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Architectural Modernism and Apartheid Modernity In ARCHITECTURAL MODERNISM AND APARTHEID MODERNITY IN SOUTH AFRICA A critical inquiry into the work of architect and urban designer Roelof Uytenbogaardt, 1960-2009 NOËLEEN MURRAY UniversityFEBRUARY of Cape 2010 Town The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgementTown of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Cape Published by the University ofof Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University ARCHITECTURAL MODERNISM AND APARTHEID MODERNITY IN SOUTH AFRICA A critical inquiry into the work of architect and urban designer Roelof Uytenbogaardt, 1960-2009 by Noëleen Murray A thesis submittedUniversity to the Faculty of Humanities, of UniversityCape of Cape Town Town, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in African Studies Supervisor Associate Professor Nick Shepherd February 2010 Declaration I, Noëleen Frances Murray, declare that ‘ARCHITECTURAL MODERNISM AND APARTHEID MODERNITY IN SOUTH AFRICA: A critical inquiry into the work of architect and urban designer Roelof Uytenbogaardt, 1960-2009’ is my own work, that it has not been submitted for any degree or examination in any other university, and that all the sources I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by complete references. Noëleen Frances Murray 12 February 2010 University of Cape Town Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the assistance and support of many people. In particular I would like to thank my colleague and supervisor in the Centre for African Studies (CAS), at the University of Cape Town (UCT), Nick Shepherd for his creative and insightful supervision of the work. I am also indebted to: John Moyle whose mentorship has continued unwaveringly into retirement; Derek Japha who first suggested the idea of studying the archive of Roelof Uytenbogaardt to me in 1997; Brenda Cooper, Leslie Witz, Martin Hall, John De Gruchy, Lucien Le Grange, Vanessa Watson, Cheryl de la Rey and Crain Soudien who all in different ways supported my journey into the Humanities at the UCT; research colleagues at the Department of History and the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and from the National Research Foundation (NRF) Project on Public Pasts and its successor the Heritage Disciplines Project, through whom I have, over the past ten years of working together, sharpened my approaches to spatial critique, Leslie Witz, Ciraj Rassool, Premesh Lalu, Gary Minkley, Nick Shepherd, Nicky Rousseau, Patricia Hayes, Uma Duphelia-Meistrie, Andrew Bank, and Ivan Karp and Cory Kratz who even visited the Werdmuller Centre having read a version of Chapter Five of this thesis while visiting from Emory University. The Uytenbogaardt archive would not be in existence without the permissions given to UCT before his death by Roelof Uytenbogaardt and later by his wife Marianne. It would not have taken shape without Lesley Hart, Janine Dunlop and David Wilson from UCT Libraries’ Department of Manuscripts and Archives where the Uytenbogaardt Collection is now housed. Thanks are due to architectural students who helped wrestle the papers and large drawings into order, Gerrit van Wyk, Heidi van Eeden, Lorenzo Nassimbeni and Renchius van der Merwe as well as Vanessa Sass; and to colleagues and staff associated with CAS for enduring the endless boxes I brought into their space on their way to the archive while I studied and worked there and where I presented Africa Seminar papers, Harry Garuba, Brenda Cooper, Nick Shepherd, Heidi Groenebaum, Peter Anderson, Jutta Schoof, Lillian Jacobs, Stacy Hendricks and Lucinda Deidricks. Lastly the support of UCT’s Registrar Hugh Amoore is gratefully acknowledged for assistance with the establishment of the collection through the Architectural Documentation Project which I started in 2000, as well as for being an archive himself, providing answers to my many questions and giving permissions for access to the University’s Administrative Archives. My thanks and deepest personal gratitude go to my peers and colleagues who advised, commented and provided insight into the work in progress: Leslie Witz who at various times was a discussant for early versions of the work and who read and thought and followed the progress of the project with intellectual insight andUniversity enthusiasm; Louise Green, of for Cape making writing Town and friendship such a pleasurable mix and for inviting me to join the PhD Reading Group she established with Sandy Young and Kylie Thomas who have endured working with an architect and taught me so much about writing; Janine Dunlop for her meticulous proof reading; Matthew Cooke, Daniel Maggs, Jean Nuttall and other students from Uytenbogaardt’s Master Class, for their critical interest in my project; Svea Josephy for going where no one dared and taking photographs of the Werdmuller in its run down and dangerous state; Alan Mabin and for giving key insights and information which no one else could provide; and Harry Garuba for keeping me on track when I wavered into disciplinary dead-ends. I would especially not have been able to complete this PhD without the friendship and practical support of friends and family who variously gave me the space to pursue this degree: Matthew, Gerard and Rohan Murray-Cooke; Joy, Noël and Lynda Murray; Nonkululeku Gogo, Josi Frater, Tina Schouw, Michael and Mika Hands, Shehnaaz Moosa, Allie, Isa, Aaliya, Safiya and Ayub Ebrahim; Pippa Moll and Stephen Marquard, and Firdous Olivier. This thesis acknowledges the financial assistance of a UCT Junior Research Fellowship and a NRF Grant Holder Linked Doctoral Award. Acknowledgement is due to the NRF towards this study. Opinions expresses and conclusions arrived at are my own and not necessarily attributed to the NRF. Abstract ARCHITECTURAL MODERNISM AND APARTHEID MODERNITY IN SOUTH AFRICA - A critical inquiry into the work of architect and urban designer Roelof Uytenbogaardt, 1960-2009 Noëleen Murray Roelof Sarel Uytenbogaardt who died in 1998 was, and remains, an important and influential figure in the disciplines of architecture and urban design in South Africa. As a prolific practitioner and academic at the University of Cape Town his influence has been far-reaching. Making use of previously unexamined archival material, this study examines - in detail - the extent of this influence. Importantly the thesis seeks to situate Uytenbogaardt’s work in relation to the rise of apartheid and speculates about the persistence of modernism in contemporary spatial practice. Through examining both the conception and reception of Uytenbogaardt’s buildings and urban plans, the work locates modernist approaches to design prevalent in architecture and urban design as products of apartheid modernity. The controversial and contested nature of Uytenbogaardt’s works provides space for critical analysis and this is evident in the uneven reception of his projects. Architects and urban designers revere him as a ‘master’ while pubic sentiment has very often been strongly negative. This is most strikingly evident in the case of the recent proposed destruction of one of Uytenbogaardt’s most controversial works, the Werdmuller Centre. Constructed in the 1970s after forced removals in Cape Town’s suburb of Claremont, since 2007 architects and urban designers have argued passionately for its retention as an example of ‘timeless’ modernist heritage. Through this and other examples, the thesis explores the complexities presented by professional practice in architecture and urban design in the context of designing buildings for designated publics under apartheid. It argues that the work of practitioners and academics such as Uytenbogaardt is intimately linked to the social crisis of apartheid and that the resultantUniversity relationship is one of the ofcomplex Cape and interrelated Town crises of modernist design that persist in post-apartheid South Africa. An assessment of his work makes possible a reflection on the competing traditions of knowledge contained in the built environment’s spatial disciplines (architecture, planning, urban design) in relation to fields of knowledge contained in the humanities. As such it critically confronts hegemonic modes of practice, discourse, and writing in South Africa from the 1960s to the present. The work subjects architecture and urban design to modes of inquiry generated outside of their disciplinary frameworks in cultural and literary theory and public history, posing new questions about relationships between material culture, biography and society in South Africa. The thesis seeks to identify the spatial disciplines as forms of social practice embedded in wider political and economic contexts. Contents Abbreviations and Notes…………………………………………………………………………..i List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………………..ii Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………...1 Chapter One - Theories and Methods…………………………………………………………….19 Chapter Two - Remaking modernism: South African architecture in and out of time…………...48 Chapter Three - Bourgeois Afrikaner publics and Uytenbogaardt’s Dutch Reformed Church in Welkom West……………………………………………………….. .75 Chapter Four - Belhar Housing: ‘Coloured’ Publics and ‘Urban Problems’……………………100 Chapter Five -Wishing Werdmuller Away: fear and loathing in lower Claremont……………..120 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………149
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