threats and Pancho trying to sooth and Before we had our own dyeline printing and discussed things with them often calm down someone who was very irate. at Rua de Nevala, I remember going in the at great length on his regular visits. I crept up, out of sight, to be closer to the MG to a reclusive lady who would lower a Sometimes the conversations evolved into engaging action. It was an enraged builder basket from an upstairs balcony to pick up respectful banter, which endeared him cursing the client who had not paid him, the drawings that we’d brought. When we to the builders, craftsmen and labourers. vowing to kill him. It looked as if he meant returned, the prints, smelling of ammonia His nickname everywhere in the south it, waving a loaded gun around the Office. would be lowered. Eventually, André (who of Mozambique was mPandlane, which It took a long time to convince him to go worked in the Office until it closed) learnt means bald man. home instead. how to make excellent dyelines. He used Building was primitive, but painstakingly The Office was full of surprises. a special frame to stretch the drawings accurate. I remember planks with nails Eavesdropping on client meetings was over the dyeline paper under a transparent and strings above trenches in the deep-red particularly entertaining. On one occasion, plastic sheet. They were exposed to the earth. Right angles were checked with big a client who was dreaming enthusiastically sun and then developed in our very own carefully made wooden 3-4-5, triangles, of his beach-house came with yet another smelly ammonia box. Every project had and dimensions discussed endlessly over pile of magazines with examples of drawings of a particular size and all the working drawings pasted to masonite confusing and contradictory desiderata. paper was carefully cut from rolls. Finished boards. Large nails would be hammered The whole pile, including those he had prints were neatly folded and bound in into profiles, checked and then moved until brought before were dumped theatrically handsome black bindings, for the clients, everything was perfectly right. in the waste-paper bin and he was told the Municipality and the builders. Pancho checked everything, and when exactly how many square metres of The Office moved about the house over a building had reached the point where building the extravagant magazines had the years. I first remember it as a space walls were up, there would be sketches already cost him. After the initial shock, he under the stairs. Dori became very anti made on the plaster to clarify the odd had a good laugh and the job proceeded open-plan as a result, an aversion she detail that had escaped the meticulous without any major deviations. has held ever since. As a consequence drawings. Colours would also be tried The drawings were the mysterious the houses they now inhabit in Portugal out and if the clients opted for the less productions that controlled all the people have distinct rooms with doors to close favoured option, it was never without the scattered on various building sites and them off from the rest of the home. I think hard fought last stand. All his construction workshops throughout town. Every the Office next moved to the garage of sites had a sign in large letters proclaiming drawing was done by Pancho. Even one half of Rua de Nevala 915. When the that he was responsible for everything on the structural engineer’s drawings were Smiling Lion was completed next door, the

24 Office occupied the first flat at the top of city”. Occasionally there were memorable architecture was a wonderful world of the stairs. Its last move was to the ground events like the Summer School organised adventures, surrounded by subtropical floor of the adjoining house at 915. The by Julian Beinart which brought many plants, sculptures and paintings. It was identical staircases were linked at the half students from Wits and was held in the an environment where nearly anything landing, so the Office was again under the nearby pyramidal nursery school still under could be made by the ingenious people same roof as our home. Pancho’s painting construction. I remember the labourers on we knew. A city full of buildings I had studio with all his books on art was the site joining the students at the end of seen from the drawing board, through upstairs next door to our grandparents and the day to contribute their own drawings. their various states of construction and the garage then became Malangatana’s Eventually, the golden MG gave way then finally inhabited. I am grateful for a Studio. to a series of less glamorous but more wonderful childhood that made me feel It was seldom dull at Rua de Nevala practical vehicles, which culminated in a like a colleague from a very early age. 915. Sometimes students from Wits would phoenix-like successor in the metallic silver arrive to spend a few weeks working in the Jag with beige leather upholstery which Pedro Guedes is the oldest son of office. I would take them around town to ironically met a fiery end, melting the road Pancho, taught at the AA, RCA and look at the buildings completed or under under it on a remote site visit to the Swiss is currently Senior Lecturer at the construction. They had also come to savour Mission in the bush. University of Queensland, Brisbane, the atmosphere of “L.M. the vibrant Latin From my unique vantage point, Australia.

25 ‘Ora Joubert

henever asked after my maturation Was an architect, I always acknowledge the role the University of the Witwatersrand played in this regard. Specifically, I owe my entreé into academia to Pancho who offered this Tukkie a teaching post soon after I graduated. My time spent at Wits as a junior lecturer from 1986 until 1990 was undoubtedly one of the most invigorating periods of my life; a period when the staff, apart from Pancho, included Herbert Prins, Peter Rich, Jo Noero, Brian Altshuler, Lyndsay Bremner, Don Tindale, Marilyn Martin, Dennis Radford and the Fitchett couple – all remarkable individuals who made, and continue to make, valuable contributions to architectural education and to society at large. I vividly recall the animated discussions on all matters related to architecture, inevitably instigated, and hugely enjoyed, by Pancho. The final year design exam was the annual highlight, with Pancho, without fail, living up to his mischievous reputation. Apart from generously rewarding students with one hundred percent, would he sneak behind Don’s back to alter the consensus mark that was reached minutes before and much to the annoyance (to put it mildly) of the external examiners. To me Pancho’s generosity remains one of his most endearing qualities; a generosity extended not only to his students, but also to his teaching staff. His enquiry after one’s own creative explorations was always much appreciated, as was his surprisingly pragmatic advice. A visit to his office was a treat as one could marvel at one’s hearts content at the myriad of drawings, paintings, sculptures and models (the latter meticulously built by meneer de Wit). Pancho’s creative energy was contagious and therefore not surprisingly reverberates in the work of all privileged to have been closely associated with him. The joie de vivre that Pancho’s oeuvre, as well as his inimitable persona, brought to bear, is one of the rarest gifts that any individual could ever wish for. Pancho, I salute you!

‘Ora Joubert is the Head of the School of Architecture, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein and taught at WITS in the late 80s. Marilyn Martin also be visually and historically literate and outside the workplace, without ever the three of us were entrusted with the intruding. still remember exactly where I stood manifestation of that dream. They were I want to conclude by dedicating a I in Pancho’s office at Wits when he extraordinary days, rich and enriching in poem, written by Brother Giovanni in uttered these words. He had been trying to every aspect of my life and my work – the 1513, to Pancho and Dori. It captures what convince me that I should study acoustics. freedom and privilege to create something I have gained and learned as an individual I explained that I had neither the scientific from nothing, engaging with colleagues from knowing them and it contains a nor technological background, nor for and students, learning and growing all the sublime message for the road ahead: that matter any aptitude for such a field. time. Gaining confidence and wisdom and Registering my resistance the conversation the knowledge that one must at all times There is nothing I can give you ended. Then, as I walked out, I heard: ‘You speak one’s truth, particularly in the face of which you have not can do anything you choose to do’. adversity. But there is much, very much while I I never became an expert in acoustics Pancho was awe-inspiring in a crit. cannot give it but Pancho’s words stayed with me and While everyone was still looking he you can take they still come to mind – and to my rescue had looked, analysed, scrutinised and No heaven can come to us unless – when I face difficult tasks and daunting redesigned the scheme. Nothing was our hearts find rest in today opportunities. Such was his faith in his taken at face value; everything remained Take heaven colleagues and students. Such was the open to questioning, to a challenge, to No peace lies in the future nature of his leadership. What I learned contestation. His subjectivity was located that is not hidden in this present from Pancho about management would in the context of the real, his imagination instant not get me through a senior management in vast knowledge. He created space for Take peace discourse and required participation from The gloom of the world is but a us. shadow Pancho’s belief in the architect as artist, behind it, yet within reach, is joy poet, engineer and social agent resonated There is a radiance and glory in the with me, but unfortunately most students darkness could we but see simply wanted to get on with the job. The and to see we have only to look notion of the universal creative individual I beseech you to look had been irretrievably lost somewhere in Life is so generous a giver, but we, the second half of the 20th century, Pancho judging its gifts by their covering remaining one of few such architects. cast them away as heavy or ugly or At Wits and from Pancho I learned about hard Africa, the significance of the aesthetic Remove the covering and you will find production of our continent. Pancho’s beneath it a living splendour own work is a synthesis of modernism woven of love by wisdom with power and Africanism, of knowing and Welcome it and grasp it and you understanding cutting-edge technologies touch the angel’s hand that brings it and ancient traditions. He introduced me to you to Mozambique and to Malangatana long Everything we call a trial a sorrow or course, but I learned something much before I had occasion to visit the country a duty more important – that nothing can replace and meet the artist. When we did meet believe me, that angel’s hand is there inspired leadership and example. in Cape Town, I knew Malangatana well The gift is there and the wonder of an In the face of reluctance, Pancho enough to invite him to be a houseguest. overshadowing presence succeeded in convincing Wits that I I treasure the drawings he gave me and Our joys too. Be not content with should register for the degree of Master the 17th century Dutch trade beads that them as joys of Architecture without an undergraduate he found while excavating for a building they too conceal diviner gifts degree in the discipline. Opposition in Maputo; some of them are now in And so, at this time, I greet you followed when he wanted to appoint me the Iziko: South African National Gallery not quite as the world sends greetings in the department. Wits was a scary place collection. but with profound esteem at the time – academics had to dress and There is no Pancho without Dori and I and with a prayer that for you now look a certain way. If one did not, and want to pay tribute to her – a remarkable and forever if one were multi-skilled, versatile and woman, who opened her home to my the day breaks and the shadows flee open to change, one was regarded with children and me. I remember Dori telling away stern suspicion. A colleague in another us about the tribulations of her forefathers department called me a dilettante. and – mothers, I remember her warmth Marilyn Martin taught History of Art But I was appointed and given the and hospitality, her delicious food. I and Architecture at WITS. She left to opportunity, with Hugh Fitchett and Dennis remember their home and their closeness. take up position of Director, South Radford, of developing a five-year History Pancho and Dori were always interested African National Gallery and is now of Art and Architecture course. Pancho had in and concerned about our happiness Director of Art Collections at Iziko a dream of training architects who would and well being as individuals and families, Museums, Cape Town.

27 Karl-Heinz Schmitz I are to present projects. No one knows Mr. Schmitz, is all this true? who we are. The director of the National Pancho is all this true? Tuesday, 4 November 2003 Weimar Gallery in Cape Town introduces everyone No! But isn’t it a good story? except us. We hear him saying. Who are Dear Pancho they? I don’t know what to say about 1991 Eichstätt/Darmstadt Congratulations! If anyone deserves an them. Pancho jumps up and says that he We invite Pancho to come to Eichstätt, a additional title it’s you. But to be quite will introduce us. We hear him give us Catholic bishopric in the heart of Bavaria. honest, Dr. Pancho Guedes sounds just as extraordinary and fictitious titles. He makes Pancho gives a talk on the ‘Madonna of strange to my ears as Dr. Pablo Picasso. up as he goes along, I’m too nervous to the Revolvers’. Picasso is Picasso and Guedes is Guedes, hear them all just one I’m the Madrid For some odd reason the bishop does there is no room for a title. Scholar. I feel that the audience believe not fire me. Lonka asked me to write something him; there is no laughter when we go on Pancho stays with us. My children, 8 and anything. What can I write about Pancho stage: just awe and respect. 4 don’t understand English, Pancho can’t Guedes that others have not already Neil’s title is ‘Robben Island the New speak German. I think they understand written? him. For years they speak about him. Perhaps my personal encounters. Later we drive to Darmstadt where Pancho gives a talk on his work. He starts 1972 Cape Town. off by saying: “I’m an architect who does 3rd year at UCT. Students from WITS come not really know what he is doing.“ to Cape Town. One of them is Richard I hear staff members grumbling. At Hepner who draws his projects like an the end of the talk there is tumultuous architect called Pancho Guedes. He knows applause by the students. many interesting stories. 1992 Eichstätt/Weimar 1973 Cape Town I apply for a teaching position at the I apply for work in the office of Pancho Bauhaus University in Weimar. Pancho Guedes. I receive no reply. writes a letter of reference. This time I have the feeling that he is telling the truth. I get 1974 Johannesburg the job. After having worked in the offices of Gawie Capital of South Africa’, my part is the City Fagan, Revel Fox and Bannie Britz, a friend of Cape Town, ‘Parliament Buildings the 3rd October 2003 Weimar and I decide to drive to Mozambique to New Political Prison of South Africa’ or The phone rings. look at buildings by Pancho Guedes. something like that. Schmitz Ignorant of South African news we don’t For some odd reason we are not Karl-Heinz Schmitz? quite realise that there is a revolution. arrested. Yes We drive to Pancho’s Office in Maputo, Do you speak English everything is empty and desolate, Pancho 1979 Johannesburg Yes has left. One of his collaborators shows us Pancho offers me a teaching position at You probably don’t know who I am, my buildings in and around Maputo. Wits just before I leave for short trip to name is Lonka Guedes. I often show the slides of the buildings Europe. Of course I know who you are, about that I had taken at the time, the last time 30 years ago we had lunch together at in October this year at the University of 1980 Düsseldorf Richard Hepner’s flat in Cape Town; we Strathclydein, Glasgow. I write that I am not coming back; I have had chicken and mayonnaise. just met my wife and I am planning to You seem to have a good memory, are 1975 Cape Town settle in my homeland, Germany. you like my father? Pancho Guedes is an external examiner No one is like your father, and I only at UCT. I have to show him my work, an 1981 Cologne remember things that are not important. unfinished project, endless roles of tracing I apply for work in the office of Oswald Lonka explains the reason for her call. paper with sketches that are getting Mathias Ungers. At my first appointment I know that I can’t come but its difficult nowhere. He doesn’t sigh, he doesn’t I say, “Oh by the way, kind regards from to say no. look despondent, he doesn’t give me the Pancho Guedes.” I get the job. impression that I’m an idiot or a burden. 4th October Weimar He looks at the sketches and says: you’re 1990 Eichstätt/Lisbon I see the list of speakers. Long lost friends. like a cat chasing its own tail. It doesn’t Two years in the office of Karljosef I know that I can’t go. sound mean and somehow I have the Schattner. We decide to take a trip to feeling that I will soon find a way out. Portugal. In Lisbon we meet Pancho, who 11th December Johannesburg shows us various buildings. One of them is Dear Pancho here I am. 1978 Cape Town the Jeronimos Monastery. Pancho explains Symposium at UCT called “The State of the and explains, I translate into German. After Karl Heinz Schmitz is a Professor at Arts in South Africa“. Neil Durbach and a while Schattner looks at me and asks. the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany 28 Heather Dodd

first met Pancho when I was 17 - half Ia lifetime ago and arrived at Wits to study Architecture. The first project was to design a hotel and the first crit was a pin up in the foyer of John Moffat where Pancho went through all 120 of the schemes giving comment to all. Later in the year, I got to know Pancho better, as like all first years in the past we began our revolt against the tyranny of Physics. Pancho enthusiastically helped us with our battle, and we would go and meet with the Head of Physics, trying to persuade him of the patent unsuitability of Architects to the subject. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen in our year, only five or so years later – and I just scraped Physics. Later I sat on the Faculty Board and witnessed Pancho’s innate delight in pushing the limits of institutional authority. His last meeting was a memorable performance. There are many wonderful things that I remember of Pancho and things that I have taken with me into the way I think about architecture. The extraordinary treasure trove that and traders of ideas…and he dwelt in challenge, in pushing the boundaries and was his office – filled with slides and a world where imagination and dreams his absolute delight in architecture and life books and drawings from floor to ceiling. intertwined with reality. When the going itself. One would meet Pancho in the passage gets tough in the real world and I write an It is this that I remember and it renews and ask about a project or an architect email to a Project Manager saying that I my passion for the challenges that I face in – excited about your ‘discovery’ and he am not Harry Potter, and somehow I feel my architecture. would take you to his office and show that my magic wand has forsaken me, I you a book or a slide that would take you always remember this saying of Pancho’s Heather Dodd is an architect further on your voyage of discovery. To this and his enthusiasm for taking up a practicing in Johannesburg. day, I have never really learnt to engage with the index system of the Library, because there was always Pancho to ask and the method of just looking at the shelves to discover a book – the index of the mind. Then there were Pancho’s school talks – at the beginning of term where he would talk about his holiday projects – the progress of the house in Sintra, or even doorknobs. I also remember Pancho’s delight in the challenge of a new scheme whether real or not and his ability to produce a beautiful set of drawings overnight. I have often mused on why it is that I visit such obscure places at great cost to seek out a particular building – usually off the given tourist map in places where no- one speaks English, and I am sure that this is Pancho’s influence. Pancho had a saying about architects being magicians, prostitutes, acrobats,

29 Manfred Schiedhelm & for. This method distinguished his work Karen Axelrad from the usual implantation of western architecture which one finds all over Africa. hen I first came across the work As he once mentioned, he operates in a Wof Pancho Guedes I was struck by rather “clandestine manner” avoiding what his unusual approach to architecture. It he calls “ready-made stiff architecture”. was unusual in the way that his work Pancho Guedes has developed a encompassed both the culture of the refreshing way of creating buildings country he was working in and the beyond the actual trends. He has taken possibilities contemporary architecture interesting sidepaths and thus avoided the provided. Later at a variety of Team X commonplaces of architecture. The result meetings, he brought the only non-western has been a considerable number of unique perspective to the discussions. buildings throughout his long career. Here was a man living and working In giving Pancho Guedes the Honorary in Mozambique who found ways of Doctorate, you are honoring a great encompassing all sources available and architect and a wonderful person. translating them into an autonomous way of making buildings. This symbiosis was Congratulations, also nurtured by using the craftsmanship of Manfred Schiedhelm & Karen Axelrad local woodcarvers, painters, embroiderers 15 October, 2003 and builders of the region. His close collaboration with his African co-workers Manfred Schiedhelm was a fellow contributed to a unique understanding of member of Team X with Pancho and the needs of the people he was building is currently based in Berlin, Germany.

30 List of Photographs & Illustrations

Page 1: Photomontage of Pancho home in Maputo about to be digested by Illovo, Johannesburg. Ground floor plan. crowned in laurel by Manfred Schiedhelm the State. Top, right: Twelve terraced houses on & Karen Axelrad. Avenida Antonio Enes, Lourenco Marques. Page 13: Semi-detached houses for Plan. Middle: Semis for Matos Ribeiro. Pages 2 and 3: Portraits of Pancho in Urbano Benites in Lourenco Marques. With Polana, Louenco Marques. Bottom: various stages of early to late youth. Dori some help from Frank Lloyd Wright in the Smiling Lion. Perspective. appears twice, at their wedding and in beginning. the drawing, incredulous at Pancho’s early Page 27: Top: Segmental Golf Club, LM. career as a sportsman.. Page 14: House in Piet Retief, RSA. Part Plan. From the family of early designs in of Pancho’s extended family of Euclidian curves and circles. Bottom: Polygonal Page 4: Portrait of Pancho and Dori on the Palaces. house for Otto Barbosa, LM. Plan. roof of the recently completed Leite Martins house in Lourenco Marques. Page 15: Swazi Zimbabwe, Goedgegoen. Page 28: Saipal Bakery, LM. Street and This is the younger sister of the Habitable rear elevations. Page 5: Left: Pancho & Revel Right: Woman who was nearly built for a dentist Inauguration of the wooden totem-column in Nelspruit. Page 29: Top: Pancho, Dori, Kitty and marking the northern boundary of the Granny’s House in Melville, Johannesburg. Smiling Lion. Pedro and Lonka have Page 16: Top: Agricultural School AKA: The Consulate of Eclectica. Bottom: climbed the sculpture, while Pancho, Dori for the Swiss Mission at Chicumbane. Pancho and Dori arriving at Cazal dos and everyone from the office look on. Axonometric. Middle: Malangatana Olhos in Eugaria, Portugal in their Citroen with Breyten and Yolande Breytenbach. 2CV. In the rear-view mirrors: The house Page 6: Top: Pancho’s authoritative Bottom:Church of the twelve Apostles, in Melville and the more distant house in diagram, teasing out the characters of Gala Massala. Section. LM-Maputo. plans and the subtle art of bending space. Bottom: an unraveling view of Cazal dos Page 17: Cathedral of huts, Macie. Page 30: Top: Pancho by himself in Olhos, Pancho and Dori’s little house in Axonometric. line, pale with modesty and delight at Eugaria near Sintra in Portugal. all the kind words, unrestrained eulogies Page 18: Country Club, Mucifal, Portugal. and pleasant memories brought together Page 7: Top: Pancho at the drawing Axonometric. in this publication. Bottom: House for board, working away late into the night. Moreno Ferreira, Beira. A young relative of Bottom: Plan of the beach hotel at S. Page 19: Top: Plan, Axonometric and buildings with walls twisting and turning. Martinho do Bilene. Designed to be formed Section of The Red House. Maputo. Sections, elevations and plans. and sculpted in the sand of the lagoon-side Bottom: Taking the salute: Left to right dunes prior to being cast in concrete. - Le Corbusier, Pancho and Tim Ostler. Cover: Habitable Woman. Rendered in oil. (Montage by Tim Ostler) Extreme right: Page 8: Prometheus appearing as an Perspective of the house for the Tzeserra Inside Front Cover: Top left: Gallery apartment building in Lourenco Marques. Mountains, near Vila Manica, one of the mural and roof, NW elevation of Smiling very earliest embodiments of stiloguedes. Lion, Maputo/LM. Middle left: Swazi Page 9: Left: Clandestine nursery school Zimbabwe revived as an oil painting. in the City of Reeds. Axonometric. Middle: Page 21: Pancho’s abridged manifesto Bottom left: Cargo of Pyramids, Ship. Church of the Sagrada Familia in Machava. from back cover of AA exhibition catalogue Sculpture in wood. Top right: Dispute Axonometric. Right: Luis Bernardo 1979. From time to time, available as a over the broken bicycle. Painting, oil. Honwana in the 1960s. T-Shirt. Middle right: Sheboat. Sculpture in Jacaranda. Bottom right: Morning break Page 10: Left: The founders of the city Page 22: Saipal Bakery, LM. Briefly at the Swiss Mission primary school at on horseback. Sculpted from an assembly pristine, before gently falling into ruin. Antioka. of cut-outs in flat steel plate. Model. Right: The design for Market Square in Page 23: Left: Waterford/Kamhlaba. Inside Back Cover: Top left: Early Johannesburg. Axonometric. Phases 1-3. 1961 Axonometric. Middle: Sheboat, painting. Middle left: Family Train tower. Sculpture in polished, group, painting. Bottom left: Elephant Page 11:Top: Peter Rich discerning the ebonised hardwood. Right: Resort hotel, hunt, painting. Top right: Football match, workings of Pancho’s mind through an Nossi-be, Malagasi. Axonometric. painting. Middle right: Wall of glass African prism incorporating montage by faces, painting after a sculptural proposal Neville Dubow. Bottom: S. Cipriano Page 25: Pedro’s recent reflections on for the Biennale di Venezia. Bottom right: Anglican Centre. Built for the Bishop of the Pancho’s multiple identities, appearances, Blind muse. Female figure in polished Libombos, Joao’s father. aliases and disguises. hardwood.

Page 12: Study for a painting: Pancho’s Page 26: Top, left: Desirello House,

31 This publication is the third in the series of publications by the Total Cad Academy, sponsored by Total Cad Solution Centre with a supporting grant from Business & Arts South Africa (BASA). It commemorates the award of a doctorate to Pancho Guedes by Wits University in December 2003. Previous sponsored publications include: “Building Culture/Construir Cultura” by Jose Forjaz Amancio d’Alpoim Miranda Guedes and “Selected BDG” by Paul Sanders. Limited copies of these publications are Born: 13th May 1925 in Lisbon available on request. The Academy will consider Nationality: Portuguese suitable material for publication in line with its Married: Dorothy Ann Phillips, 24th December 1947 philosophy to promote architectural dialogue Children: Pedro Paulo, Veronica, Godofredo, Catarina in the Southern Africa context. Enquiries in this regard may be directed to Andre Primary education Strauss of the Total CAD Academy, eMail: 1930 Principe Island, Gulf of Guinea [email protected] 1931 Sao Tomé Island, Gulf of Guinea 1932 Lisbon, Porugal 1933 Manjacaze, southern Moçambique

Secondary education 1934 – 1939 Government High School & Colleges Lourenço Marques 1940 – 1944 Maritz Brothers College, Johannesburg

University 1945 – 1949 University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg B.Arch course 1953 Escola Superior de Belas Artes, Porto, Portugal State examination to obtain recognition of the B.Arch Degree

Positions held 1999 – present In private practice, Lisbon 1975 – 1999 In private practice, Johannesburg and Lisbon 1997 – 2001 Professor Catedratico Department of Architecture, Faculty of Arts Universidade Moderna, Lisbon 1995 – present Professor Catedratico Department of Architecture, Universidade Lusofona, Lisbon 1990 – 1993 Professor Assoçiado Convidado Faculty of Architecture, Universidade Technica, Lisbon 1990 – 1995 Professor Assoçiado Convidado Department of Architecture, Universidade Luziada, Lisbon 1998 – 1990 Professor of Architecture Department of Architecture University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Published by: Total Cad Academy 1950 – 1974 In private practice, Lourenço Marques www.archicad.co.za 1955 – 1956 Part-time teacher Editors: Lonka & Pedro Guedes 1952 – 1953 Part-time designer for Vitale Moffa, Civil Engineer Compilation: Pancho & Dori Guedes 1951 – 1952 Part-time assistant to City Planner Proofing: Heather Dodd & Georgina Guedes Architecto F Mesquita, Lourenço Marques Municipality Production: Yusuf Patel / Architects 1950 Part-time designer for Silva Carvalho, Ferreira & Gaddini, Collaborative cc +27 31 206 1591 Civil Engineers Scans: MacBat +27 31 201 0754 Printed by: Impress +27 31 263 2755 Visiting Professorships & Exhibitions December 2003 1988 Technion, Haifa 1982 U.C.L.A. Los Angeles 1980 University of Queensland, Australia 1976 Exhibition: Biennale di Venezia 1979 Exhibition: AA London 32