For city dwellers, silence and solitude are a luxury. That burning desire to escape civilisation is a shared experience, surfacing the moment you step into a sensory-overloading mode of transport. It’s hard not to be lured by the idea of a change of scenery on a daily basis. In recent years, hospitality has leaned into this instinct; we've seen hotels expand their portfolios with sprawling villas and private residences. It’s a winning formula: combining the calm of a private home with the unrivalled allure of five-star service.

We’ve rounded up our favourite retreats, not only for their astonishing design and architecture, but for their generous sense of space, to inspire your next escape. It won’t take much convincing, though.

8 of the best design-led villas to rent this season

Amanoi Ocean Pool Residence (Vietnam)

In a secluded coastal area within Vietnam’s Núi Chúa National Park, a Unesco Biosphere Reserve an hour’s flight north-east of Ho Chi Minh City, Amanoi has been (like its name indicates) a ‘place of peace’ for over a decade. Last year (2025), the Jean-Michel Gathy-designed property began a tony new chapter with the unveiling of its 9,957 sq ft gracious Amanoi Ocean Pool Residence, featuring not only a private beach but also its own spa house. Accommodating up to eight guests, the architectural feat can be configured with two or three contemporary bedrooms, subtly camouflaged amid the lush, rugged surroundings. With a fully stocked minibar, daily champagne afternoon tea and other complimentary experiences such as a private barbecue, a Vietnamese cultural dinner, and a nightly movie screening by the pool with popcorn and ice cream, being a homebody may never feel this good again.

Amanoi is located at Commune, Vĩnh Hy, Vĩnh Hải, Khánh Hòa, Vietnam

Read our full review of Amanoi’s Ocean Pool Residence

.Here

Perched on a long sandbank within the Baa Atoll, a UNESCO-designated biosphere reserve, .Here takes the Maldivian resort in a more private, design-led direction, unfolding as Somewhere and Nowhere, two distinct stays with different intentions. Somewhere comprises seven expansive villas, while the soon-to-open Nowhere is reserved for full private hire with just two residences and its own dedicated facilities. Both sit within the Seaside Collection portfolio and are accessed via its sister property Finolhu, by a short boat transfer along the connecting sandbank. Rather than separating beach and overwater villas, the residences at Somewhere span the width of the sandbank, combining both in a single footprint. Guests can also choose to linger at Safar, the resort’s only restaurant and bar.

.Here is located at Kanufushi, Baa Atoll, 21002, Maldives

Read our full review of .Here

Magugu Suite at Mount Nelson (South Africa)

A couple of months ago, South African fashion designer Thebe Magugu, who founded his eponymous label in 2016, inaugurated a landmark collaboration with Belmond: the unveiling of the Thebe Magugu Suite and next-door Magugu House, a concept store and cultural space for creative exchange. The secluded two-storey suite unfolds as a visually charged Afro-modernist sanctuary, with views across Lion’s Head, the hotel gardens and Palm Avenue. A palette of invigorating greens, deep indigos, warm neutrals and earthy ochres anchors the space. Guests staying here can enjoy the wider amenities and facilities of Cape Town’s legendary ‘Pink Lady,’ from its two pools, tennis courts and a spa housed inside a trio of restored Victorian heritage homes.

Mount Nelson, A Belmond Hotel, is located at 76 Orange St, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa

Read our full review of Magugu Suite

Santani (Sri Lanka)

Around an hour’s drive from Sri Lanka’s sacred city of Kandy sits Santani, the country’s leading wellness retreat designed by two-time winner of the Geoffrey Bawa Award for Excellence in Architecture, Thisara Thanapathy. Spanning 48 acres of hilly terrain, Santani’s paradisical grounds are cut through by the Hulu River, where daily swims are encouraged. This hilltop sanctuary recently added two villas to its esteemed lineup: a two-bedroom suite and a three-bedroom residence featuring self-contained kitchens, indoor and outdoor lounge spaces, and individual private infinity pools overlooking far-reaching valleys and pristine forests. Both structures utilise natural ventilation through careful design that eliminates the need for air conditioning. The result? Pure silence.

Santani is located at Arantenna Estate, Werapitiya, 20908, Sri Lanka

Read our full review of the new villas at Santani

Vale Palheiro (Portugal)

The Algarve’s beautifully wild, western corner has been smartening up its act with several new hotels and restaurants. Case in point is Vale Palheiro, an ‘Earth Resort’ designed with character and a real sense of place. The 13-villa property offers suites and casitas, each one different but all with glass-covered log fireplaces and outside spaces. Crowning the ensemble is the duplex Casa Taipa Villa 2, with a shower downstairs within exposed taipa, and a vast micro-cement bath upstairs, where you can wallow watching the shifting colours of the landscape. Guests get a real chance to switch off at Vale Palheiro: There is yoga and massage on request, and a large swimming pool with sun beds around it to while away the time. Its on-site restaurant, offering homespun local delights, is worth lingering in too.

Vale Palheiro Earth Resort is located at Rua Vale Palheiro, 8670-016 Aljezur, Portugal

Read our full review of Vale Palheiro Resort

Villas at Castiglion del Bosco, A Rosewood Hotel (Italy)

Over two decades ago, Massimo Ferragamo, the youngest son of Italian shoe designer Salvatore, and his wife Chiara chose the UNESCO-listed Val d’Orcia Natural Park in Tuscany for their passion project: transforming a 900-year-old country estate into a sensuous resort. Ancient castle ruins, a medieval church, and a borgo painted their perfect picture of a Tuscan paradise. Managed by Rosewood since 2015, the property today comprises 42 suites and 11 freestanding villas, which were restored from abandoned 17th- and 18th-century farmhouses and are dotted across the state. The largest one, Villa Biondi, is surrounded by cypress-lined fairways and includes Italy’s only private golf course. Guests can explore the expansive 5,000-acre property using the in-house Land Rover Defender, which connects various amenities, such as the Brunello di Montalcino winery, two restaurants, a cooking school, a tennis court, vast gardens, a spa, and a set of twin pools.

Castiglion del Bosco, A Rosewood Hotel is located at SP103, 53024 Castiglion del Bosco, Italy

Villas at Mas des Infermières (France)

In 1992, filmmaker Ridley Scott acquired Mas des Infermières, a 35-hectare wine estate in the sun-dappled commune of Oppède. Perched on the edge of a national park, at the foot of the Luberon massif, the estate introduced three rentable design-led villas in 2024. Originally farmhouses, the properties were meticulously restored by Scott alongside lead designers Pia Mclean and Chester Jones, who paid tribute to the region’s creative legacy. Across the residences – the three-bedroom Mas Marcou and Mas Gris, and five-bedroom Chênes Verts – Provençal warmth is conjured through reclaimed terracotta tiles, antique fireplaces salvaged from crumbling castles, and classic swing shutters. Each villa also benefits from its own private pool, outdoor seating and dining areas.

Mas des Infermières is located at 1575 Rte du Four Neuf, 84580 Oppède, France

Read our full review of the villas at Mas des Infermières

Vipp Pavilion (USA)

Danish lifestyle brand Vipp began offering bookable guesthouses around the world over a decade ago, from Denmark and Latvia to Mexico (winner of a Wallpaper* Design Award 2025) and Tasmania. Often located in spectacular remote settings, these retreats are furnished by Vipp and brim with the Scandinavian brand’s signature minimalism. The latest to join the roster is Vipp Pavilion, the group's first US property, located in the Upper Delaware River, a pristine 73-mile ribbon that separates New York state from Pennsylvania. The Johnston Marklee-designed two-bedroom guesthouse may total just 1,200 sq ft, but its clever layout, minimal decor and natural light pouring in through a series of skylights make it feel bright and airy. Naturally, Vipp’s monolithic ‘V3’ kitchen anchors the open-plan living space. There’s no television and no mobile phone reception (though there is WiFi), allowing visitors to completely shut themselves off from the world if they so choose.

Vipp Pavilion is located in Pond Eddy, New York

Read our full review of Vipp Pavilion

A Cape Town house, perched on a long and narrow, sloped site, appears as if it hovers above the street-level's rich plant growth. Long terraces and large windows make it look like a viewing platform – and indeed, it's a project conceived with its long vistas firmly in mind. Welcome to Kenmore, the brainchild – and personal home – of Mark Bullivant, principal at celebrated South African architecture studio SAOTA.

The project occupies an unusual plot, featuring a steep, narrow terrain of 14 meters wide and 58 meters long, and formerly including an existing structure. The architect was on the lookout for the perfect spot to develop the main home base for his family of five, and when this site came into the picture, intrigued by the challenge and opportunity it brought, he snapped it up. The older building on site was torn down – it was dark, fragmented and unweildy – with a view to rebuild.

Bullivant explains: ' The most compelling views occur on the short sides of the property – east toward Table Mountain and west toward Signal Hill and the national park behind us.'

'One of the main ambitions was to create a meaningful garden, which led to placing the primary living level at the top of the house so it could connect directly to the landscape of Signal Hill. The orientation of the site – typical of much of the surrounding neighbourhood hugged by the adjacent mountain slopes – limits northern exposure. Elevating the living level allowed us to maximise sunlight and outlook.'

The house's layout is centred on its flowing, single, multi-functional living space, which is strongly connected to the garden, making the most of the site's deep incline. This sits on the very top floor, above five bedrooms and a study. A self-contained one-bedroom apartment is located on the first floor, and beneath it is the entrance and garage level.

'The house is only 7.44 metres wide internally at its maximum, which meant the plan had to work hard to avoid feeling constrained. We focused on creating fluid, open communal spaces so the home would feel generous despite its spatial limits. I’ve never been particularly interested in living environments defined by a series of small rooms, and perhaps because of the constraints of the site we leaned even further into that idea,' Bullivant says.

'In many ways the constraints of the site shaped the architecture. The narrow footprint and steep terrain pushed the design toward a more open, continuous living space – visually connected from front to back - something that ultimately aligns closely with how we prefer to live.'

He continues: 'Having designed many homes for other people, designing for your own family is high stakes. You can get lost in the scenario-planning – trying to forecast what my kids might need as teenagers ten years from now and the what ifs. It was mentally gruelling, and I often had to remind myself to trust my instincts, just as I would with any other client. That’s easier said than done when it’s your own home.'

'That said, I loved the entire process – both the design and the execution. In fact, finishing the project was a strange adjustment after having something that consumed my mind and every spare second I had for so long. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, a huge privilege and I still can’t quite believe we pulled it off.'

While the constraints rising from financial parameters and site's challenges 'forced decisions', the architect admits, this only worked towards boosting the creativity involved in the house design - ultimately, contributing positively to the architectural expression of this Cape Town house.

saota.com

For two years, Thebe Magugu has kept a secret. ‘I was almost desperate to let it all out,’ he tells Wallpaper*. The 32-year-old South African fashion designer, who founded his eponymous label in 2016, marks its tenth anniversary with a landmark collaboration with Belmond: the unveiling of the Thebe Magugu Suite and next-door Magugu House, a concept store and cultural space for creative exchange.

Thebe Magugu expands his world

Magugu’s Afro-modernist language, underpinned by an Afro-encyclopaedic approach to histories, people and cultures at risk of erasure, earned him the prestigious 2019 LVMH Prize. That same ethos now extends beyond the garment, unfolding into a new chapter at Belmond’s Mount Nelson hotel, a property captured by British photographer Rosie Marks for Photo London 2024. He describes the project as ‘cerebral and eclectic’: a calibrated tension between English grandeur and African sensuality.

The relationship began three years ago, when the hotel hosted its salon-style Confections & Collections series and invited Magugu to present. ‘It wasn’t long before we began discussing bigger projects, and that’s when the idea of a Thebe Magugu Suite emerged. During the initial site visit, I noticed unused spaces next door and asked to take them over to form Magugu House,’ he says. Here, luxury is defined less by excess than by its capacity to bring joy to others.

Across both sites, interiors are layered with cultural reference, filtered through a modernist lens. ‘Juxtaposition feels inherently South African, from utter camp to puritan conservatism, tradition set against futurism. That duality was intentional,’ he explains.

He continues: ‘Too often, “African-inspired” interiors – especially when shaped from outside the continent – flatten into something one-dimensional, stripping away the sophistication, nuance and intelligence embedded in African visual languages. It was important to present a contemporary South Africa, rather than a fetishised, auto-exotic vision shaped by an external gaze.’

The two-storey Thebe Magugu Suite unfolds as a visually charged Afro-modernist sanctuary, with views across Lion’s Head, the hotel gardens and Palm Avenue. A palette of invigorating greens, deep indigos, warm neutrals and earthy ochres anchors the space. Natural materials – marble, stone, wood, wool, cotton and straw – ground it, while layered surfaces and finishes draw the hand.

Collaboration sits at the core of the project. Magugu worked with South African artisans throughout; there are hand-illustrated wallpapers by Cara Saven, custom-knotted rugs by Crayon Artel and Rugalia, and timber pieces by Ken Leiman. ‘The aim was to embed a sense of place through hand-finished details and objects carrying the imprint of their makers,’ he says.

That attention extends to the guest experience. Working with Mount Nelson’s tea sommelier, Craig Cupido, Magugu developed a bespoke blend exclusive to guests, moving from notes of vanilla and condensed milk to indigenous herbs such as impepho and buchu. Almost all furniture and artworks across the suite and house are bespoke too. Highlights include a sculptural pendant light reworking the mokorotlo straw hat, and references to rhebok footprints rendered as silk yarn ‘track marks’ across a circular rug in New Zealand wool.

‘The art is by some of the leading artists of their generation,’ says Magugu, ‘artists I’m grateful to call friends – Mmangaliso Nzuza, Lorenzo Plaatjies, Lulama Wolf, Banele Khoza, Zandile Tshabalala and Trevor Stuurman.’

Conceived as a living platform for cultural exchange, and developed with Studio Landt, Magugu House spotlights limited-edition fashion, archival garments, art, photography, books and objects. Programming will evolve through quarterly exhibitions, beginning with ‘By Our Own Hands’, featuring Zanele Muholi and Zizipho Poswa. Co-curated with Julia Buchanan, it explores ‘the hand’, positioning making as both articulation and resistance. Each season’s programme will span film, publishing and community-led events.

Both spaces – the Magugu Suite and House – are designed to enrich visitors culturally, mentally and physically. Guests are offered access to key institutions across Cape Town, from Zeitz MOCAA to Southern Guild, alongside Belmond Mount Nelson’s concierge-led experiences.

‘I’ve loved the collaborative nature of this project,’ reflects Magugu. ‘So many hands working in unison towards a singular vision has shifted my perspective on ownership – from “I” to “we”.’

Mount Nelson, A Belmond Hotel, Cape Town is located at 76 Orange St, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa

The new year brings travel into focus. While the months ahead may herald anticipated openings, 2025 has already delivered a series of assured arrivals – hotels led by design, intent and context. From Taipei’s first luxury opening in over a decade to the long-awaited Chancery Rosewood, and a Saudi resort carved into the landscape itself, these projects stand apart. Each has a singular character, and each is worth the journey.

The best hotel openings of 2025

Capella Taipei

Long-awaited in the Taiwanese capital, Capella Taipei marked the city’s first true luxury hotel debut in over a decade. Conceived by André Fu, the hotel occupies part of a newly built glass tower by Tokyo’s Mori Building Group, unfolding as a modern urban mansion shaped by the Hong Kong-born designer’s own encounters with Taipei. The 86-room property sits in a calm, subtle palette, where bespoke fixtures and artisanal details form a sophisticated urban bolthole. Four on-site restaurants sharpen the hotel’s profile, while the dramatic Glasshouse crowns the ensemble with a three-storey bar complex. A minimalist spa, finished with beige barrel-vaulted ceilings, completes the picture with celestial, lunar-led treatments.

Capella Taipei is located at No. 139, DunHua N Rd, Songshan District, Taipei City, Taiwan 105

Read our full review of Capella Taipei

The Chancery Rosewood

Once Eero Saarinen’s modernist vision of American diplomacy, the former US Embassy on Grosvenor Square re-emerged this year as The Chancery Rosewood. A sensitive restoration saw British architect Sir David Chipperfield and French interior designer Joseph Dirand recast the Grade II-listed landmark as an all-suite hotel defined by Rosewood’s high-touch hospitality. Across 144 suites, softened geometries, tactile layering, and a palette of neutrals and burnished tones create a cocooning sense of calm; a language echoed through all public spaces and the Asaya Spa. Eight restaurants and bars introduce their own unhurried atmospheres, including the first European outpost of New York institution Carbone and Japanese chef Masa Takayama’s Tobi Masa. Meanwhile, the seventh-floor Eagle Bar opens onto panoramic views across London.

The Chancery Rosewood is located at 30 Grosvenor Sq, London W1K 9AN, UK

Read our full review of The Chancery Rosewood

Desert Rock Resort

Set within Saudi Arabia’s dramatic Hejaz mountains, Desert Rock Resort rises directly from millennia-old granite. Fifty-four villas and ten suites feel almost geological. Conceived by Oppenheim Architecture, the resort doesn’t impose itself on the terrain; it yields to it. Stone quarried during construction was folded back into the architecture. Studio Paolo Ferrari brought the same reverence to the interiors, allowing the raw power of the setting to remain the focal point. Dining unfolds across Nyra’s elemental wood-fire kitchen, Mica’s forward-thinking cocktail programme, Basalt’s reassuring comfort dishes, and Wadi’s lively poolside scene. On the valley’s far edge sits the spa, built against a towering rock face.

Desert Rock Resort is located at 7GQVP67Q+5P 48561, Saudi Arabia

Read our full review of Desert Rock Resort

The Eve Hotel Sydney

The Eve Hotel Sydney arrived as a vibrant new marker on the cusp of the Central Business District. Designed as a warm brick-and-biophilic low-rise by local firm SJB, with landscape architect Daniel Baffsky and interior designer George Livissianis, the hotel balances architectural restraint with bursts of colour. The 102 rooms, hued to the Australian bush, each feature balconies overlooking shingled rooftops and greenery. On the food front, guests can choose between Bar Julius, a European-inflected lobby bar, and Lottie, the rooftop Mexican restaurant and mezcaleria. Also upstairs, the Sukabumi-tiled rooftop pool beckons, though the surrounding mix of native and exotic flora demands equal attention.

The Eve Hotel Sydney is located at 8 Baptist St, Redfern NSW 2016, Australia

Read our full review of The Eve Hotel Sydney

Few & Far Luvhondo

Husband-and-wife adventurers Jacob and Sarah Dusek introduced Few & Far Luvhondo, a safari eco-lodge offering front-row access to the raw wilderness of South Africa’s Limpopo province. Designed by Nicholas Plewman Architects in collaboration with Ohkre Collective, the lodge’s six cliff-edge suites take their sculptural cues from Africa’s most emblematic trees, notably the monumental baobabs that anchor the surrounding landscape. Nature continues indoors, where clay-toned earths, sky blues and deep greens echo the terrain. In the kitchen, chef Nhlakanipho Soxhela leads a thoughtful farm-to-table programme celebrating regional cooking. Days unfold through immersive encounters with land and culture, from daily game drives to outdoor yoga sessions or guided mindfulness practices.

Few & Far Luvhondo is located at R523, Waterpoort, 3813, South Africa

Read our full review of Few & Far Luvhondo

La Fondation

Once a parking lot, La Fondation emerged as a brutalist shell softened by warm hues and muted tones that ripple through its ten floors. Paris-based architecture firm PCA-STREAM reimagined the exterior, while New York studio Roman and Williams infused the interiors with a modern, eclectic character, accented by nods to Piet Mondrian’s De Stijl palette and geometry. Muted tones and artisanal detailing define the 58 guest rooms, and two on-site dining venues offer a mix of French classics and contemporary dishes overseen by chef Thomas Rossi. The latest opening from Groupe Galia also introduces open co-working areas, a health club with a climbing wall, a spa with a semi-Olympic pool, and a rooftop garden with views from Sacré-Cœur to the Eiffel Tower.

La Fondation is located at 40 Rue Legendre, 75017 Paris, France

Read our full review of La Fondation

Patina Osaka

With the Osaka Expo pulling global focus, Patina Osaka debuted at just the right moment. Set in a 20-storey glass tower by Jun Mitsui & Associates Inc. Architects, the property, which marked the Japan debut for the Singapore-based group, sits between the Osaka Castle and Naniwa-no-Miya-Ato Park. Tokyo-based studio Strickland shaped the interiors with crisp Japanese geometries, softened by sculptural curves and copper accents that nod to the castle. Five dining concepts anchor the hotel, fronted by P72, where Japan’s 72 micro-seasons inform dishes served beneath a dramatic timber ‘roots’ installation. The Patina Spa is the real draw, offering hyperbaric oxygen, cryotherapy and holistic treatments for a full-spectrum reset.

Patina Osaka is located at 3-91, Banba-cho, Chuo-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka, 540-0007, Japan

Read our full review of Patina Osaka

The Standard, Pattaya Na Jomtien

A ten-building beach resort with plenty of swagger became The Standard’s fourth outpost in Thailand, pairing luxury with the brand’s trademark wit and creative flair. Led by the group’s global head of design, Verena Haller, alongside DIN Studio and Studio Lupine, The Standard Pattaya Na Jomtien occupies a sculptural white complex by Thai firm Onion, whose undulating curves echo their work for The Standard Bangkok and Hua Hin. Its 161 rooms, offered in seven generous configurations, feature high ceilings and sunlight-drenched spaces. Dining spans Sereia, an elegant seafood restaurant sourcing from Thailand’s eastern seaboard, and Esmé, a beach bar channelling CDMX street food. The adults-only spa, Mmhmmm, embraces the mud-bathing renaissance with a dedicated outdoor terrace for the ritual.

The Standard, Pattaya Na Jomtien is located at 8/12 Moo 2, Soi Na Jomtien 10, Na Jomtien, Sattahip, Chonburi 20250, Thailand

Read our full review of The Standard, Pattaya Na Jomtien

Villa Dubrovnik

Long a friend of Wallpaper,* Brazilian architect Arthur Casas and his studio led the reimagining of Villa Dubrovnik, the 1961 modernist landmark perched dramatically above the Dalmatian coast. Guided by the Croatian philosophy of fjaka –an artful devotion to unhurried living – the interiors are measured and serene, grounded in local tradition. Custom blankets and cushions, woven with patterns drawn from regional dialects, thread a quiet sense of place through all 56 rooms. Dining unfolds across moods: Restaurant Pjerin for refined dégustation or à la carte dining, Giardino for relaxed lunches, and aperitivo-worthy views at Libero Bar or the rooftop Galanto Bar. When the Adriatic sun takes its toll, the spa delivers restorative facials, massages, and exfoliating rituals.

Villa Dubrovnik is located at Ul. Vlaha Bukovca 6, 20000, Dubrovnik, Croatia

Read our full review of Villa Dubrovnik

W New York – Union Square

W Hotels’ evolution trades party-first theatrics for grown-up confidence, without losing its spark. The shift is clearest at W New York – Union Square, the global flagship, alongside newer openings in Florence and Budapest. Opened in 2000, the hotel has been reimagined by original architects Rockwell Group with a lighter, more assured hand. Its 256 rooms and suites balance scale with playfulness. On the food front, Seahorse pairs heritage and modernity with unmistakable New York ease; the high-energy Living Room (once a ballroom) serves cocktails and light bites, flowing into the laid-back Living Room Café; and upstairs, the 17th floor is home to Union Square’s only rooftop bar.

W New York – Union Square is located at 1567 Broadway, New York, NY 10036, United States

Read our full review of W New York – Union Square

The Docrats still retained their ancestral home on the 20^th Street in Johannesburg when South African photographer David Goldblatt took their photograph, capturing an image of comfortable serenity. Soon after, the Docrats were 'disqualified’ from living there – like many others, governed by apartheid laws. From 1946 to 2016, David photographed this displaced community in the Fietas region, composed of the suburbs of Pageview and Vrededorp, which has now been compiled by his daughter Brenda Goldblatt into the book ‘Fragments of Fietas’.

As early as 1923, plans for separate urban residential areas for Africans had been developed. Local legislation was already propagating segregated living, but once the Nationalist Party came to power with veiled intentions of white supremacy and instilled the Group Areas Act of 1950, racially segregated town planning became compulsory for South Africa. It forced many like the Docrats to move out of their homes to places 'set aside for them'.

It's an intimate portrait of people that David presents, highlighting a personal relationship with many of them. A group, possibly a family, stands in front of a house which they were about to abandon – some of the elders smile but the younger children’s faces are etched with distress. An empty breakfast table in Tahera Karbelkar’s house speak to her fear in the final days in which she stayed in her home, not answering the doorbell of the Group Area inspectors when David visited her. Her house was demolished and never rebuilt, the dream of redevelopment having never been achieved by the Mandela government.

A blackboard outside a shop reads, ‘We have been trading here for the last 40 years, where must we move?’ In a photograph taken in Ossie’s shop in 1976, his daughter smiled as her father looked on. A year later, her sister Asiya Docrat was lugging items helping Ossie Docrat to close shop. 'I had blackboards outside and I used to put the [match] score up there,' Ossie had said. Before closing shutters, the blackboard read: Fietas died today.

Fragments of Fietas, MACK, £35

mackbooks.co.uk

Lesego Bantsheng and her practice, Rural Futurisms NPC, hope to shake up the notion of landscape – and that, they do. Founded in 2023 and working in Southern Africa, in particular rural northern South Africa, the studio is a collective of researchers, designers, a historian and a climate activist, ‘interested in imagining a collective future of rurality that stems from its rich heritage.’ Rural Futurisms is a non-profit organisation, and Bantsheng is also a practising urban designer at Maccreanor Lavington in Rotterdam (as well as a contributor at the African and diasporic spatial practitioners network Matri-Archi(tecture)). In her many hats, Bantsheng works internationally, challenging perceptions of what landscape is and how it can affect communities.

Meet Lesego Bantsheng's Rural Futurisms

Indeed, nothing is conventional in the work of this landscape studio. ‘[Through Rural Futurisms] we are not merely designers but also agents for catalytic change in conversation with the colonial and apartheid legacy of South Africa and its effect in disempowering rural dwellers. I do not practise conventional landscape architecture, as I have not found it particularly useful for addressing these issues.'

'Rather than implementing landscape practice as I was taught, I have paused and listened instead – to the landscape and the people of that landscape – about how they want to interact, entangle and intersect, privately or publicly. In the contexts we have worked in, the answer has not been through a renaissance garden,’ she explains. ‘A decolonised landscape and architectural practice in the African context is complex and requires deep listening and unlearning.’

Bantsheng and her colleagues work with the material libraries, systems and entire ‘cosmologies’ of the places they engage with, asking questions and inviting the local communities into their processes. Their deep dives result not only in spatial deliverables, but also ‘archival and conversational [ones], rooted in process and agency more than conventional design.’ Ultimately, a landscape is all about relationships, rather than a ‘time-bound production.’

The studio’s pilot project, which also inspired its name, ‘Rural Futurisms: Cosmotechnics in Makgobistad’, was a landmark moment for the evolution of the organisation. The work included addressing the geological and biological material landscape in Makgobistad, a South African village on the border with Botswana, looking at everyday objects within homes (as opposed to focusing on precious, museum artefacts), and experimenting with mycelium-based composites (MBCs) in combination with local earth.

It all culminated in a Hut-Lab – an earth roundhouse for the community, where people and landscape meet. More recent work includes Cybersyn 2, a collaboration with digital technology and artist collective Radical Data, a project located between northern South Africa and the Netherlands that looks at food distribution systems in rural towns and villages and resource-sharing among small-scale farmers.

‘Landscape architecture in South Africa has come a long way, but it still misses a sense of embeddedness in local cosmotechnics that reflect the modes of public living of the local majority. I think this is due to its academic origins and its continued domination by a minority group and ruling class, so it often reflects middle-class aspirations rather than the collective heritage and ways of relating to each other and the environment of the majority in South Africa,’ Bantsheng says.

‘This is partly why our practice focuses on rural landscapes, which help us first understand the collective heritage – not to romanticise the past, but to acknowledge it and see how it lives on in hybrid formations in contemporary southern Africa. I am optimistic when I see younger practices like Matri-Archi(tecture), Esapha and Yes&Studio finding ways to colour outside the lines, whether through practice, aesthetic or process — which is truly what we need in a country like ours.’

Koyo Kouoh, a towering figure in the contemporary art world, has died at the age of 57 as a result of a recently-diagnosed cancer. She is best known for her work advocating for African creatives and institutions, as well as curating a number of high profile international shows. Kouoh was due to curate the 2026 Venice Biennale, making her the second African to lead the exhibition following Okwui Enwezor’s edition in 2015, and the first African woman to do so.

Kouoh was born in Cameroon in 1967, moving to Switzerland at 13, where she later studied Business Administration and Banking. However, as she explained in a 2023 interview, ‘[she was] fundamentally uninterested in profit’, and left her studies to became a social worker assisting migrant women. It was at this point that Kouoh began to get involved in the art world.

She returned to Africa in 1996 and settled in Dakar, Senegal, where she founded Raw Material Company, an independent art hub for West African creatives. She believed in engaging with the region first and foremost, weaving an ‘Africa-first’ narrative that challenged the Western canon.

In 2019, Kouoh was appointed executive director and chief curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town, South Africa. At the time, the institution was facing a controversy; Kouoh is widely credited with turning its fortunes around. She revamped Zeitz, placing a renewed focus on African art for African people, including a 2022 show titled When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting, which is currently on display in Brussels. The museum has released a statement expressing its ‘profound sorrow’ at the news of Kouoh’s passing, and explaining the museum will be closed ‘until further notice’.

Although Kouoh prioritised African voices and perspectives, her influence extended beyond the continent. She worked on curatorial teams for Documenta, the international contemporary art exhibition held every five years in Kassel, Germany; EVA International, Ireland's biennial of contemporary art; and the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh.

She was also, as mentioned, due to curate the 2026 Venice Biennale; sadly, Kouoh passed away before details of her exhibition could be released, although the biennale has said that a conference to discuss her work will still go ahead. It also said that her death ‘leaves an immense void in the world of contemporary art’, and reflected upon the ‘passion, intellectual rigor and vision’ that characterised her work.

Throughout her career, Kouoh was unwavering in her advocacy for African artists. She also prioritised institution-building over personal advancement, aiming to leave a legacy that supports artists. There is no doubt that she achieved her aim.

Within the untamed wilderness of the Soutpansberg Mountains in Limpopo, South Africa, Few & Far Luvhondo emerges as a reinvigorating eco-lodge providing an experience that is as transformative as it is indulgent. In this intimate retreat, which offers six cliffside suites that blend flawlessly into the Unesco-listed Vhembe Biosphere Reserve, the wild beauty of nature meets innovative, regenerative hospitality.

Wallpaper* checks in at: Few & Far Luvhondo

What’s on your doorstep?

Spanning 100,000 hectares, the Soutpansberg Mountains comprise a mesmerising landscape of jagged cliffs and lush valleys, with the ceaseless soundtrack of over 600 bird species’ calls filling the air. The area is also a sanctuary for leopards, giraffes, kudus, and zebras, and Few & Far Luvhondo aims to honour and protect the tapestry of flora and fauna. The lodge’s remote location provides not just a backdrop but an integral part of its ethos, inviting guests to immerse themselves in the rhythms of nature while contributing to its preservation.

Who is behind the design?

Jacob and Sarah Dusek – also founders of luxury glamping business Under Canvas, focused on America’s national parks, which they sold in 2018 – brought together Nicholas Plewman Architects to oversee their architectural vision, and Ohktre Collective for the interior design.

Drawing inspiration from the region’s natural beauty – and the mighty baobab tree in particular – the design philosophy celebrates biophilic principles, where every element, from the materials to the flow of the spaces, echoes the surrounding environment. Take, for example, the Duseks’ decision to build the lodge using eucalyptus, a sustainable alternative to traditional hardwoods, which are often sourced from the Amazon. Produced and heat-treated at their nearby facility, the material reduces the lodge’s carbon footprint while supporting the local economy.

The room to book

Wooden platforms that seem to float above the verdant bush offer a platform for each of the six suites and their private plunge pools. Designed to evoke the canopy of the area’s endemic baobab tree, the suites are outfitted with bespoke furniture, handwoven textiles, and locally crafted ceramics. The centrepiece here is a California king bed (7ft long by 6ft wide) wrapped in earth-toned linens and a canopy mosquito net that can be closed at night to provide a dreamy (and insect-free) slumber. Built into the bedframe is an air conditioner, which is aided by an overhead fan to help circulate the cool breeze. Behind a wood and rope partition with built-in shelves and mirror is a freestanding bathtub, a pair of copper sinks, and rain showers. Elsewhere, floor-to-ceiling windows frame the panoramic views of the gorge, blurring the line between indoors and out.

Staying for drinks and dinner?

Leading the lodge’s culinary programme is chef Nhlakanipho Soxhela, affectionately known as Chef Sox, whose farm-to-table approach (herbs and vegetables are sourced from the on-site farm) honours the vibrant flavours of South Africa – think grilled lamb with lemon and herb risotto and paradise pak-choy, carrot soup with ginger and coconut.

Dining at the lodge is an adventure in itself, and during a typical three- or four-night stay guests might experience a multi-course bush dinner under the stars, a traditional barbecue set in the outdoor boma, and a post-game drive breakfast or picnic lunch in the bush with the sounds of the creatures echoing in the gorge. Like in the suites, the dining lodge's décor features patterns and textures inspired by the region’s rock formations, flora, and fauna.

Where to switch off

The spa rituals take place in a solitary hut overlooking a 3,000-year-old baobab tree – one of the oldest in the country. Here, the welcoming spa therapist, Nungo Ravele, uses locally sourced organic ingredients that harness the nourishing properties of baobab oil, eucalyptus, celery seed and other herbs to leave skin revitalised and spirits uplifted. Beyond the spa, guests can walk a meditative labyrinth, participate in outdoor yoga sessions or guided mindfulness practices, and take a dip in a circular infinity pool.

Walking the talk

At the heart of Few & Far Luvhondo, sustainability is woven into even the smallest of details. There’s not a single plastic bottle in sight thanks to on-site filtration and advanced systems that manage energy and water efficiently. Embracing a zero-waste philosophy, the lodge bans single-use plastics, sources locally, and employs a circular waste system: soldier flies convert organic waste into compost, feeding livestock and nourishing the lodge’s farm.

The lodge is also working to regenerate the landscape by capturing over 100,000 tons of carbon annually while nurturing vibrant ecosystems that enhance local biodiversity. The staff (and guests who are interested in lending a hand) replace deforested areas with native species, remove invasive plants, and revitalise the soil so that the land the lodge sits on can provide a much-needed haven for endangered leopards, pangolins, and rare birds. In May 2025, Few & Far will debut the Solfari, a solar-powered cable car inspired by the intricate nests of weaver birds – a first of its kind anywhere in the world.

The verdict

By prioritising sustainability and luxury equally, Few & Far Luvhondo offers a blueprint for how travellers can engage with the natural world without damaging it. From the thrilling Solfari to the delicious culinary offerings, every detail is uplifting. For the eco-conscious traveller seeking an adventurous escape, this is a destination that delivers on every level.

Few & Far Luvhondo is located at R523, Waterpoort, 3813, South Africa; fewandfarcollection.com

Imagine the Pacific Coast Highway, but with penguins. The ‘Garden Route’ is one of the world’s most fabled journeys, nearly 200 miles of coastal road linking Cape Town in the west to Port Elizabeth in the east, taking in some of South Africa’s most spectacular national parks and Indian Ocean views. To experience this landscape in any vehicle would be a delight, but we’re here to explore the abilities of a genuine challenger brand.

Only recently launched in the UK, but still a mystery to some, you’re about to start seeing a lot more of the Chinese car brand Jaecoo. The Jaecoo 7 boasts the three things most motorists in the UK are looking for in a new set of wheels: It’s a mid-size SUV; it’s hybrid with fantastic fuel economy and all the latest digital technologies; and it’s extraordinary value. The downside is that it could lead to the extinction of our own homegrown automotive industry. So, on the one hand, comfort and flexibility at a bargain price, on the other the collapse of the western economies.

In the past decade, China has set about dominating the car industry’s shift to electrification. Not only does it have unfettered access to half the world’s lithium, cobalt and graphite (all essential materials for making EV batteries), but it has transitioned from merely copying what other countries make (and doing it much cheaper) to achieving a high degree of autonomy in engineering and design to go with the manufacturing might.

In fact, having enticed some of the West’s most experienced executives, designers and engineers with their renminbi, and invested heavily in specialised education and cutting-edge manufacturing plants, China has gone from bootlegger to global leader. The country now sells 60 per cent of the world’s EVs and 80 per cent of the batteries that power them and is set to overtake the United States in autonomous driving technologies. A huge domestic market and enticing incentives to both manufacturers and consumers hasn’t hurt. There are some 150 Chinese auto manufacturers, while the likes of Tesla, Volkswagen and BMW all have significant factories there.

But there has been a steer towards hybrids, which are less expensive to buy than fully-electric vehicles and are booming in sales. Hybrids offer the best-of-both-worlds, wherein motorists benefit from emission-free journeys in urban areas and long range on motorways and in the countryside. Range anxiety, sluggish charging infrastructure and expensive energy means that fully-electric vehicles are undesirable and impractical for many customers. That’s true of those living in Zhoushan just as it is for people in Sudbury. And China’s ambitions are nothing if not international and expansive.

Which brings us back to the Jaecoo 7; a car that’s sure to appeal to a lot of Brits. It’s a handsome machine albeit slightly forgettable – the sort of indistinguishability that’d make it a good getaway car - with styling cues reminiscent of the Jeep Cherokee at the front and Range Rover Sport and Jaguar F-Pace SVR at the back. Inside it’s minimalist with a huge central touchscreen, like a Tesla or Volvo, and it’s well-equipped with heated this and connected that. In terms of size, it sits between the Range Rover Evoque and the larger Velar. Yet were you to spec the Evoque to the same equipment level as a standard Jaecoo, you’d be presented with a £63,000 bill. The Jaecoo’s sticker price: just £35,000, with a seven-year/100,000-mile warranty thrown in.

To test drive the car outside of its normal suburban comfort zone, Wallpaper* headed all the way to South Africa to drive the ‘Garden Route’. Africa, it should be noted, is another area where China is making remarkable inroads. Since 2009, the superpower has been Africa’s largest trading partner. It has invested across the continent, funding infrastructure projects, extracting oil and minerals, improving healthcare, importing Chinese workers, establishing military bases, and making multi-billion-dollar loans to African governments. Some might call this neo-colonialism, others development and mutually beneficial cooperation. Presently, Eswatini is the only African nation that officially recognises Taiwan.

Despite the nauseating marketing-led portmanteau origins of the Jaecoo name (think ‘hunter’ (Jaeger) and ‘Cool’), it’s a minor gripe given how effectively this export ticks the boxes when it comes to the driving experience. The ride is good, feeling direct in the corners whilst smoothing out the potholes. You can firm up the steering to ‘sport’ by going through the screen menu, which makes it well-weighted. The transition between electric and petrol power is seamless and, while the interior materials aren’t going to concern Lexus or Mercedes, it feels no less plush or precise than the more expensive Nissan Qashqai.

A combined 201 bhp from its 1.5-litre petrol engine and hybrid system isn’t about to embarrass the Porsche Macan at the lights, but its 310 Nm of torque means it never feels like it’s dragging an anchor. Zero to 62mph is a respectable 8.5 seconds. Capable of a real world 55 mpg and a range of over 745 miles, we were easily able to complete the entire Garden Route without once having to refill its 60-litre tank or plug in the battery.

Unlike a typical plug-in hybrid, Jaecoo’s third-generation ‘Super Hybrid’ powertrain self-charges when you back off the gas and never drops to 0 per cent. Electric-only range from its 18.3 kW battery pack tops out at 56 miles – more than enough for most people’s day-to-day usage. Had we needed to charge, I’m told a 40kW charger will boost the batteries from 30-80 per cent full in 40 minutes or will fully charge using a home charger in around six and a half hours. The figures for thermal efficiency and carbon emissions (23 g/km) are genuinely mighty – the result of innovative ignition timing that lowers combustion temperatures – and its battery safety technology is class-leading.

Should one opt for a combustion-only version, the J7 gets even cheaper. Front-wheel-drive is available from £29,435 and all-wheel-drive from £32k. Due to how the tech is packaged, the hybrid model we drove is only available as a front-wheel-drive. That mightn’t make it a true competitor for Land Rover, but it’s refined enough to pose a very serious challenge to the likes of VW, Nissan, Kia and Ford, and may even tempt some customers out of their BMW X1s and Audi Q3s. In these times of economic uncertainty, who wants to blow an extra £10k on a badge?

Except of course, it’s the Chinese economy that’s going to benefit here. The ‘jaeger’ Jaecoo is on the hunt, ready to eat mainstream European car makers for lunch.

Jaecoo.co.uk, @Jaecoo.uk

Singita Ebony Lodge, set within South Africa’s Sabi Sand nature reserve, has undergone its first major design facelift since it opened 30 years ago, courtesy of architecture firm Cécile & Boyd. The pinnacle of luxury safaris, the Singita brand boasts a loyal swathe of eco-minded devotees hooked on its commitment to conservation. The refresh sees a total overhaul of Singita’s founding lodge, which now includes a spirited ‘conservation room’, a new wine cellar and several spacious lounge decks that offer 360 views.

Singita Ebony Lodge, Hazyview

Throughout the property, textures of nature reign supreme; earthy terracotta tones are paired with dried grass rugs and rough stone walls. Intended to feel ‘open to the elements’, the new Ebony Lodge follows three key design themes: the use of adobe-style materials that pay tribute to dried mud-brick homes; the pursuit of a utilitarian architecture philosophy, as seen in the lightweight tents that connect guest spaces with nature; and the use of upcycling techniques, evident throughout the lodge. Notably, many African antiques, including family heirlooms, have been preserved to infuse the lodge with a nostalgic, homely ambience.

‘We wanted to give people an immense idea of home and space on a majestic scale, like entering an exotic home in the wilderness,’ says Paul van den Berg, partner and interior designer at Cécile & Boyd. The team developed the brand-new Conservation Room, dedicated to highlighting Singita’s efforts in that direction, and this doubles as a lounge area ‘to break down the barriers between staff and guests, allowing them both to connect, share stories and gather’.

Around the space, there are pinboards mapped with wildlife in the region and referencing the work of the Singita Lowveld Trust, the brand’s conservation partner in South Africa, and other community conservation projects. The room also features interactive technology, from computers to iPads, where guests can check on sightings and converse with park rangers to learn more about the environment they are staying in. The space, as van den Berg sums up, is ‘enhancing and extending the game drive experience through the power and storytelling of design.’

Elsewhere, new tier-level observation decks spread across the main veranda and are home to several dining spaces, adding an extra dose of calm and zen to the lodge. Taking a modern twist on Senufo (West African) design, African craftsmanship takes centre stage. Cécile & Boyd made it a point to work with master craftsmen on all the coffee tables alongside local weavers on all the shaded chandeliers and thatched ceilings, striving to preserve an architectural language.

It’s an intentional mix of past and present that ultimately takes the safari lodge experience to a whole new and grander level.

Singita Ebony Lodge is located at Sabi Sands Game Reserve, Hazyview, singita.com

Artist and visual activist Zanele Muholi celebrates the lives of South Africa’s Black LGBTI communities in a series of arresting portraits that aim to offset the stigma around queer identity in African society.

Now, Muholi is exhibiting new bronze sculptures and adding to their self-portrait series, Somnyama Ngonyama (examples from which were shown in New York in 2021, alongside Muholi’s paintings) at their retrospective at Southern Guild, Los Angeles.

Muholi considers their own form in portraits taken all around the world, in new work that gently subverts the quotidian, whether wearing crowns of clothesline pins, bed sheet cloaks or lipstick made from toothpaste and vaseline.

Ultimately uplifting, Muholi’s work emphasises a new positivity, aiming ‘to rewrite a Black queer and trans visual history of South Africa for the world to know of our resistance and existence at the height of hate crimes in SA and beyond’.

The Southern Guild Los Angeles exhibition, ‘Zanele Muholi’, is on until 30 August 2024, southernguild.com

‘Zanele Muholi’ at Tate Modern is on show until 26 January 2025, tate.org.uk

A version of this article appears in the July 2024 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Huddled on the quayside of Cape Town’s vibrant V&A Waterfront, the Cape Grace Hotel by Fairmont stands as a testament to the city’s rich tapestry of history and modernity – its recent redesign by Fairmont and renowned interior and architecture firm 1508 London nods to the city’s evolution from a bustling trading port to a cosmopolitan hub.

Inside Cape Town's Cape Grace Hotel

For its new life, the Cape Grace now boasts 112 rooms and suites with giant balconies and French windows (continuing its Parisian-inspired architecture) that overlook the marina and Table Mountain. The warm colour palette in the rooms depicts African heritage hues of deep blue, green and maroon, which complement whimsical bespoke rugs. A favourite already, the property’s two-bedroom Cape Grace Suite counts with its own private bar, butler’s pantry, a variety of local art and a vast terrace with sweeping views.

‘This unique hotel attracts some of the world’s most influential clientele, wanting to explore the city of Cape Town. We wanted to create an atmosphere that is timeless and elegant while referencing the glamourous heritage of the hotel,’ shares Hamish Brown, partner at 1508 London. Thus, the studio’s cabinet of curiosities concept works perfectly – rare items in shiny materials, rare books about the Cape region and singular objects collected from all over the country await to be discovered by guests.

An authentic South African story is told with every artwork in the hotel. Galia Gluckman’s two large-scale artworks made with recycled materials – entitled ‘Sunrise’ and ‘Sunset’ – were specially commissioned for Cape Grace Hotel, carrying within them the wisdom of an African proverb: ‘There is no day that goes without the moon and no day that goes without sunrise and sunset.’ There are also works by Johannesburg-based visual artist Lulama Wolf accenting the walls with deep pigments and unique smearing and scraping techniques.

Heirloom, the escape’s new restaurant with a distinctive fauna and flora inspiration, is the vision of Cape Town chef Gregory Czarnecki, who is dipping into South African heritage cuisine with all kinds of regional delicacies: local hake, South Coast rock lobster and Karoo wagyu beef, to name a few. A refined plant-based menu is also on offer. And if you’re after afternoon tea with traditional Koeksisters and Melktert, the Library is where you can nosh and mingle whilst keeping an eye on the seals playing in the harbour.

The most highly anticipated is, undoubtedly, the Bascule Bar, renowned for its collection of over 400 types of whisky. Since the late 90s, it has been the go-to spot after dinner – it's like a touch of Monaco in the southern hemisphere. This June, the bar is scheduled to reopen with a complete redesign that embodies a speakeasy atmosphere. Many dignitaries, presidents, and both famous and non-famous guests have frequented the Bascule Bar throughout the years for the elegant, nautical atmosphere only a small town like Cape Town can offer.

Cape Grace is located at W Quay Rd, Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town, fairmont.com

In 1991, a year following the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, Esther Mahlangu painted the BMW 525i Art Car with her distinctive Ndebele designs and bold colours. She was the first woman, and the first African artist, to contribute to the celebrated project, joining artists from the canon – Alexander Calder, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol.

In the townships, where Mahlangu grew up and lives today, these sportier BMW models were nicknamed ‘Igusheshe’ to roughly mean ‘it grinds’ in Zulu as a note to their distinctive engine note. These fast cars were aspirational products, admired by all and certainly not attainable for most. ‘I painted the car like a wall, and for the Ndebele people, if you begin to paint a wall, it means you’re announcing either a wedding or a celebration,’ recalls Mahlangu.

‘Then I knew I was good at painting: Esther Mahlangu’

The BMW 525i Art Car takes centre stage at ‘Then I knew I was good at painting: Esther Mahlangu’, the artist’s first retrospective, held at the Iziko Museums of South Africa in Cape Town (it’s also referenced in the car maker’s Frieze LA 2024 reveal, the BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA). ‘Back then, to see a BMW painted in Ndebele design was a huge thing for our communities,’ explains the exhibition curator Nontobeko Ntombela. ‘For Mahlangu to have turned this car into her art suddenly highlights these aspirations in ways that co-opt it between the African and Western.’ She believes the Mahlangu BMW Art Car encapsulates the tensions that exist in South Africa – the tensions of the modern and rural, technological and the handmade. 

Mahlangu is a national treasure. Almost 90, with her vibrant traditional Ndebele dress, her presence is as striking as her art. Born in 1935 in Middelburg, in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa, her mother and grandmother taught the young Mahlangu the art of Ndebele mural painting. 

Practised by the Ndebele people (primarily based in South Africa and Zimbabwe), Ndebele art is typically hand-painted using natural pigments, with acrylic paints adopted by contemporary artists such as Mahlangu for their wider colour choice and longevity. The vibrant geometric motifs associated with the art are painted on various surfaces, on walls, houses, clothing, pottery and textiles. And they offer both aesthetic and cultural readings with pattern and colour carrying symbolism, often reflecting the cultural identity, social status, and spiritual beliefs within the community. 

‘I would continue to paint on the house when they left for a break. When they came back, they would say: What have you done, child? Never do that again. After that, I started drawing on the back of the house, and slowly, my drawings got better and better until they finally asked me to come back to the front of the house. Then I knew I was good at painting,’ wrote Mahlangu, in a quote that has informed the exhibition title.

Mahlangu’s work is rooted in the centuries-long tradition of Ndebele art, yet hers is a unique approach to colour and shape that flows seamlessly between indigenous designs and contemporary art. She was one of the first to translate the Ndebele style of mural painting to canvas. Chicken feathers are her brushes of choice (although some of her latter wall-size artworks do involve paintbrushes), and instead of making preliminary sketches for her designs, Mahlangu works straight from the imagination. And she refrains from working in a conventional studio, preferring the more modest setting of her hometown, often laying out the canvases on the floor, and employing her family members as studio assistants. 

Mahlangu’s precise geometric shapes and abstract forms are created without the aid of rulers or masking tape, and the thick black lines that are a defining feature of her work echo traditional Ndebele beadwork. There are other signals that set her work apart: motifs of the razorblade for cutting hair appears throughout her work, as do streetlamps, painted at a time when electricity was not available to her community.

‘Seeing these appear in her murals shifts the so-called traditional practice,’ says Ntombela. The curator wanted to capture Mahlangu’s sense of agency, tell her story from her lens: a fearless artist with self-belief at a time when the art world was not open to her. ‘Naming the exhibition after a childhood scenario is important as it is testimony to Mahlangu’s defying spirit and foresight,’ she explains. ‘It is radical that Mahlangu would see herself as an artist when only ten years old, and in the 1940s South Africa. It tells us about her self-belief, how she understood her significance and talent.’

Mahlangu first came to the attention of an international audience in the group show ‘Magiciens de la Terre’ held at the Centre Pompidou in 1989. In Paris, Mahlangu created a reconstruction of her house to demonstrate the possibility of bringing her design onto an artificial surface, as well as transporting her culture into a global context. For the artist, it was, and is, critical to place Ndebele art into the Western art canon as a way of preserving its history. To show the significance of this moment, the Iziko Museums features a scaled-down model of the Pompidou house. 

Most striking, perhaps, are her wall-size canvas works created from the early 1990s, which hang in Iziko Museums’ final gallery. Canvas allowed Mahlangu to explore colour and design in new ways. Crucially, it made it possible for her work to travel and enter private collections, where most of her artwork was sourced for this show. 

Exhibitions of Ndebele art can often be about the collective, leaving out the individual voice. Curator Ntombela, a lecturer at Wits School of Arts in Johannesburg, believes this may explain why South Africa has struggled to show Mahlangu’s work and why her artworks are mainly collected outside of the country. She says there is an interesting relationship between South Africans and Esther Mahlangu. ‘This is a person who is celebrated around the world but we see as doing something that is everyday. In dealing with this I had to do a lot of un-learning and write a story from a contemporary position, and from a different kind of art historical engagement.’

Ntombela believes Mahlangu’s approach shows how indigeneity can lead to generative, expansive and creatively exciting art; how practices of culture can embody a modernist approach and intellectual processes of making. ‘She doesn’t become the sole representative of an otherwise collective or communal culture. Rather, she inhabits a complex nexus between tradition and modernity in all its constant reinterpretations. It is with this unique practice that Mahlangu begins to expand and trouble the canon and its conventions,’ she says.

‘Painting has always been a part of me,’ writes Mahlangu. ‘I cannot separate it from myself, and neither would I want to.’

‘Then I Knew I Was Good at Painting: Esther Mahlangu’, supported by the BMW Group, will be at the Iziko Museums of South Africa until 11 August 2024, after which it will begin a global tour, stopping first at the Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg before moving to the US in early 2026. BMW is working with Esther Mahlangu on a project to be revealed at Frieze LA 2024.

iziko.org.za

When stepping into the Now Gallery on London’s Greenwich Peninsula, you enter into the vibrant youth culture of South Africa. ‘A Young South Africa’, the title of this year’s annual ‘Human Stories’ project, is presented through the eyes of six South African photographers – Bee Diamondhead, Fede Kortez, Aart Verrips, Nikki Zakkas, Anita Hlazo, Ben Moyo and Karabo Mooki – who capture the diverse culture of their home nation, which is shadowed by a complex political, socio-economic and cultural landscape.

The featured works celebrate individualism, co-creation, and collaboration, telling the story of the ‘Ama2000s’, a generation of young South Africans defined by self-expression and political awareness, and a desire to revolt against the constraints of the past.

Despite the continuous rise of youth unemployment, and the decline in basic services like clean water, the creative energy of Ama2000s is undimmed and expressed through visual culture, music, and fashion – all a focus of the exhibition, which has been curated by Kaia Charles.

Speaking with Wallpaper*, she said: ‘Human Stories commissions seek to engage the viewer in global conversations. South Africa is known for its turbulent past and the amazing Amapiano music movement that is sweeping the world. We hope the exhibition will share new perspectives, both thought-provoking, uplifting and transformative.’

Now Gallery: 'A Young South Africa'

Anita Hlazo, Afrogrunge

In her photographs shot in Nyanga, a township in the Western Cape, and Cape Town, fashion designer and stylist Anita Hlazo, founder of label Afrogrunge, showcases her evolving style and identity as a Black ‘Alternative’ presenting girl, mixing pop and grunge subcultures. Hlazo’s portraits capture piercings, tattoos, and platformed boots, contextualised by the urban environment and local communities.

Karabo Mooki, Island Gals

In this photo-documentation, Karabo Mooki focuses on the lives of ‘Island Gals’, a skateboarding community based in Johannesburg and Soweto. The Black women and queer crew reclaim their right to appear in the places they skate, collectively declaring the right to protest against South Africa's history of gender-based violence.

Fede Kortez, Cape Town Vibes

Glazed with a saturated colour, Kortez’s portraits are shot in the Bo-Kaap and Woodstock neighbourhoods of Cape Town. The colourful houses of Bo-Kaap celebrate the district’s Muslim identity. Through his photography, Kortez seeks to capture the energy of the two neighbourhoods while embracing Pan African pride and connection with the people he photographs.

Nikki Zakkas

Keen to share cultural richness, diversity and pride, Zakkas captures a cast of five young people within the locations that are significant to those individuals. The backgrounds hide symbolic clues to their personalities, with each photo as unique as its subject.

Bee Diamondhead, Back to the Soil

Three queer, male musicians are photographed by Bee Diamondhead, who celebrates their beauty, softness and vulnerability, challenging the cultural stereotypes of the South African music industry. She critiques toxic masculinity and acknowledges that her country has the highest gender-based violence rate in the world. The nude sitters, painted with coloured clays and earth, engage in ‘a ritual of remoulding’ themselves, ‘channeling back with the soil or giving back to it’. 

Aart Verrips, For My Liewe Land

Through self-expression, Aart Verrips reimagines the ‘rainbow nation’. Exploring the intersection of music, performance and fashion, he features a collective of individuals driving the cultural movement.

Now Gallery's ‘A Young South Africa, Human Stories’ is showcased from 11 October – 19 November 2023. nowgallery.co.uk

Summer is slow to arrive in Cape Town, but once it announces itself, always with delicate spring blooms, South Africa’s oldest city is revitalised and ready to serve. Framed by the enormous Table Mountain, Cape Town offers pleasure-seekers a heady mix of abundant nature and bustling cosmopolitanism. It is the country’s art, design, food and wellness capital, says author and curator Sean O’Toole, a long-time resident. 

Late summer is especially social, with the Cape Town Art Fair (17-19 February 2023), now in its tenth year, part of a vibrant art scene that includes the Thomas Heatherwick-designed Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa. The city is equally renowned for its outstanding dining options, as well as spas with spoil-yourself views of ocean, mountain, harbour and vineyard. 

Explore some of Cape Town's coveted secrets

SAD Studio

This design concept store, located in the refurbished Old Cape Quarter, forms part of De Waterkant’s patchwork of luxe boutiques and fashionable pieds-à-terre. SAD – a jokey contraction of ‘South African design’ – stocks small editions by regional designers and artists. A handmade philosophy pervades its offering of fashion, jewellery and home interiors, curated by art dealer and restaurateur Baylon Sandri. Frances van Hasselt’s hand-woven mohair womenswear (South Africa is the largest mohair producer in the world), and artist Margaret Courtney-Clarke’s Swakara wool carpets, produced with weaver Moses Helao from fibres from Namibian sheep, are good examples of its small-batch, collaboratively produced luxuries. 

sadstudio.co

The Gin Bar

Initially an add-on to a trendy art gallery, now defunct, The Gin Bar has proven a durable favourite with Cape Town’s capricious smart set. Entered via Honest Chocolate Café, the premises are an amalgamation of various historical buildings, including a former funeral home. The jumbled layout, which includes an attractive courtyard and tiered indoor setting, corresponds with the upcycled aesthetic of the furnishings. Gin is de rigueur. The menu includes 80 local varieties, but it's the five signature ‘remedies’ that charm. Ambition, a juniper-based gin cocktail, is the most popular. The bar also stocks local wines and imported tipples.

theginbar.co.za
@theginbar

Battery Park

Designed by local architectural practice DHK, this pedestrian-friendly urban park and heritage site at a busy junction connects the lower city centre with the sprawling Victoria & Alfred Waterfront mall development. The elevated site was historically important. The stone buildings are remnants of Amsterdam Battery, named for the maritime fortifications erected by Dutch settlers in 1784. The elevated urban sports area tactfully conceals a 1,206-bay parking lot. Semi-circular curved walkways map the footprint of the original fortification and descend to eleven canal-side retail units. The canal is swimmable.

waterfront.co.za

The Spa at Twelve Apostles

Cape Town is less a city than a series of atomised hamlets, but this secluded destination stands apart. Situated on an unspoilt Atlantic Ocean coastal road between the ritzy suburbs of Camps Bay and Llandudno, the location – formerly a private home – was transformed into a hotel in the 1990s. Owner Toni Tollman oversaw the tranquil design of The Spa, a later feature, selecting the muted tones of the all-white crystal grotto. The menu includes a saltwater flotation pool, Arabic rasul chamber and – exclusively in Cape Town – Tata Harper face and body treatments, but it is the two mountain gazebos that define its allure.

12apostleshotel.com
@12apostleshotel

Between Us

This cult bistro occupies a refurbished Victorian home on fashionable Bree Street. The unfussy but refined naturalism of the interiors – exposed Cape sandstone walls, dark-wood furniture on grey terrazzo flooring, exquisite cut flowers – reflects the tastes of its founders, twin sisters Jesse and Jamie Friedberg. Roles are evenly split: Jamie is a quiet force in the kitchen, while Jesse handles the front of house. Breakfast means eggs: try the Persian herb frittata with smoked salmon. The yellow-fin tuna on the lunch and dinner menus is caught locally, and the Chalmar beef is sourced from the respected Wethmar family of farmers. The baked cheesecake alone justifies a visit.

betweenus.capetown
@betweenus.ct

Gorgeous George

Located on one of Cape Town’s major walkways, this 32-room urban hotel with a rooftop surprise combines two historical properties, one a former bank. The 2019 revamp subtracted very little from their distinctive art deco and New Edwardian style, culminating in a stripped retro elegance. Art is integral to the experience. Lucie de Moyencourt’s Delftware-style map of Cape Town in the foyer is composed of 1,800 hand-painted tiles. The rooms, while individually styled, all feature exposed concrete, leather headboards and original art, notably by David Brits. The first-floor Pink Room hosts live events. Gigi Rooftop, on the sixth floor, is hugely popular, both for its bistro menu (including wood-fired meats) and cocktails (the signature Gigi Club is a fruity blend of Tanqueray and Cinzano Dry). Timing is crucial: the mosaic pool is best experienced before sunset. 

gorgeousgeorge.co.za

Constantia Wine Route

Yes, the nearby towns of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek are premium vinous destinations, but the Constantia Valley has bragging rights as the Cape’s oldest wine-growing region. Start at Steenberg, which produces sparkling wines in the manner of champagne but labels them Methode Cap Classique. Next stop is Uitsig, which has a credible chardonnay and like Steenberg offers reliable casual dining, as well as an outlet of Kristen’s Kick Ass Ice Cream. Wine aficionados may want to head straight for Klein Constantia, home to the storied Vin de Constance, a sweet wine eulogised by two intemperate Frenchmen, Napoleon and Baudelaire, and revived from obscurity in 1990 by the Jooste family, who occupy the historical manor house. The journey ends on a high, literally, at Beau Constantia, a former livestock farm transformed into a luxury winery with a view. Located on an estate known for its audacious private homes by Jon Jacobson of Metropolis Design, the Beau Constantia offshoot of Liam Tomlin’s admired Chefs Warehouse concept is here headed up by star chef Ivor Jones, formerly of La Colombe and Test Kitchen. Tip: bookings for the four-course set menu are essential.

steenbergfarm.com
uitsig.co.za
kleinconstantia.com
beauconstantia.com
metropolisdesign.co.za 

Bree Street Meander

Much has changed in the eight decades since painter Freida Lock’s house at 71 Bree Street was the informal headquarters of the New Group, South Africa’s first painterly avant-garde – Bree Street went vertical. It is home to Cape Town’s tallest building, the 139m-tall Portside by architects Derek Henstra and Louis Karol. For a taste of old Bree, start at the opposite end, at artist and patissier-turned-jeweller Katherine-Mary Pichulik’s gorgeous atelier, near Dear Rae, the must-visit showroom of freckled jeweller Karin Rae Matthee. The next destination is Always Welcome, a Johannesburg multi-brand coop specialising in local homeware that opened a showroom in a restored 18th-century townhouse on Heritage Square. Revive yourself at contemporary diner Clarke’s or Rosetta Roastery, devotees of rare single-origin coffees. Detours are part of the adventure. Church Street, off Bree, is home to ceramics enthusiast Michael Chandler’s eponymous home store; directly opposite, Keith Mehner of KM2K Architecture hosts an occasional showroom.

dearrae.co.za
alwayswelcome.store
chandlerhouse.co.za
rosettaroastery.com
pichulik.com
clarkesdining.co.za
km2k.co.za

Wallpaper* City Guide to Cape Town

Find out more in the Wallpaper* City Guide to Cape Town, £9.95, phaidon.com

Cape Town-based ceramic artist Zizipho Poswa is known for an expansive art practice that draws on ancient African traditions (see our visit to Poswa’s studio). Her work is grounded in the Xhosa rituals she witnessed during her childhood in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, and also explores how the sociopolitical role of Xhosa women has evolved throughout generations. 

Her debut 2021 exhibition at Cape Town’s Southern Guild Gallery, titled  ‘iLobola’ considered the value and relevance of Lobola, a tradition in which a bridegroom’s family offers payment in cattle or cash to the bride’s family ahead of marriage. For the show, Poswa exhibited 12 large sculptures, including Makoti (Bride), uMyeni (Groom), uBuso beNtombi (Gift for the Bride’s Mother) and iKhazi (Agreed Number of Cows), all measuring up to 2m in height and resembling gourd-shaped totems. The pieces were made by assembling hand-coiled clay bases, which were painted in an array of coloured glazes (one or two dripped effects) and crowned with two bronze horns.

Rather than reinforce Lobola’s objectification of women, Poswa looked to the spiritual aspects of the practice and how such traditions offer opportunities for solidifying the bonds between two people and uniting families and communities alike. 

Zizipho Poswa’s ‘uBuhle boKhokho’ at Southern Guild

In a new exhibition, ‘uBuhle boKhokho’ (Beauty of Our Ancestors) at Southern Guild, Poswa continues her exploration of traditional African hairstyles, first studied in her Magodi series (the Shona word for the topic). ‘uBuhle boKhokho’ draws inspiration from the elaborate art of hairstyling not just in her native South Africa but across the African continent and extending to the diaspora. 

Black hair has long been explored by a cross-generation of African artists, most notably by Nigerian photographer JD ’Okhai Ojeikere, who paired Nigerian women's hairstyles with the new Nigerian architecture of the 1960s, and more recently by London-based artist and hairstylist Joy Matashi. Informed by ancestral hairstyles from ethnic groups including the Fulani and Zande, Poswa looks even further back with this new body of work. Twenty new monumental ceramics and bronze sculptures are spread across Southern Guild’s spaces, alongside a photographic series where the artist recreated 12 hairstyles over a period of five months.

Additionally, some of the sculptures are titled after women who have played an important role in the artist's life, an ode to female solidarity, commonality and conviviality. 

Across ceramics and photography, Poswa reminds us of the critical role Black hair has played culturally, socially and politically, across time, as well as its versatility and experimental potential as an artistic and sculptural medium whilst being an important marker of Blackness. 

Zizipho Poswa, ‘uBuhle boKhokho (Beauty of Our Ancestors)’, until 2 February 2022, Southern Guild Gallery, Cape Town. southernguild.co.za

This new mountain house is located on the slopes of the Steenberg range of mountains in South Africa. Taking its cues from the geology of the landscape, with stratified rock formations, the concrete dwelling is set over two levels that step down the slopes. 

The Mountain House brief

Architect Chris van Niekerk designed the retreat on behalf of clients who divide their time between Europe and South Africa, and the brief was to address the landscape and contours of the site, rather than impose a prescribed amount of accommodation.

A driveway leads to the secluded house, set within a triangle-shaped, 4,000 sq m plot. The house itself is arranged in a U shape, divided between two wings, united by a covered terrace in the middle. There are scattered remnants of an earlier dwelling and its garden walls, but the project is fundamentally an entirely new construction.

The smaller wing houses a guest suite and a study on the upper level, with walls that seem to bleed into the landscape and a terrace adjoining the enclosed swimming pool, with its Barragán-esque concrete walls. The main body of the house is larger, with the principal bedroom located at one end and a large open-plan kitchen and living room at the other. The entrance is located on the level below, with a staircase taking you directly into the main living space.

A large concrete canopy sits atop the two wings, uniting the structure and shading the central outdoor room; in one direction you can see Table Mountain, in the other, the sea at False Bay. The intersection of this canopy with the roof and skylights modulates the interior lighting, creating unexpected views and shadows as the sun moves around the site.

The fenestration is an eclectic mix of expansive frameless floor-to-ceiling glass, slender slot, recessed windows and glazed corners. Light plays across the interior surfaces, which combine concrete with lime-bagged stone and brickwork, creating softly undulating walls that exude a natural warmth and texture. ‘The entire structure reads as a homogenous body,’ says van Niekerk, ‘the sun and seasons will render their effects strongly and will continue to do so as the structure ages.’ 

The house is surrounded by a carefully consider planting plan, which restored some of the vegetation displaced by the foundations as well as added new indigenous plants. Water has been scarce in recent years, and ensuring the landscape is self-sustaining without additional watering was an important part of the brief.

Ultimately, growth and weathering will see the structure become more and more embedded into its site. Throughout this process, the inside-outside spaces will give the owners a permanent connection with the landscape and views. 

CVN.co.za

The American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) presents Future Heirlooms, a project in collaboration with designer collective Always Welcome, manufacturer and designer Houtlander and timber importer BOS Timbers, highlighting the work of South African designers and exploring the future of sustainable design. 

The result is a collection of seven pieces by Dokter and Misses, MashT Design Studio, TheUrbanative, Kumsuka, Kalki Ceramics, Joe Paine in partnership with Nathan Gates, and Nøde Studio, looking to the future while celebrating each creative’s heritage and South Africa’s design legacy. 

Sustainable potential

As with all of AHEC’s projects, Future Heirlooms is an opportunity to highlight its materials’ sustainable potential. The lumber for the project arrived at the South African port of Durban carbon negative, meaning that there was more CO2 sequestered within the delivered lumber than was released throughout the process of preparing the material. Only just over one cubic metre of wood was used to manufacture all seven pieces, and for their lifetime, they will keep around 1,069 kg of CO2 out of the atmosphere.

‘We need to end our current throwaway culture and we need to use materials that have a low environmental impact,’ says AHEC regional director Roderick Wiles. ‘These issues should affect all our day-to-day decision-making. Designers, especially, have a huge influence on how products are planned and with what materials.’

Future Heirlooms by AHEC

The pieces, which will be on display at the Always Welcome viewing rooms in Johannesburg (until 30 October 2022), include a digital grandfather clock by Joe Paine & Nathan Gates, a screen by Nøde Studio merging technology and craft, and a furniture piece by Kalki Ceramics, referencing the aesthetic of the South African tree snake.

Some of the works in the project create a connection with local traditions and objects, such as that of Siyanda Mazibuko (a graduate of Discovered, the 2021 collaboration between Wallpaper* and AHEC) who created the ‘Ukhamba Table’, whose forms are informed by Zulu Ukhamba drinking vessels, traditionally shared between friends and family at Zulu gatherings. Similarly, a table by Thabisa Mjo’s MashT is inspired by traditional Xhosa garments, while a chair by Mpho Vackier features charred timber and references braided hairstyles typical of the Fulani people of West Africa.

Some of the pieces offer an intimate view of the designers’ lives, such as Dokter and Misses’ ‘Family Portrait’, a cabinet inspired by their new family life after welcoming a child, featuring hand-painted patterns and a section for each family member. 

‘This project was the perfect platform for us to work with accomplished South African designers and makers, whilst also helping them to work with an abundant, versatile and beautiful, yet lesser-known American hardwood species,’ continues Wiles. 

In 2023, all seven pieces will move to Always Welcome Heritage House in Cape Town. ‘We hope that this project inspires important discussions around sustainability in South African furniture design,’ says Garreth van Niekerk, director and co-founder of the Always Welcome collective. ‘And that the personal narratives of each designer imbued in each piece bring joy and delight to visitors of the show during its run.’

INFORMATION

Future Heirlooms is on view until 30 October 2022
americanhardwood.org
alwayswelcome.store

ADDRESS

17 Commerce Crescent
Kramerville, Sandton
South Africa

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Coromandel House is the centrepiece of a vast stretch of farmland set between Lydenberg and Dullstroom in Mpumalanga province, about three hours’ drive from Johannesburg. Designed by Marco Zanuso in 1969 and completed in 1975, it is a now a pilgrimage site for young South African architects, a pioneering study in ‘passive’ design and skilfully setting a house – a very big house – in nature; welcome to the celebrated, modernist Coromandel farmhouse. 

The estate, a composite of what were 24 smaller farms, was established by the South African retail entrepreneur and husbandry innovator Sydney Press, who hoped it would become a benchmark for agricultural excellence in the country. Press wanted to build a comfortable part-time pile at Coromandel. His wife Victoria, a New York-born fashion designer and a keen follower of contemporary architecture, spotted a set of twin Zanuso-designed rural retreats in Sardinia, and suggested he was the man for the job.

Coromandel farmhouse by Marco Zanuso

Zanuso was already an established giant of post-war Italian design. The arch-modernist’s best-known architecture, factories for Olivetti in South America and offices for IBM in Milan, were exercises in large-scale rationalism. The Sardinian houses, though, were small, low-slung fortresses, built in local stone and seeming to emerge out of the rock. The couple asked Zanuso to build something along the same lines but bigger for the Coromandel farmhouse. 

Zanuso brought over his own team of Italian collaborators to realise his vision, including landscape architect Pietro Porcinai and designer Livio Castiglioni. The result is single-storey and squat with metre-thick concrete walls clad in brown local stone, edging towards a kind of arcadian brutalist architecture. The interiors are similarly rustic-modern, all stone cladding and indigenous wood, though Zanuso, always a champion of new technology, added electric sliding doors. (He also created custom furniture for the house, though little of that remains).

What really defines the building, though, is its long, thin plan. The house is 240m long in total with a central communal hub and four wings set along two 4m-wide courtyards, one filled with water leading to a swimming pool, and designed to reference local rivers and ‘kloofs’ or ravines.

Edna Peres, a specialist in regenerative design and co-author with Andrea Zamboni of the new book Creating Coromandel: Marco Zanuso in South Africa, explains that Sydney Press often compared the house to a small Italian town with shaded narrow streets leading off a public piazza.

The Coromandel farmhouse’s indoor piazza, its central communal hub, included an entertainment space, solarium, kitchen, dining room and lounge with views over the rolling landscape. Along the ‘streets’ were two children’s wings (the Presses had seven children), the main bedroom suite and a service wing. 

It was crucial for the couple that the house be at one with the veld, so sensitive landscaping was crucial. After Porcinai’s departure from the project, they turned to a young South African landscape architect, Patrick Watson, who collected and propagated local plants, and created a remarkable roof garden and planted local sand figs, now rooted to dramatic effect in the stonework. (Watson introduced the couple to Roberto Burle Marx, who came up with designs for a garden. The Brazilian’s proposals, though, proved too conceptual, formal and insensitive to local flora and fauna for their liking). 

Sydney Press’ years of stewardship on the estate ended with his death in 1997 and its sale in 2002. The hardly used house now resembles a hidden Star Wars temple or hunkering rebel HQ, complete with strange flying buttresses that serve no obvious structural purpose.

Now owned by the Coromandel Farmworkers Trust, the estate has struggled without Press’ considerable financial and strategic backing. It is, though, a major draw for nature lovers as well as architectural pilgrims. The 14,000-acre estate boasts mountains, spectacular waterfalls and a nature reserve, and offers opportunities for  trout fishing, hiking and mountain biking. Suzanne Press, Sydney and Victoria’s daughter and an art conservator based in London, is now set on amping up that appeal to tourists and bringing new life to the architectural treasure that is Coromandel House and allowing more guests to enjoy an updated version of its original ‘getaway’ intention. 

The future of Coromandel farmhouse

Knowing of her interest and research into  Coromandel, Suzanne Press contacted Edna Peres for advice on the restoration project and together they contacted Andrea Zamboni of Zamboni Associati Architettura. In discussions with investors and operators, a captivating architectural vision became essential. Edna suggested contacting local architectural firms who had helped with research for Creating Coromandel.  A collaborative team was formed including Frankie Pappas, Mayat Hart and Thomashoff+Partner. 

Ant Vervoort, one of the founding members of the Johannesburg-based architecture and design collective Frankie Pappas, is one of the building's admirers. The practice's Big Arch house, in its long, slim plan, material choices and mission to become part of the landscape (see the studio's entry in the Wallpaper* Architects Directory 2020), owes a clear and acknowledged debt to Zanuso's design. 

Recalls Vervoort, 'Edna got in touch with me and said, “I’ve seen House of the Big Arch, you must know Coromandel. What's the story?” (Vervoort’s relationship with the Coromandel farmhouse pre-dates, or perhaps helped spark, his interest in architecture. His father, a ‘pig consultant’ as Vervoort junior puts it, took his young son along on reconnaissance trips to the estate.)

The architectural team have adopted a minimum change for maximum yield approach – a 'heritage’ strategy in which Thomashoff and Mayat Hart specialise – to safeguard the architectural gem. (Any building over 60 years old gets a heritage classification and some measure of protection in South Africa. The Coromandel house doesn’t yet qualify but Press is determined that it will survive long enough to earn that status.)

The team have set on sensitively reimagining the house’s four wings into six independent suites with access through the courtyards. They are also planning to add a new external staircase (proposed by Zanuso but never built) leading to private roof terraces. They are also set on making the house fully off-grid, with on-site solar panels and water re-use. 

The building is in remarkably good condition and the plan is to leave the fundamentals of the house and its landscaping largely untouched. ‘We want to keep the bones and reduce the intervention,’ Vervoort says. 'It’s really about reducing energy requirements and getting the spaces to work and feel comfortable so they can be used for the next 50 or 60 years.’ 

frankiepappas.com

mayathart.com

thomashoffstudio.co.za

Creating Coromandel: Marco Zanuso in South Africa, by Edna Peres and Andrea Zamboni, £24.95, Artifice 

South African architect Sumayya Vally was propelled to global prominence for designing the 2020 Serpentine Pavilion in London, UK. Due to the pandemic, the structure was not inaugurated till the summer of 2021, but this did not slow down the dynamic studio founder and director of architecture practice Counterspace.

Vally’s knack for blending research and practice, and infusing her work with her passion for her home country (she grew up in a township in Pretoria called Laudium), community and fine art, has guided several of her projects. However, her work expands far beyond the African country's borders.

Working between Johannesburg and London, she is intent on uncovering layers of architecture that have been neglected by the field. ‘My work is focused on how architecture can be social and public and inclusive and diverse, but it’s from the perspective of a deep social project. There is this layer about history, future and archive that is left out [of mainstream architecture] at the moment,’ the architect told us when interviewed for our article ahead of the Serpentine Pavilion opening in Wallpaper's May 2021 edition (and Vally's first-ever profile). Since then, she's been hard at work designing and curating. She has been appointed to direct the first Islamic Arts Biennale in Saudi Arabia (launching in 2023), while her recent work includes a pavilion for the 2022 Notting Hill Carnival in London that opens today (28 August 2022).

At home with Sumayya Vally 

W*: Where are you at the moment? What can you see?

SV: Number 11, 33rd Lane, Colombo, Sri Lanka – in what was the architect Geoffrey Bawa’s home. To my right is a set of rubbings that Bawa made of the Seema Malaka temple. To my left is a courtyard with a central tree and the sound of crows. Ahead of me is a beautifully blurred weather line – a moment of the outdoors open to the skies inside the house without any glass – that Bawa magically constructed throughout his home.

W*: What’s the last thing you bought? 

SV: A silk pink Valentino bomber jacket, a vintage painted wooden bangle, and Yoko Ono’s Imagine Peace print. 

W*: What’s the last phone call you made? 

SV: I just spoke with [Serpentine Gallery CEO] Bettina Korek. 

W*: The last object you lost? Will you replace it?  

SV: I perpetually lose, replace, and find my AirPods and my heart-shaped sunglasses.

W*: Where and when do you find you are most productive?

SV: After Fajr (dawn) prayers, on long-haul flights, and in quiet moments in new cities (when the rest of the world feels at bay).

W*: Favourite place, anywhere in the world? And why? 

SV: At home, which is now in many places – Laudium, Johannesburg, London, on the radio – wherever my parents and grandmother may be, where I can taste and smell ‘home’ in recipes and where I can hear it in the soundscapes surrounding me. 

W*: Ten years from now you’ll be…

SV: 42

W*: What are you reading, and what do you think of it? 

SV: Santu Mofokeng's Stories 1: Train Church. To quote Mofokeng: ‘These pictures capture two of the most significant features of South African life, the experience of commuting (migrancy) and the pervasiveness of spirituality.' Reincarnating Marechera: Notes on a Speculative Archive by Tinashe Mushakavanhu, as honouring the dead is about correcting the record – this is a truly fascinating account of one of Zimbabwe’s most complex literary figures. I Write What I Like by Steve Biko; I have revisited this book often over the years. And The Archipelago Conversations by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Édouard Glissant. 

W*: Currently watching?

SV: William Kentridge’s Norton Lecture series. 

W*: What’s inspiring you right now?

SV: At this very moment, the thunderstorm at present in Colombo – in the weather and in the political revolution.

W*: How do you switch off? Do you switch off?

SV: Rest and silence are very important work.

W*: Favourite material to work with and why?

SV: Earth. Done sensitively, to build with the earth of a place is to hold and embody its history and to honour its present and future.

W*: What one piece of advice would you give for the next generation?

W*: What one piece of advice would you give for the next generation?

W*: What’s been your biggest failure and what did it teach you?

SV: I trust exceptionally easily, and I believe the best in things, even when they are not there. 

W*: Who is your dream collaborator?

SV: It is and always will be, Johannesburg.

W*: If you weren’t an architect, what would you have been?

SV: An archaeologist, a storyteller.

Meet more leading architects, designers, artists and other creatives in their field in our At Home With interview series

INFORMATION

counterspace-studio.com

The ‘dreamscapes’ of South African artist Lungiswa Gqunta take over three rooms of the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, for her UK solo exhibition ‘Sleep in Witness’, and incite conversations about knowledge systems, spirituality and collective experiences in a society impacted by colonial legacies. Gqunta appears enlightened by dreams, she records them as a spiritual practice and connects with them to envision her work (the team around her were left to trust the artist's instinct while she created the exhibition’s landscapes, following her intuition to mould a clay floor and hang tangled ‘waves’ from the ceiling).

It is through dreams, and conversations with mothers in her family and with friends, that the artist gains an understanding of her experiences as a Black woman, establishing a platform for a form of knowledge that isn’t commonly accepted in western academia. Curator Laurence Sillars explains that ‘systems of apartheid have discredited so many different ways of knowing and of passing on knowledge’. Gqunta ‘brings personal identities and journeys back to the fore; this exhibition presents other ways of knowing and gathering information.’

Zinodaka, 2022, fills the first room of the exhibition; a layer of dried clay covers the entirety of the floor, manipulated by Gqunta’s bare feet, to create ridges and hills that form a landscape envisioned in her sleep. Aptly named ‘water rocks’ are sprinkled across the scene – hollow and crystal blue. They were moulded by the pressing of rocks into their blown-glass surface, leaving behind an imprint of the natural environment.

The clay floor has cracked on drying, and walking around the space makes the crevices bigger. Each step or shift of weight produces a crunch, reminding us of our unexpected impact. There is much to intrigue in Gqunta’s work and its engagement with our senses widens the potential audience. It’s easy to imagine the room filled with children, delighting in the crunching under their feet and staring into misshapen spheres of ‘water’. 

Zinodaka gives a sense of contributing to the breaking of something, which is simultaneously blatant in the landscape of lingering colonialism in South Africa, and subtle sitting in an art gallery in Leeds.

Gqunta says that she ‘likes the idea of a collision of two different parts, whether it's peacefully or violently’. The layered experience of dreams is a fundamental concept to bring to ‘Sleep in Witness’ to understand its construction. Gqunta wanted the show to feel like moving through different dreams; it jumps from the cracked, water-dotted landscape of Zinodaka into the tangle of two crashing waves in Ntabamanzi, 2022.

Harnessing a technique used previously in Tending to the Harvest of Dreams, 2021, Gqunta and her team spent seven months wrapping barbed wire in strips of blue fabric and allowed the wire to retain its curled structure. The tangles start on the floor at opposite sides of the room and rise up, meeting in the middle and leaving an arch to walk under.

The room triggers images of parting seas and crashing waves, small spikes of wire stick out from under the blue wrapping, again, ensuring we take note of our bodies – this time as a result of the potential danger surrounding us. Metal coins are tangled in the waves – a detail alluding to the hope and wisdom of the ocean.

Room three contains a 15-minute video, which Gqunta describes as ‘a place of rest’. The original name for the work – now called Gathering, 2019 – was Riotous Assembly, referring to the Riotous Assemblies act established in South Africa in 1956 that made it illegal for a certain number of Black people to gather in one place. ‘I thought [that coming together] was really beautiful because it's the communal spaces in which a lot of rejuvenation and a lot of refusal, and denying oppressive systems happen,’ says Gqunta. 

The black and white video is projected onto a brown wall, echoing the brown of the clay floor in Zinodaka, 2022, and shows Gqunta and a friend, singing ‘yakhal’inkomo’ (the cry of the bull in Nguni languages, which historically refers to the unspeakable pain of domination for Black people in South Africa under aparthied), ritualistically, comfortingly, while folding sheets. It seems to acknowledge and reframe an historical and deeply rooted struggle felt by Black people living under oppressive systems. 

They spend the 15 minutes pausing for breaks and coming together, sheets appearing to flow in a continuation of the show’s water theme. One major thing, says Sillars, is that ‘this piece stands back-to-back with the photograph of Gqunta’s family on the outside of the building’. It brings a continuity to the structure of the show and, falling perfectly in thematic line with the disordered and associative nature of dreams, gives us one last detail of thought: where there are dreams, there are ongoing stories and a continuous collision of worlds

INFORMATION
’Sleep in Witness’ is on until 30 October 2022
henry-moore.org

When Thabisa Mjo released her ‘Tutu’ lights in 2015, there was something effervescent about the design. The shape – inspired by a Xibelani skirt worn by Xitsonga women of South Africa – was as magnificent as an haute couture dress. 

More than just a home product, the ‘Tutu’ light became a piece of art; it was acquired by the Musée Des Arts Décoratifs in Paris as well as being voted the Most Beautiful Object in South Africa by a public vote at Design Indaba in 2018.

‘Brazzo’ brass lighting

Mjo’s latest product collection, titled ‘Brazzo’ and launched by her design studio Mash.T, comprises six brass lighting designs. ‘My inspiration has always been about my lived experiences of culture and heritage,’ says the designer. ‘So this year, I told myself I wanted to create shapes using brass, because I think of brass as elegant [but] antique. I wanted to make something [considered] old into [something] contemporary that could be relevant, young, funky, cool and still have a refined elegance.’

Mjo took inspiration from the concept of Lego building blocks, how they could appear independently but when manipulated, could make up an interesting shape. So she sat in her factory thinking of shapes and the possibilities of using existing shapes to invent a new shape. The ‘Brazzo’ collection consists of five pendant lamps and a table lamp. The designer’s particular favourites are the ‘Mesh’ table lamp and the ‘Mon’ pendant, because each has a black mesh steel component, which makes them more edgy, cooler. 

‘Initially we tried using perforated brass, but every time we tried to manipulate it to take that beautiful round form, it kept breaking,’ says Mjo. ‘So the mesh steel was used out of necessity. And it just happened to work even better than the perforated brass would have.’

Thabisa Mjo and Mash.T

Since her early success, Mjo has established herself as one of South Africa’s leading designers. She graduated from the South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance, where she majored in production design. She pursued a career in the film industry, until it occurred to her that she wanted to create something spectacular for the real world. ‘I wanted to create spaces that people in the real world could interact with, because creating spaces for TV and adverts was a very short-term thing; we would shoot the movie and TV shows and it would just be over, while people in the real world didn’t interact with these spaces. I wanted to make things that could live with people or things people can live in,’ she recalls. She didn’t just want to create, she also wanted to tell stories – and design was the only way to do so.

Mjo founded Mash.T in 2013, immediately after graduating from Inscape design college in Cape Town, where she studied interior design and architectural drawing. She spent the better part of the first two years trying to discover what she did best, who her audience was, and what service she’d provide them with, until late 2015, when she transitioned into product designing.

Traditional craft, contemporary designs

At Mash.T, African arts tools are employed to tell contemporary African stories – lamps feature Xhosa motifs, side tables are handwoven with ilala palms, pendant lights are made of beads.  

The brand’s production centres on craftsmanship and collaboration. ‘Creating a new design aesthetic requires collaboration with other designers and crafters that share the same values, which are about taking traditional craft, repackaging it, working with crafters to challenge them to use their age-old techniques that have been passed from generation to generation,’ Mjo tells Wallpaper*.

Collaborators include artisanal brands such as Alfred Ntuli, resulting in the ‘Alfred’ lights; Qaqambile Bead Studio, producing beaded lighting designs; and Beauty Ngxongo, to create the ‘Hlabisa’ bench. Mash.T is also keen to collaborate with artisans outside of South Africa and across the continent. 

A shift in focus

INFORMATION

mashtdesignstudio.com

5 Fin Whale Way is a holiday house, a structure designed to connect its owners with the outdoors as much as possible. The two-storey house is built on a site in the village of Kommetjie, 40km south of Cape Town on the Cape Peninsula. It represents a contemporary interpretation of the Cape cottage vernacular that characterises the region, a South African holiday home style which in turn contained a hefty dose of Victorian seaside architecture with its timber-clad façades and dormer windows. 

A South African holiday home by Salt Architects

The sprawling ground floor covers a substantial proportion of the triangular site, with a wide terrace acting as a buffer zone between house, pool and garden. Inside there is a large open-plan kitchen and living area, set alongside a slightly more formal dining space, a second terrace, as well as a generous utility area and double garage. A bedroom, bathroom and study complete the space.

The upper floor is much smaller, tucked into the pitched roof above the living space. This is home to a spacious principal bedroom suite, complete with a freestanding bath and large dormer windows. 

The terrace is the house’s focal point. A deep verandah provides shelter from the sun and rain, while expansive sliding glass windows allow the sitting room to be completely open to the elements.

The second terrace off the dining room is a slightly more private space with a fire pit and seating area. 

The key design elements are the verandah and terrace, both of which were governed in part by the design guidelines of the neighbourhood, but also by the clients’ desire to live a very outdoor life when they are at the house.

Cantilevered 2.5m away from the building edge, the verandah canopy is supported by a substantial stainless steel plate, and contains angled timber louvres that allow winter sun into the house but shade it during the summer. 

Other important design elements include a contemporary reinterpretation of the dormer window in the pitched-roofed first floor.

The windows contain seats with a north-facing view towards Hout Bay, while the external stainless steel dormer frames contrast with the traditional shutters, which in turn pair with the timber cladding on the exterior. 

Numerous details inside and out showcase how hard the Cape Town-based studio has worked to give the impression of an effortless update of vernacular style. The seamless joints and big spans could only be achieved by concealing structure within the house’s clean lines, and by using skilled craftspeople to shape the façade.

The result is a contemporary building that respects its surroundings while providing just the right balance of public and private spaces in an idyllic coastal spot.

INFORMATION
saltarchitects.co.za

Kamal Ranchod explores ‘phantoms of the past’ as he investigates colonial remnants of Cairo’s modernisation period in his graduate thesis, ‘Hyperreal Perspicuities: Multi-Narrative Reconstructions of Modern Egypt’. Ranchod graduated from the University of Johannesburg Graduate School of Architecture in 2021, with a series of architectural explorations depicting ‘colonial hauntings’ and the subsequent multiple narratives surrounding key events in Egyptian history.

‘I am intrigued by figuring out ways architecture can draw the invisible’, and ‘the way we tell stories and reconstruct memories’, he says.

The thesis uses a series of beautiful, intricate drawings, modelling, projection mapping and immersive video as mediums to critically engage with the past, reworking different representations at the same time. By adopting views that aren't fixed, his method warps perspectives and builds upon new panoramic vistas, allowing for new cartographies to form.

He explains: ‘These changing viewpoints make us question what we thought we knew, by allowing us to approach an embodied experience through multiple viewpoints.’ Through the visual overlapping of events, he can examine ‘ways in which people can collectively fill gaps within the historical archive’.

Growing up in Johannesburg, Ranchod was first inspired by the playful designs of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. ‘His work inspired me to really push what I imagined. Ever since starting my journey I have grown more fascinated with how architecture intersects with so many facets of life while creating and manifesting the nuanced and hidden ephemerality around us,’ he says.

Ranchod is currently working as an architect in Johannesburg. He continues to develop his research in augmented and virtual reality: ‘I find architecture is a powerful tool of dialogue, creation and reflection. I would like to develop further in the field of speculation and history to find new ways of working that can reveal new information and experiences,’ he adds.

Dream collaborators: film industry professionals working with ‘imaginative and speculative approaches’, and architectural research studios, such as Forensic Architecture.

INFORMATION

thekamalio.wixsite.com

Our Next Generation showcase of outstanding new talents appears in the January 2022 issue of Wallpaper* (W*273). Subscribe today!

‘When I design, I do it from a personal place. But in terms of describing what I do, I would probably settle with “artist”, because it has fewer limitations and I enjoy working in multiple disciplines,’ says South African designer Rich Mnisi. Best known for the eponymous fashion brand he founded in 2015, as well as his photography practice and social advocacy platform Thoughts, Mnisi has since expanded his work to furniture design. A series of much-lauded pieces, shown as part of group exhibitions at Cape Town’s Southern Guild gallery, have culminated in a highly anticipated solo show, ‘Nyoka’ (until 4 February 2022).

Rich Mnisi's furniture design

For Mnisi, designing furniture was a natural progression from fashion. ‘When I create a fashion collection, if I had 15 runway looks, the 16th had to be an object or something that would describe the collection,’ he says. ‘Sometimes it was a starting point in design or the end point.’ This bookending lent itself to expanding theses, especially when he felt the realm of apparel proved limiting.

Nyoka means ‘snake’ in Mnisi’s native language of Xitsonga, and Mnisi presents the show as a discourse on duality, and how fear and revulsion can birth beauty and augment community. ‘My mother told me she had a nightmare and there was a snake and it was beautiful, but she was frightened of it,’ he recalls. ‘My whole family is frightened of snakes, so it became something that I wanted to investigate.’ The personal expanded into the political and cultural when Mnisi remembered the story of Bumba, a Congolese deity who, in the traditional creation myth, birthed the universe and all its contents through vomiting violently.

‘How humanity came about has been explored from very few perspectives,’ says Mnisi. ‘It’s often from a Christian point of view, where there is this idea of God, or from science, where it started from the Big Bang. And then I think about Bumba and this crazy loneliness, living in the universe alone and then vomiting everything that we now know. It was so beautiful because he then fathered it, and there was a weird transition from being in so much pain and so uncomfortable to having something that was so beautiful that he takes care of it.’

Mnisi translated these ideas into a collection that included seating, lighting, a console, a rug and objects. In using varied materials, including bronze, wool, beads and leather, selecting co-creators from a range of disciplines, and blending traditional craft with modernity, he has created a contemporary fable of what African design is today: ‘The whole show was a very collaborative effort. A lot of the materials were selected through exploration and just having conversations.

So, for one piece, we have this beaded console and the beads were done by this local NGO, MonkeyBiz, and the ladies at Coral & Hive made the rug out of wool and mohair.’ Incorporating craft, sourcing materials locally and engendering crosscultural exchange are hallmarks of how Mnisi works across creative practices.

But, with ‘Nyoka’, the larger scale brought new opportunities, ones which were not guided by immediate commercial concerns: of the rug, he says, ‘It’s this humongous rug, and there are so many textures and so much movement to it, but I didn’t place it in a home when designing as that would limit how far I took it, because I would think of the user’s convenience.’ Staying true to the vision was imperative: ‘It was about creating things that left my body naturally.’

Given Mnisi’s design approach, Southern Guild proved a natural home for his work. Since opening in 2008, the gallery’s founders, Trevyn and Julian McGowan, have positioned it as a hub for the reimagining of African design, and have developed partnerships and projects that support this mandate. ‘There was a certain level of consultation,’ Mnisi observes. ‘They want to get into my world as opposed to having me fit into whatever the industry says. There was this calmness, the idea of refining a piece to its capacity, all of those things are what drew me to working with them in the beginning and continuing with them.’

Mnisi used his initial forays into object design to explore notions of furniture, adding: ‘I had to shift my brain from thinking of furniture as this one thing that can only look a certain way. I thought of designing for the human body; either for it or creating the human body. And that is where a lot of the shapes in the beginning came from – they came from human structures and how the body moves and how it embraces you.’

His initial pieces were inspired by his late great-grandmother. ‘The idea of the ‘Nwa- Mulamula’ chaise came from how I didn’t meet her and there are no photographs of her. It came from pain and then I almost had to translate that and see the light in it. There’s the duality again, because the truth is that, after my mother and my aunt leave this planet, no one else will speak about her, and that idea didn’t sit well with me.’ Tackling ideas of erasure from a domestic perspective invites the viewer to consider all those whose contributions aren’t documented or remembered, but whose presence remains felt. To convey this via a piece of furniture that can act as a place for contemplation is novel and compelling.

Mnisi is representative of a number of creatives who refuse to be pigeonholed. He doesn’t reference any individuals specifically as direct inspiration, but he acknowledges an affinity with Rick Owens because they’re both fashion designers that cross over into furniture, and the furniture looks like the clothes and vice versa. Perhaps what makes Mnisi distinctive is his fluid approach to creating companion collections across disciplines and segueing influences from across the African continent. Of the nascent African design scene, he says, ‘It’s exciting because people are telling personal stories, and the references are things we all relate to.’

Self-recognition and actualisation are the foundation for empowerment, and Mnisi is creating furniture for the home and pieces for the body that invite individuals and communities on a journey of aesthetic self-expression, beautification and renewal.

INFORMATION

‘Nyoka’ is on show until 4 February 2022 at Southern Guild, Cape Town
southernguild.co.za
richmnisi.com

Notebooks can serve many purposes: to plan, document, inspire new concepts, and archive those rejected; to reveal the inner workings of our best ideas, and conceal those we hope will never see the light of day.

Over the last 15 years, the non-profit Moleskine Foundation has amassed a collection of more than 1,300 ‘art notebooks’, created by artists, designers, architects, musicians, filmmakers, illustrators, intellectuals and philosophers. Each contributor has transformed a Moleskine notebook into their own conceptual canvas, brimming with thoughts, sketches, images. 

The cover of William Kentridge's I am still a parable, which has been donated to the Moleskine Foundation Collection

The resulting objects form artworks in themselves, but more broadly, create tools for education and social change. Among those who have offered their creations to the collection are Massimiliano Fuksas, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Ahmet Öğüt, Yves Behar, Sue Williamson, Patricia Urquiola, Fernando and Humberto Campana, Sigur Rós, Nicholas Hlobo, and a striking three-dimensional intervention by Joana Vasconcelos. 

The latest addition to Moleskine’s impressive list of contributors is South African artist William Kentridge. Moleskine’s invitation to Kentridge came with a question: ‘What comes first?’ Kentridge answered with I am still a parable, which according to the artist is ‘a book of thinking aloud, testing the relationship of images and text. It is a record of process, rather than having any intended meaning. It gathers scraps of images and text from the studio, and as in many of my notebooks, is a mix of unused space and thoughts accepted and abandoned.’

Kentridge's contribution is characterisitic of his wide-ranging practice – which spans prints, drawing, animated film and performance. I am still a parable features pages filled with drawing, text-based concepts and photographic work, to form a continuous visual allegory. 

Kentridge’s donation to the collection is undoubtedly thought-provoking but takes on a role far beyond an art object. It’s a starting point for Moleskine’s unconventional education programme to inspire young creatives from marginalised communities. AtWork aims to unlock the creative potential of young people through critical thinking, nurturing their sense of self-awareness and self-confidence. 

During a five-day workshop, AtWork participants are given a question, centring on issues such as identity, diversity, culture, and community. Their response is generated in the form of a personalised art notebook. These are first exhibited in a local collective exhibition and then in the final international tour exhibition. The participants can then choose to donate their works to the Moleskine Foundation Collection alongside those created by leading creatives.

INFORMATION

moleskinefoundation.org

Since 2017, Cape Town-born, London-based photographer Alice Mann has been documenting the distinctive subculture surrounding all-female teams of drum majorettes in South Africa, known as ‘drummies’. This is a sport that palpably empowers those involved, in a society where women must confront myriad obstacles. 

Via Kickstarter, Mann (who is also a Wallpaper* photographer) is now seeking support to compile this long-term project into a photobook – a compelling and intimate visual documentation of confidence, commitment and determination, and a stand against societal friction in South Africa. 

Mann shot the entire series on medium format film camera, which was not without its challenges. ‘The work to scan, retouch and organise everything was quite a task. I think at the end I had around 600 rolls of film,’ she says. ‘The administrative side of putting a body of work together is probably as important as the images, and it is a part of the process I place a lot of value on, but it is also not as enjoyable as making the images. I prefer the part where I can work and collaborate with people!’ 

The hardback book, designed by Stu Smith will feature a cloth-bound cover with foil blocking and will be published by Gost Books. Accompanying the images will be an essay by art historian, curator and writer Christine Eyene, whose research and curatorial practice focus on contemporary African and Diaspora arts, feminism and photography. 

Mann’s Drummies series of photographs previously scooped the Grand Prix du Jury and the Wallpaper* New Generation Prize at the 2019 Hyères International Festival of Fashion and Photography, the LensCulture Emerging Talent Award, and the National Portrait Gallery’s Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. But for Mann, being involved in Drummies was an accolade in itself. ‘Throughout the time I worked on this series, it was very important to me that the images were able to translate the confidence and pride of the young women involved in the teams, as well as their natural charisma and energy!’

INFORMATION

Drummies, a photobook, is available to pre-order via Kickstarter, and is scheduled to be printed in autumn 2021, kickstarter.com

Who: Local Studio

‘Local Studio is a quintessentially Joburg outfit: fast-paced, entrepreneurial and imperfect,' says its founder, Thomas Chapman. He set up his South African architecture practice in 2012 and now runs it together with three co-directors, Samantha Trask, Daniel Trollip and Shawn Constant, and two non-executive directors, Khensani de Klerk and Njabulo Phekani. The small outfit – just 12 people strong – is prolific, having built 40-something projects in the past nine years, and shows no sign of slowing down. 

An experimental approach that allows it to tackle a variety of scales and materials highlights the practice's fearless nature; this team has designed anything from community centres to schools, youth hostels and homes. Rather than going for a specific form-led approach, Local Studio's values are rooted in its need to transform physical and social context, drawn to the power of collaboration and interaction – as opposed to projects that feel cut off from their community. 

‘We are driven by two core ideas. The first is that design should be a reactive rather than a prescriptive process. By approaching form-making, materiality and tectonics in this way, design becomes a process of co-production, with unlikely collaborators. We believe that buildings conceived in this spirit can become rich archives of a time and place,' says Chapman. ‘Another idea we are driven by is the promise of “soft-power” in architecture. We are deeply aware of our post-apartheid political context, but are less interested in solutionist, programme-driven responses to the numerous problems faced in a country like South Africa. Instead, we believe in the subtle power of a crafted public interface to transform physical and social context.’

What: Cotswold Cubes

One of three small family houses created within a single plot in a residential suburb of Johannesburg called Saxonwold, Cotswold Cubes is an elegant and fairly minimalist composition of cubic volumes. Arranged across a green site, the project maintains a low profile and a close relationship with the outdoors. A mix of black and red bricks provides scope for experimentation with the architectural skin’s aesthetic – even though it is a feature that emerged unintentionally for cost-saving reasons, the architects explain. 

The project was commissioned by a project manager who has been a regular collaborator of Local Studio in a number of housing projects in the past. ‘This pre-existing relationship with the owner allowed for a rich, collaborative process of design and detailing throughout the project,' Chapman points out. 

The house consists of the main living space, two bedrooms and a home office for the client. All laid out on a single, ground level, the building opens up to its surroundings through large windows; meanwhile, a roof terrace adds extra options for outdoor relaxing and entertaining. It is positioned between two arrays of solar panels; this, combined with an independent water source, makes the house entirely off grid. 

Johannesburg-based designers, such as Hoven, Houtlander, David Krynauw and Wolkberg, contributed to the structure's considered detailing – providing fittings including doors, bathroom tiles and joinery.

Why: Wallpaper* Architects Directory 2021

Conceived in 2000 as our index of emerging architectural talent, the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory is our magazine’s annual listing of promising practices from across the globe. The project has, over the years, spanned styles and continents, while always championing the best and most exciting young studios and showcasing inspiring work with an emphasis on the residential realm. Now including more than 500 alumni and counting, the Architects’ Directory is back for its 21st edition. Join us as we launch this year’s survey – 20 young studios, from Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the USA, and the UK, with plenty of promise, ideas and exciting architecture. 

INFORMATION

localstudio.co.za

Looking at each individual project by Sumayya Vally, it’s hard to pinpoint a ‘signature’ look or subject. There are installations, film and sound pieces, projects around food, community-focused schemes, fine art research, and traditional building works. Yet zoom out and examine her portfolio as a whole and her fascination with the ‘city’ becomes clear. Listening to her talk reveals even more: Vally is ‘obsessed with Joburg’.

Vally grew up in an apartheid-era township in Pretoria called Laudium. She credits the tight-knit community, ‘strong urban atmosphere’, and her experiences of going to a Muslim school from a young age and living in a relatively small space with informing her sense of community and city. Witnessing many people transcending that small-town context, through their work or studies, also played its role.

But it was Johannesburg that shaped Vally’s architectural approach and her passion for urban space. She often spent holidays with her grandfather, who owned a store in the city. Eventually she studied for the second part of her architecture degree there (architecture studies in South Africa include two parts in university, usually split by a break in practice). During this time, she admits to being completely taken by the varied, rich, urban environment of South Africa’s largest city. ‘I was obsessed with the city; reading it, understanding it, drawing it, filming it, absorbing it,’ she recalls. ‘I became really concerned that, after graduating, I would lose what that felt like, and that is how Counterspace was born, as a response, refusing to become jaded.’ Vally set up her practice in Johannesburg in 2015.

Working in the city before completing her studies– practising architecture at an NGO, and conducting research and installation projects for several national museums – proved transformative. ‘I had a lot more exposure to what was actually going on in the city,’ says Vally. ‘Seeing how people find ways to function economically, understanding ritual practices of the city – seeing how belief systems, for example, filter down into how people live. This can birth different or new kinds of architecture that we may not be focusing on in school. This is really rich ground to create architecture.’ And why shouldn’t buildings be created by taking into account different uses and ways of life? This is exactly the point between formal and informal architectural space- and place-making that Vally likes to unpick. ‘My work is focused on how architecture can be social and public and inclusive and diverse, but it’s from the perspective of a deep social project. There is this layer about history, future and archive that is left out [of mainstream architecture] at the moment.’ 

Over the years, Vally explored multiple areas of Johannesburg, choosing different communities to focus on. All of these places influenced her practice, she admits. There is Bree Street, an economic hub for the Ethiopian and Eritrean diaspora, which helped her understand forms of trade in the city; and Ntemi Piliso Street, home to her grandfather’s store, where she spent much of her childhood and first encountered Basotho textiles, and their ‘language’ and meanings.

Using this kind of ‘urban reading’, zooming in and out of cultural hotspots of activity, Vally followed her instinct and picked work that allowed her to develop her interests – a lot of it in the realm of research. In 2018, she worked with Yale University’s Denise Lim on the archive of artist Mikhael Subotzky (who shot the portraits on these pages) – in particular, his collection of trash from Ponte City. Created in 1976, the 54-storey cylindrical building (W*80) became iconic in Johannesburg, starting off as a desirable place for European expats, but later designated a ‘grey zone’ (an apartheid-era term for areas where people of colour could live). It changed character completely during the last decades of the 20th century, due to population shifts and the political situation in the country, becoming home to people from all over the world. Subotzky and artist Patrick Waterhouse collected the rubbish left behind when developers bought the building in 2008 and started to clean it out; the pair’s project is now part of the collection at SFMOMA.

Johannesburg’s infamous mine dumps (great mounds of waste on the sites of disused mines) in Booysens, Soweto, East Rand and West Rand also attracted Vally’s attention. Her research on the dumps and surrounding issues – socio-economic systems, belief systems, toxicity, racism, climate change – and how they affect the formation of cities, became a display at the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial in 2015. ‘It is a reminder of how segregated our city is,’ she says. Later, a pigment research part of the project became the Folded Skies mirror installation for the Spier Light Art festival in Stellenbosch in 2018.

‘I worked on researching how to recycle the mine dust and pigments from run-off to tint mirrors to reflect the colours of Johannesburg skies at different times in the day,’ says Vally. ‘There is a myth in Joburg that our skies and our sunsets are iridescent because of all the toxic dust.’

The city’s Yeoville Market, Fordsburg and Little Mogadishu in Mayfair, home to South Asian and Muslim immigrants, have a particular significance in Vally’s Pan African Plates, an ongoing project looking at how different communities gather around food. North-east of Pretoria in Mapoch, a village that maintains the traditions of the Ndebele people, she learned about the culture’s shapes and their meanings, for Ndebele Geometries. The project, a mobile installation to help children learn about mathematics through the distinct shapes found in the painted façades of Ndebele homes, is currently in development.

Digging a little deeper into Vally’s projects, it becomes clear that there are strong, common threads running through all of them – the notion of archive; ideas of coexistence and mixing of cultures, segregation and common ground; and how our background, be it cultural or political, can affect the way we live and structure our urban environment. These are themes that tie strongly into Johannesburg life as Vally experiences it, but also life in South Africa as a whole. ‘The nature of growing up in South Africa certainly informed my practice,’ she says. ‘On the home scale, the community scale, the urban scale, in the way I think about segregation.’ They are also themes that feel universal and can apply to anywhere migration has taken place – which is, on some level, most places.

This layering of design, history, culture and archival research in the creation of architectural output that speaks to its place and users has become a speciality for Counterspace. In 2019, Vally was invited to apply her perspective to the annual Serpentine Pavilion in London. Counterspace is the youngest studio to be awarded the commission; the pavilion will be the first built work of its kind by the fast-emerging practice. Delayed by the pandemic, it will be unveiled this year.

While Vally’s proposal includes the traditional physical structure (in this case to be made of cork and bricks from recycled construction waste), the project has grown branches that reach far beyond the pavilion’s usual remit at Kensington Gardens. ‘I didn’t want it to be an aesthetic manifestation, but I felt that it needed to be a representation of my ethos as a practice,’ she says. ‘I wanted to bring other voices into the pavilion.’ Rather than working on the physical structure first, Vally approached the concept from the opposite direction. ‘The intent to read, and draw in other places and neighbourhoods came first, and then I went into the form-making of the pavilion,’ she explains.

She researched migrant communities in London and photographed a series of spaces, especially gathering places, that represent, or used to represent, various migration waves and groups. ‘Some of the places existed but have now been erased,’ she says, flagging up as examples areas in Brixton, Hackney, Edgware Road and North Kensington. Her research includes anything from event posters to music records. Spaces of cultural production that, she feels, were not widely recognised at the level they deserved, play a prominent role. Case studies include one of the first venues to play Black music in the UK, the Four Aces Club in Dalston; the Centerprise publishing house that was a centre for the West Indian community; the Theatre of Black Women (Britain’s first Black women’s theatre company, operating during the 1980s); the iconic Mangrove Caribbean restaurant in Notting Hill; the first mosque in London; and informal venues, such as the sites of festivals and sidewalk events.

Vally treated the pavilion as a place to bring these forms of gathering and cultural manifestation together and into Hyde Park in an abstracted form. It is a design planned to encourage both one-on-one and larger encounters, both organised (through a programme of events) and casual – all this, of course, planned before the pandemic hit. ‘Now there are different kinds of opportunities to engage with, and we are developing projects that will have a life of their own, beyond the pavilion,’ she says. Counterspace’s Serpentine Pavilion is currently planned to go ahead for a June opening, unless the pandemic throws another unexpected curveball; either way, its intention and spirit are emblematic of Vally’s approach to architecture.

Meanwhile, more built work is underway – a mixeduse building in the Crown Mines area of Johannesburg is due to complete this year. Larger-scale architecture, cultural projects in particular, is something Sumayya Vally is keen to focus on in the future. ‘The slowness of research, the faster pace of installations, and then building too – all these speeds catalyse and inform each other,’ she says. Eventually, it all feeds back to the city, how we read it and how we push it, and the discipline of architecture, forward – in Joburg, and beyond. 

INFORMATION

counterspace-studio.com

When South African Jo Ractliffe emerged as a photographer in the mid-1980s, her native country was in the throes of brutal state suppression of anti-apartheid resistance. While her peers sought to document the immediacy of the violence and uprising, Ractliffe strove to widen the lens, deploying a less direct and more emblematic approach to these momentous events.

Over the following 35 years, she captured the reality and metaphors in South Africa’s national character and history, from scenes in Cape Town’s urban fringes, through the borderlands to ethereal photographs using one-dollar cameras in the port city of Durban. In 2007, she took her camera across the border to Angola to trace the aftermath of civil war. Rendered through an experimental approach to composition, technique and technology, Ractliffe's stories are told through barren landscapes fertile with allegory, roaming animals and fragments of human existence. Ractliffe’s first-ever retrospective, ‘Drives’, at the Art Institute of Chicago takes viewers on a peripatetic road trip spanning 35 years and 100 artworks.

We spoke to the photographer and videographer about the complexities of portrait photography, her influences, and using the landscape not as a subject, but as a medium. 

Wallpaper*: When you began your photography practice in the mid-1980s, many of your contemporaries were capturing scenes of violence relating to state suppression of anti-apartheid resistance. Your work seemed to take a more emblematic perspective on these events. Why? 

Jo Ractliffe: You’re right, South African photography, especially during the late 1970s and 1980s, was very much bound up in the work of the anti-apartheid movement - it was rooted in activism. And while I shared the concerns of fellow artists and photographers and was involved with various community organisations, when it came to my own photographic work, I felt quite complicated about things. Part of this was about a visual sensibility and, I guess, a certain temperament; I just wasn’t suited to a photography that was about advocacy. I wanted my images to expand the frame, to speak beyond the immediacy of the moment, but during a time when the requirements of photography were so clear-cut and unambiguous, such pursuits seemed to go against the grain of photographic possibility. 

I began experimenting with photomontage (Nadir series 1986-88), taking my cue from John Heartfield’s War and Corpses (1932). It was quite liberating: I could reconfigure my photographs, assembling various elements from different pictures to create an image that retained something of photographic veracity but that could also speak metaphorically to what felt like an apocalyptic time in South Africa. 

W* Direct portraiture does play a role in your work, but much focuses on the traces of human existence: objects, structures, clothing and land. Why do you approach human experience and presence in this way? 

JR: I’ve always experienced real discomfort when photographing people; I’m much more at ease taking long drives, working alone out in the landscape. Also in those early days, I wasn’t sure what I wanted from the portrait, which is a big problem: you have to know why you’re taking someone’s picture, what you’re doing with it. I remember photographing in Crossroads one day in 1986; this was during the State of Emergency and police and the military were patrolling the township and bulldozers were razing people’s shacks to the ground. I watched fellow photographers at work in the midst of all the craziness while I hung back and photographed the devastation left in its wake. Recently, I looked at my negative files from that day and saw that the one or two pictures I took of people have me standing behind them with the event off camera. What’s most apparent is my awkwardness; I recalled how intrusive it felt to photograph someone in the face of that kind of destruction. But photographing people remains a tricky issue for me personally; it’s not a principled thing, but I have a question about the nature of the exchange and who the work serves. 

This changed somewhat when I was working on The Borderlands (2011-2013), photographing places in South Africa where people who had been dispossessed of their lands during apartheid and had lodged successful restitution claims, were finally returning home. I realised that not photographing people in these places would be akin to evicting them from their homes all over again. That changed things for me.

W*: What considerations do you make when preparing for a series of work? How much is planned, and how much is left to chance encounters? 

JR: It depends on the project, but generally my work begins without too much preconception. I like to work with indeterminacy; photographing intuitively, responsively, open to the play between contingency and intention. Sometimes I’ll photograph something without specific intent, which in turn might spark a question, or I’ll remember a fragment of text or a line from a poem and so something begins. For example, the exhibition ‘End of Time’ (1999) came about when I was making an inventory of the main national road that runs from Cape Town up to the Zimbabwe border - a kind of tribute to John Baldessari’s The Backs of All the Trucks Passed While Driving from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, Calif., Sunday 20 Jan. 63 (1963). However, on the return journey, I came across three dead donkeys lying alongside the edge of the road. They had been shot. That changed everything: what began as a simple experiment ended up being a complex work about violence and place and belonging. 

W*: Why are you drawn to black and white, both aesthetically and as a vehicle to transport narratives?

JR: I started with black and white, processing and printing my work; it’s the way most photographers of my generation began. On a practical level, it was much cheaper than colour and we could take control of the whole process from developing film to printing the photograph, which you couldn’t with colour. But also - and as much as black and white is effectively an abstraction - it has a particular association with the realism of social documentary, which was the dominant practice in South Africa during the 1980s. 

I have worked with colour on and off over the years, and from 2000 - 2005 I worked almost exclusively in colour for several bodies of work: Port of Entry (2000-2001), Johannesburg Inner City Works (2000-2004) and Real Life (2002-2004).

In 2006, I went back to working with black and white. I’d been wanting to break away from what had become something of a signature mode: plastic cameras, dissembled subject matter, ‘filmstrip’-like sequences. And especially when I started working in Angola, it felt very important to engage with photographic seeing more deliberately and carefully. I also wanted to get back into the darkroom, to the craft of making my prints. So you could say I’ve come full circle. 

W* Throughout your career, who have been your biggest influences, in photography and elsewhere? 

JR: When I first started photographing, my access to other photographers’ work was pretty limited - South Africa was quite isolated during that time and photographic books were difficult to come by. But I do remember acquiring a book called World Photography, which introduced me to great photographers like Robert Frank, Joseph Koudelka and Manuel Álvarez Bravo, to name a few. Other early influences were Chris Killip and Richard Misrach. What I saw in their work was that photography could be political and poetic and expressive all at the same time. And in Alvarez Bravo’s work particularly, things seem more than they appear to be as if he had parted the veil between the appearances of this world and what lies behind it. I love that about his work and it’s something I strive for in my images. 

But I am probably more influenced by writers and poets, even songwriters - too many to list here. So much of my thinking and seeing connects with what I read. It might have something to do with the shift in medium; words activate my imagination differently from images and in almost all my work, I can see where someone’s writing has entered in.

W*: Your retrospective ‘Drives’ at the Art Institute of Chicago spans 35 years of your practice. Looking back, do you think your priorities or approach to image making have changed since the beginning of your career?

JR: I think my core interests and motivations - what’s at the heart of photography for me - have remained pretty much unchanged. But I think what drives us creatively often comes from stuff that’s laid down quite early on; things that shape our view or understanding of the world - at least that’s how it is for me. And as much as I may understand the world somewhat differently now from when I was in my twenties, I don’t think the world itself has changed that much. So the questions I have around violence, dispossession and loss remain at the forefront of my work. As has the landscape, which in many ways is less a ‘subject’ than it is the medium through which I can explore these issues of conflict, loss and memory.

What has changed recently is how I work with images. This is largely the consequence of a spinal injury I sustained in 2015, which has forced a different way of working from the extended photo-essay, which required a certain narrative coherence - and of course, lengthy periods of travel. Recently I’ve been going back into my negative files, exploring what happens when a selection of seemingly disparate images comes together. It’s exciting to see that photographs do have their own force; they push back at us, and if we pay attention, we can enter into different relations with them.

INFORMATION

Jo Ractliffe, ’Drives’, until April 26, 2021, the Art Institute of Chicago

artic.edu

ADDRESS

The Art Institute of Chicago
111 S Michigan Ave
Chicago, IL 60603

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How best to sensitively and spectacularly introduce a newly constructed home to a wild South African forest? For Johannesburg-based outfit Frankie Pappas the solution was as follows... 

Design House of the Big Arch with a frontage like a vertiginous tree trunk and organise the project as one long, thin (just 330cm wide) building so as not to interfere with any existing sylvan activity. Employ weathered-looking, bark-toned, rough stock brick, which will both reference and complement the sandstone of the Waterberg Mountains in the surrounding bushveld nature reserve. Then add a raised living space reaching high up into the tree canopy and plant its roof with endemic grasses, succulents and shrubs.

Most importantly, make sure that
not a single tree has to be demolished during the process. Has the Frankie Pappas team just invented a new architectural style called ‘Arboreal'?

MORE FROM WALLPAPER* ARCHITECTS DIRECTORY 2020

Maverick, experimental and ecologically responsible, Frankie Pappas is self-styled not as a conventional architectural practice but a freeform group, ‘fictional persona' and ‘collective pseudonym' that encourages coders, engineers, mathematicians, artists and managers to work with draughtsmen. Its mission? ‘Pave the way with yellow bricks and break out the pixie dust' to make remarkable spaces and places that ‘people write songs about'. 

Since it began work back in 2012 competed works have included a similarly camouflaged and petrified House of the Tall Chimneys and the more urban, House of the Yellow Wall apartment in a converted, 1950s Cape Town police barracks but the company’s House of the Big Arch is the Frankie Pappas aesthetic at its most imaginative, deferential and disciplined.  

‘It is a home that disappears into the landscape;
that sits amongst the rocks and trees and birds; that offers animals and plants and humans equal opportunity to find shelter, that treats the bushveld with its deserved respect,' say the designers. ‘We cannot ever divide architecture, landscape and gardening. They are one.' 

INFORMATION

frankiepappas.com

The statistical way in which livelihoods in faraway places are dispatched in daily pandemic updates would suggest that South Africa, which has registered roughly 230 deaths and 12,500 infections at time of publication, has been spared the worst. True, quick action by the national government has saved lives. But the current lockdown, one of the world’s strictest, has severely impacted the country’s creative community. The 1 May easing of a five-week ban on movement has not brought relief to designers and artists, who remain barred from accessing studios away from home.

The rapidity of the 26 March lockdown blindsided many, including Cape Town ceramicist Zizipho Poswa. ‘I didn’t get a chance to set up a studio at home,’ says Poswa, who in 2006 founded Imiso Ceramics with Andile Dyalvane. The pair recently took occupation of a new studio located a short distance from their retail store in boho Woodstock. With both spaces currently shuttered until the lockdown lifts, Poswa has been exploring the feasibility of e-commerce and online workshops, as well as continued doodling on her phone (a preferred way of sketching). She is not panicked.

‘I needed this, I’ve had not had a break in two years,’ says Poswa, a former hair model whose vessels channel her interest in female adornment and labour. This year, in between her daily duties at Imiso, Poswa showed three new pieces from her Umthwalo series, inspired by the labours of rural women, at Southern Guild gallery in Cape Town, and was the central pillar of a March group show in nearby Stellenbosch.

Lockdown has pushed back a planned June residency at the Center for Contemporary Ceramics at California State University, Long Beach, where she would have worked on her largest pieces to date. ‘I’m limited by the size of our kiln,’ says Poswa, whose work will appear in a forthcoming exhibition of ceramics at SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch. With galleries and museums shuttered for the foreseeable future, the virtual opening is scheduled for 23 May. The artist list includes Ben Orkin, an exciting new talent recently signed to Cape Town’s Whatiftheworld Gallery, and Belinda Blignaut, whose experimental practice in the 1990s informs her current work with clay.

Over the last decade, Blignaut has produced vessels made with clay foraged from farms in the Cape region. Often roughly textured and eccentric in form, each of her vessels is an archive of place. ‘I am absolutely in awe of how the earth was formed,’ says Blignaut. During lockdown she has resorted to digging for clay on her property, which is adjacent a forest in Somerset West, outside Cape Town. ‘That has been my sanity,’ she says. ‘It is so peaceful.’ Blignaut is also working towards a European survey of her singular and underappreciated practice.

While social media can sometimes feel like the native habitat of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, it has offered a valuable window onto socially-distant creativity. Like Poswa and Blignaut, artist Athi-Patra Ruga is an Instagrammer. Cape Town-based Ruga is currently holed up with his partner, journalist Malibongwe Tyilo, in the mountain village of Hogsback in the Eastern Cape, where they own a house. Ruga is using lockdown to paint on canvas board, a new departure for him, as well as finish up tapestries for his solo exhibition at Whatiftheworld gallery.

One tapestry from the artist’s postponed exhibition depicts a character from AC Jordan’s Xhosa-language novel, The Wrath of the Ancestors, published in 1940 by Lovedale Press. This storied publishing house, founded by missionaries in 1823, is located in Alice, near Ruga’s bolthole. ‘I first read Lovedale books at school,’ says Ruga. He has also been visiting Lovedale’s print studio.

In April he posted an emotional plea on behalf of the employee-owned enterprise, which has struggled to capitalise on its pioneering work publishing formative black intellectuals. ‘The situation is bleak – they don’t even have electricity or water,’ he says. ‘We have started a GoFundMe campaign for the three remaining staff of the 18 who bought the company in 2001. They have worked there for five decades.’

While Lovedale teeters on the brink, in May two magazine publishers have folded in quick succession. Tiaan Nagel, who formerly edited now-defunct House & Leisure magazine before returning to fashion design and retail last year, enjoyed brisk trade at his eponymous Johannesburg store. Not only is the store temporarily closed during lockdown, orders for made-to-measure garments have been cancelled and interior-design projects placed on hold.

He is nonetheless developing a future range in collaboration with Cape Town painter Zander Blom, ‘something a little more chaotic, something that seems collaged together, random bits of fabrics, silhouettes “stitched” together to create something new and removed from trend’. Using online tools to make what used to be haptic and artisanal decisions is, he says, ‘extremely difficult’.

In mid-March, young sculptor and muralist David Brits received good news: his collaborative proposal, developed with Raiven Hansmann, to host a choir parade in the rural town of Graaff-Reinet received a thumbs up from the judges of the inaugural Social Impact Arts Prize. Drawing on the region’s choral traditions, Tears Become Rain, as the project is known, will see various local choirs assemble at a local square in a gathering of song. ‘The project attempts to answer one of the great questions of our age: how to use culture as a way to bring cohesion in a society like ours, which is very disparate,’ he said at the award ceremony.

But then lockdown happened. Overnight, the artist’s mural business, which pays his bills, collapsed. He has had to move home with his mother. ‘I’ve done none of the linocuts, carbon-fibre sculptures or drawings I grandly envisioned myself creating when I packed my car and locked my studio over a month ago,’ he says. ‘All of my art equipment is still in boxes.’ Like Blignaut, he has found consolation in Cape Town’s often-parched earth, producing dry-pack stone earthworks in the firebreak at the back of his mother’s house. ‘The act of building dry-pack stone rock walls is about as old as architecture itself. For me, this is a heavy brand of physically-embodied emotional release.’

Read more from Wallpaper* World View

Letter from Milan
Letter from Spain
Letter from Middle East
Letter from Japan
Letter from Hong Kong
Letter from Canada

INFORMATION

@zizipo_poswa, imisoceramics.co.za
@belinda_blignaut, belinda.co.za
@athipatra, whatiftheworld.com/artist/athi-patra-ruga
@tiaannagel, tiaannagel.co.za
@davidbrits_, davidbrits.com

In 1960, Nigeria declared independence, freeing itself of British colonial rule. At the time, Lagos, its main urban centre, was a modest coastal city. Cars were sparse on the road and you could drive out of town with ease, low buildings giving way to fields, forests and scattered villages as you went.

Two generations on, Lagos has undergone a breathtaking transformation. Now one of the ten largest cities on the planet, it is a vast sprawling conurbation that covers more than 1,000 sq km, with a population that has expanded 100-fold, from under 200,000 in 1960 to over 20 million today. By 2100, it’s estimated Lagos will be the largest metropolis on Earth, with some 100 million people.

Breakneck growth, though, comes at a cost. As more and more people flood into the city, an already overwhelmed infrastructure system struggles to cope. Fewer than ten per cent of residents have access to public running water or sanitation. Two thirds live in slums. Traffic jams (‘go slows’) choke the streets and fill the air with noise and exhaust fumes. Yet life goes on. From the vast open-air markets to the street vendors hustling their wares amid the stationary traffic, the city buzzes with barely containable energy. 

Photographer Andrew Esiebo was born in Lagos, and his pictures seek to capture the metropolis in all its cacophony and unlikely beauty. In his images, the city’s apparent disorder of traffic and people, of construction sites and shantytowns, resolves itself into mesmerising shapes and patterns and colours. What emerges is a place of exhilarating, if exhausting, dynamism. A city making and remaking itself in the image of its growing population. As Rem Koolhaas once noted wonderingly, Lagos ‘inverts every essential characteristic of the so-called modern city. Yet it is still – for lack of a better word – a city; and one that works.’ 

Esiebo’s pictures of Lagos are featured in my latest book Africa State of Mind, which gathers the work of an emergent generation of photographers from across the African continent and its diaspora, each of whom has a unique perspective on what it looks like, and how it feels, to live in Africa today. 

It’s a timely moment to be looking at Africa. Popular perceptions of the continent may still be dominated by stereotypes of war, corruption and starving children, as typified by photos of grinning celebrities posing with undernourished children for Comic Relief and Donald Trump’s dismissal of the place as a collection of ‘shithole countries’. But African photographers are increasingly telling their own stories of the continent and its people in compelling imagery rich with poetry and nuance. Contributors to the book include internationally celebrated figures such as Hassan Hajjaj, Pieter Hugo and Zanele Muholi, the subject of a major solo exhibition at Tate Modern this summer, as well as rising stars including Senegal’s Omar Victor Diop and British-Nigerian fashion photographer Ruth Ossai, who last year shot the campaign for Rihanna’s Fenty collection. 

With the share of the continent’s population living in cities set to pass 50 per cent by the end of this decade, Africa State of Mind devotes considerable space to the urban environment. Here we see a world in the midst of perpetual change. Photographers such as Michael Tsegaye and Hicham Gardaf chart the changing face of cities such as Addis Ababa and Casablanca, amidst the wave of hectic development sweeping large parts of the continent. François-Xavier Gbré’s pictures of incomplete or abandoned buildings in West Africa illustrate how dreams of progress can be quickly stymied by sudden shifts in the economic or political climate. And in Angola, Michael MacGarry shows how the impact of oil wealth and foreign money is reshaping the urban landscape (see W*238). His photos document life in Kilamba Kiaxi, a $3.5bn new city that represents the largest single investment by China in Africa. The site was built to accommodate a quarter of a million residents, but Angola’s petro-dollar-fuelled economy has pushed rents beyond the reach of most ordinary people. The result is a ghost town of deserted roads and empty apartments, a place that looks like it’s at the end, not the beginning, of its existence. 

Inevitably the book also considers how colonialism and past independence struggles continue to impact the continent. Travelling the coastline of East Africa, Guillaume Bonn charts how regional battles have left their mark in burnt-out buildings. But Bonn grew up in Kenya and Djibouti, and even in the scarred environment he encounters, he finds his way to moments of transcendence: a joyously crowded beach in Mozambique; a woman draped in striking crimson robes entering the bombed out shell of a cathedral in Mogadishu. In Bonn’s pictures, and those of the other 50-plus photographers in the book, we see Africa through African eyes. The continent revealed as a place of paradox and possibility and everyday wonder.

A version of this article originally featured in the April 2020 issue of Wallpaper* (W*253) – on newsstands now

INFORMATION
Africa State of Mind (£40), available from 26 March, is published by Thames & Hudson. thamesandhudson.com

Cape Town-based practice Noero Architects does not design houses that exceed 150 sq m. It’s a self-regulation that underscores a fundamental studio philosophy. ‘Space is a luxury, a precious resource,’ says studio director Jo Noero. Intrinsic to his design approach are unwavering views about the appropriate ways in which to engage with the South African landscape. ‘In a context as complex as ours, you don’t want to exclude people,’ he says. ‘You can make a perfectly good house in a small footprint. It comes down to quality, not quantity.’

As a result, Noero’s interest was peaked when his clients presented a modest 200 sq m site on the extremity of a rocky peninsula, an hour’s drive from central Cape Town. ‘I liked that it was a small site,’ adds Noero. ‘We made it clear to our clients that we could produce something modest in size that would satisfy them, despite their lofty ambitions.’

That initial conversation took place the best part of a decade ago as strict local planning regulations, including intensive heritage, environmental and architectural legislation impact studies and fraught negotiations, resulted in an unusually protracted design process. Yet the extraordinary delays provided a wealth of time for the studio to hone every aspect of the project that would come to be known as Castle Rock Beach House.

‘This was never going to be a glass box,’ says Noero, when asked about the design concept. Cookie-cutter glass boxes with expansive terraces proliferate along the Cape coastline. ‘This approach makes no sense, especially since, along with the view and the sun, come the strong South-Easter winds,’ he explains. ‘We decided to create a glass roof and an internalised space where the clients could retreat. So when the wind blows and it is impossible to stay on the beach, one can retreat into the house, close down all sea-facing openings and open the roof, creating an opening to the sky that is protected from the wind.’

The mechanised glass roof is large – 6m x 3m – and has a bespoke solar shade system, which provides additional sun protection and prevents internal heat gain. Thickened walls, which contain all the services, wrap around three sides of the house, with the fourth (glazed) elevation opening up to the view and the beach. However, it’s the roof mechanism that’s the most dramatic gesture. The two curved, concrete beams, which support the steel tracks of the roof, mimic the outstretched arms of a swimmer about to dive into the ocean. ‘They express the pressures of the roof pushing upwards and outwards,’ says Noero. ‘A thrust towards the sea.’

Programmatically, the house is straightforward in its layout. Leveraging the sloping topography of the site, Noero has created a split-level space. From the entrance, you can ascend to the bedrooms on the upper level or drop down to a multipurpose space on the lower level. A dance studio is just one of those purposes.

The white concrete, paint-free walls su est a pre- history, and the house already feels like a long-term fixture. ‘One of the clients had studied archaeology and has a strong interest in rocks and clay,’ says Noero. ‘The clients also wanted a maintenance-free house so the finishes were chosen to reflect time and the effect of the weather on the building. We are hoping the house will melt into the landscape over time.’ The team selected a robust African hardwood timber (Afrormosia, which weathers to a silver-grey colour) for the external cladding and hardy vegetation within the landscape and on the roof, which forms the oft-forgotten fifth elevation.

‘We had a ferociously good builder who led a team of local labourers,’ adds Noero. ‘They crafted this house using traditional skills that have been used for more than 400 years.’ The painstaking attention to detail is evident in every plane of the home, including the balletic modulation of the bronze handrail, which caps the glass balustrades and the rounded edges of the expressed beams, plinths and so ts. Yet, the interior appropriately dissolves in deference to the landscape.

Noero Architects has challenged the notions of luxury in this house – all details are necessary, everything is beautifully crafted. ‘We need to stop the drive for more things,’ says Noero. ‘We as architects get caught up in prioritising luxury over necessity. We have an ethical responsibility to make space that is carefully considered, not wasteful. It’s time to stop the madness that has gripped us.’

As originally featured in the October 2019 issue of Wallpaper* (W*247)

INFORMATION

noeroarchitects.com

It's taken 15 years, but James Peech and his wife Vicky have finally realised the potential of their property in Johannesburg's upmarket Melrose suburb. And it was worth the wait.

Shaped around a former family home – a handsome 1950s heritage building topped with a curvilinear wood-shingle roof – the hotel, up until now, comprised just 16 rooms housed within a series of individual new-build annexes inserted amongst the lush tree-swathed gardens. 

Now, completing the masterplan, the property has doubled in size, with the addition of another 16 rooms, including the two-bedroom Peech Villa, set on a recently acquired patch of neighbouring land. Among the flourishing landscaped gardens, local studio Meshworks has fashioned a small village of single and duplex pavilions, their boxy profiles assembled with breeze blocks, timber slats and metal mesh screens, which create natural ventilation and bathe the pleasingly minimal interiors with natural light.

Here, Johannesburg-based Design Republic, layered a bold petrol blue and putty palette with natural textures, from Oggie timber floorboards to hand-stitched distressed leather headboards, and local furniture and craftwork, such as bed throws by African Jacquard, bedside tables by Houtlander and screen dividers, hand-woven by Bathany Home, a shelter for abused women.

And while the best of Johannesburg's restaurants are on the hotel's doorstep, it pays dividends to dine in at the newly opened Basalt, spearheaded by Freddie Dias, formerly the head chef at The Pot Luck Club in Cape Town. The restaurant's cool grey interiors, anchored by deep red velvet chairs and parquet flooring underfoot, come together to form a chic backdrop for a global menu of dishes from springbok carpaccio to yield-to-the-fork slow-roasted pork belly ricarda negra with toasted almond mole.

ADDRESS

61 North Street
Melrose
Johannesburg

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To mark his return to fashion after a creative hiatus in media, South African designer Tiaan Nagel has partnered with interior-architecture studio Tonic Design to create a new flagship store in Johannesburg. Located in Hyde Park Corner, a mall in the city’s affluent northern suburbs, the chocolate-coloured boutique is primarily a showcase for Nagel’s garments, a stylish melding of oriental and occidental design traditions made with rare fabrics sourced on trips to mills in India, Ireland and Italy.

The store, which has oak floorboards throughout, also stocks local artisanal brands selected by Nagel. Highlights include jewellery by Studio Loubser and Geraldine Fenn, gender-neutral perfumes by Apartment, and vessels by Japanese trained ceramicist Andrew Walford, whose methods also informed Nagel’s cotton dying. A large collage piece by artist Michael MacGarry further elaborates Nagel’s interest in things ‘minimal, raw, simple and honest' – the wall-hung piece is made from hand-stitched cement packets overlaid with cotton elements.

The conversation between Nagel’s S/S  2019/2020 collection, entitled Remember You Are, and the curated objects on sale is integral to the new store. ‘I wanted an intimate space with an apartment feeling,' says the designer. ‘The idea is that you are entering a space inhabited by a fictitious collector, my female alter ago perhaps, and these are the things she surrounds herself with. The store is an abstract vestibule where these ideas can live.'

Nagel worked with Philippe van der Merwe, a founding partner of Tonic, to translate his idea into a negotiable retail space. The two previously worked together on Nagel’s short-lived first boutique, opened in 2009; both also have a shared passion for the South African ceramics and 1980s Japanese design. Shiro Kuramata’s minimalist store designs for Issey Miyake provided Van der Merwe with important cues for his final design. Two features stand out. The clothing rails are liberated from the wall to allow a fuller experience of each garment. The window display is at floor level and easily navigable.

The influence of Japan on Nagel — his current collection is partly inspired by the oversized construction of vintage Yohji Yamamoto — is moderated by his deep love of local ceramics. ‘It was part of my childhood and I slowly started collecting it in a naive way,' says Nagel. The proportions and volumes of his garments echo pieces in his personal collection of Rorke’s Drift stoneware, made in the latter half of the last century by black artisans mentored by Danish and Swedish supervisors at a rural mission. ‘It definitely influenced the colour and texture of my work.'

INFORMATION
tiaannagel.co.za

ADDRESS

235A Jan Smuts Ave
Hyde Park
Johannesburg
2193

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As creative rivalries go, the contest between Cape Town and two geographically proximate northern cities, Johannesburg and Pretoria, probably constitutes a footnote in any primer on global design. Still, local history does matter in appreciating the Javett Arts Centre at the University of Pretoria (Javett UP), a 4500 sq m art museum in South Africa’s socially dour but architecturally daring administrative capital.

While not explicitly pitched as such, Javett UP reads as a northern riposte to two attention-grabbing private art museums in Cape Town: the Thomas Heatherwick-designed Zeitz MOCAA and Norval Foundation by dhk Architects. Designed by Pieter J. Mathews, of local practice Mathews + Associates Architects, Javett UP straddles a busy arterial road slicing through a university known for its boldly modernist architecture. 

Highlights include two fine examples of Pretoria Regionalism: Karel Jooste’s Aula and Brian Sandrock’s Musaion and Amphitheatre complex, Brazilian-inspired arts buildings from 1958. Like Jooste and Sandrock, Mathews is also a graduate of the University of Pretoria. ‘I am very aware of the heritage and history of the campus, but I am not daunted by it,' says Mathews, whose previous projects include a steel-framed sports pavilion with a dramatically extending roof for a nearby girls’ high school. This is the architect’s first museum project.

Javett UP is a synthesis of two basic forms (a bridge and mountain) and three materials (off-shutter concrete, brick and steel). The faceted concrete mound at the entrance is loosely modelled on Mapungubwe, a hill inhabited by a pre-colonial trading civilisation in northern South Africa. This vault-like structure houses both the Mapungubwe Gold Collection and Barbier-Mueller Collection, a sublime assembly of West African gold pieces.

The public displays are spread across three floors, with additional mezzanine areas easing the hike up seven metres of stairs to the enclosed Bridge Gallery. Interior balconies serve as orientation devices and a large window on the museum’s southern facade overlooks a boys’ school where pioneering artist Walter Battiss once taught. The patterned concrete screens on the western façade are climate-responsive additions intended to absorb afternoon heat. Their randomised patterns are an abstraction of three forms (circle, diamond and cross) used on a popular indigo-dyed cloth known as Shweshwe.

Mathews says his design honours the ‘spirit and honesty of brutalist construction methods,' and also prefers to link its form to a nonpartisan tradition of brutalist architecture in South Africa. His next project is an architectural pavilion for the inaugural Stellenbosch Triennale, which opens in February 2020.

INFORMATION

maaa.co.za

It takes a particularly daring investor to cut the roster of a long-established enterprise by 60 per cent. But, a reboot of Africa’s oldest art fair recently proved that great things can come in small, if perfectly formed, packages. The newly rechristened FNB Art Joburg (formerly FNB Joburg Art Fair) was considerably leaner with 18 galleries from the continent in the main section and a ‘first-of-its-kind’ Gallery Lab focused on nine younger, hybrid spaces.

Entrepreneur and former director Mandla Sibeko acquired the fair from embattled owners ArtLogic, in response to an exodus of main exhibitors after last year’s event. The pilot edition of FNB Art Joburg adopted an invitation-only model, with the selection committee comprising local heavyweights Jonathan Garnham (Blank Projects); Mark Read (Everard Read); Monna Mokoena (Gallery MOMO); Liza Essers (Goodman Gallery); Baylon Sandri (SMAC Gallery); and Joost Bosland (Stevenson).

[embed]https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=F2qrTeptYmA&fbclid=IwAR2xNa3lXSWZ3bugyRGLwDjwBfXsc5klkR_KrvqsZnCicGE00og-BHUdtd0[/embed]

The fair’s laser-focus was an invigorating antidote to the cluttered cultural calendar. In lieu of sterile, labyrinthine booths, swathes of colour punctuated the normally innocuous Sandton Convention Centre, while dynamic sight lines lured fairgoers in. Stevenson impressed with Johannesburg-born Steven Cohen’s latest works, a series of delicate prints of the Lille-based artist’s face made by removing make-up with tape. Goodman Gallery brought William Kentridge and Wallpaper* favourite Mikhael Subotzky, and Smith gallery had evocative photographic collages by Sitaara Stodel.

New to the fair this year was the MAX programme – a first in Africa – which saw galleries break free from the confines of their booths with a series of monumental installations. Everard Read gallery staged a solo presentation by Lady Skollie as well as a large sculptural work by Brett Murray as part of the programme. Cape Town’s Blank Projects tasked Igshaan Adams with creating work on-site, while Jody Paulsen (SMAC Gallery) dazzled with a sensational felt collage.

Of course, converation around Johannesburg’s social turmoil was inescapable. As the protest over rising gender-based violence and femicide reached fever pitch outside in Sandton, another one quietly brewed inside the fair, where the absence of Nigerian galleries due to participate was noticeably felt. Scrawled across the back wall of 16/16’s vacant booth, a compelling message from Nigerian artist Sheila Chukwulozie: ‘Thanks, xenophobia’.

Along with Revolving Arts Incubator, the Lagos-based gallery was unable to secure visas ahead of the fair. South Africa temporarily closed its embassies in Abuja and the Nigerian capital after a spate of deadly xenophobic attacks against foreign-owned businesses in Johannesburg. A third Nigerian exhibitor, Rele Gallery, was only able to hang its booth once the fair was already underway.

Still, there was plenty to explore at Gallery Lab, the incubator curated by FNB Art Joburg fair manager Nicole Siegenthaler and BKhz founding director Banele Khoza. Eswatini gallery Yebo Contemporary devoted its stand to artists Khulekani Msweli and Mbongeni Dlamini, among others; Angolan art space Espaço Luanda Arte brought powerful portraits by René Tavares and No Martins; and Stary Mwaba’s labour-intensive newsprint canvases charmed visitors at Modzi Arts.

Cape Town has long been hailed as South Africa’s art capital, but Johannesburg is poised for a breakthrough. Latitudes art fair, helmed by an all-female collective, opened its first edition concurrently down the road at Nelson Mandela Square (several former FNB Joburg Art Fair exhibitors participated in the offshoot). Elsewhere, at the Museum of African Design in Maboneng, the curator-led Underline Projects was established to support independent voices and eschewed the traditional fair model by forgoing booth fees.

But it’s not just locally that South African galleries are making their voices heard. Goodman Gallery opened its inaugural international outpost in London last month, while SMAC artist Mary Sibande’s first solo exhibition in UK, ‘I Came Apart at the Seams’, is now open at Somerset House (until 20 January 2020). Then there’s 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, which in seven years has established editions in London, New York and Marrakech. It seems the appetite for Africa’s contemporary art scene is only growing.

INFORMATION
artjoburg.com

ADDRESS

Sandton Convention Centre
161 Maude Street
Johannesburg

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Cape Town ceramicist Zizipho Poswa received a breathless call from Trevyn and Julian McGowan, of Cape Town gallery Southern Guild, in late 2018. The couple were at Design Miami, where they had just placed two of Poswa’s glazed stoneware pieces with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). As the facts of the transaction settled, so Poswa’s emotions skittered. It had only been a few months since she had debuted her first art pieces, boldly coloured abstract totems that speak about her journey as a Xhosa woman, in a group exhibition in Cape Town.

‘I was still unsure about my work,’ says the Umtata-born ceramicist. ‘I didn’t think my career would get to this level so soon.’ Poswa is not being modest. The two sculptures acquired by LACMA – one is pillar-box red, the other marine blue with gashes of red, and both are titled Ukukhula (‘growth’ in Xhosa)– were only her fifth and sixth personal studio pieces. By this measure, Poswa’s march into the museum world has been brisk, circumventing the usual procedures – extensive production, solo shows, fawning press, patient waiting – that typically preface institutional recognition.

Don’t be fooled by this tale of instant success: Poswa’s ceramic art is the fruit of nearly two decades of commitment to clay as expressive medium and sustainable business. ‘In certain respects, it has been a long journey for Zizi from making functional ceramics to pure art,’ says Trevyn McGowan. ‘When she did eventually turn her hand to art, she made an effortless leap in scale and power.’ The gallerist variously uses words like ‘totemic’, ‘sensual’, ‘confident’ and ‘vibrant’ to characterise the distinctive presence of Poswa’s art pieces.

McGowan first met Poswa more than a decade ago, while scouting local design for the export market. The search led her to Imiso, a boutique ceramic studio founded in 2006 by five friends – including Poswa and acclaimed ceramicist Andile Dyalvane. The studio, whose name means ‘tomorrow’ in Xhosa, was a leap of faith for Poswa. Unlike Dyalvane, who studied ceramics and was mentored by Chris Silverston of local design studio Potter’s Workshop, Poswa came to the medium with a background in textile design and fashion retail.

The early years of Imiso were tough. ‘We had no infrastructure for anything,’ recalls Poswa. A sympathetic landlord provided the fledgling clay business with a kiln. Three of the founding team fell away, leaving only Poswa and Dyalvane. Both are from the Eastern Cape, the heartland of South Africa’s Xhosa culture. They first met in Port Elizabeth, as students – he dated her best friend. Evidence of their contrasting studio output is displayed in Imiso’s multipurpose space at The Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock, Cape Town’s new creative hub. Known internationally for his unique terracotta and stoneware pieces that reference his rural upbringing, Dyalvane’s Imiso studio output is more expressive and pop, with motifs inspired by ritual scarification, Picasso, and Cape Town’s harbour. By contrast, Poswa’s delicate utilitarian pinch pots feature bold colour and surface treatments that integrate patterns inspired by traditional Xhosa textiles.

To illustrate how she develops her ideas, Poswa plays a clip of a cousin’s Xhosa initiation ceremony in the Eastern Cape, showing a group of women wearing ankle-length umbhaco skirts and moving in jubilant procession. The origin of the stipples and symmetrical lines on her pinch pots becomes clear. ‘I always think in terms of colour, pattern and texture,’ explains Poswa.

This stood her in good stead when, two years ago, Julian McGowan encouraged her to contribute personal work to an exhibition titled ‘Extra Ordinary’. Two unrelated events influenced the tall clay forms she produced. In 2016, Imiso acquired a new kiln capable of firing larger pieces, in the lead up to Dyalvane’s first US solo show at New York’s Friedman Benda, and this provided Poswa with the chance to scale up. More importantly, she was inspired by a visit to the Eastern Cape. ‘It was a time to reflect and revisit childhood memories,’ she says of the trip, which reminded her of the ‘strength and resilience’ of rural Xhosa women. Although notionally abstract, Poswa’s three debut pieces, titled Umthwalo (load), directly evoked the labours of rural women, in particular the bearing of loads on their heads.

For her next series, Ukukhula, Poswa looked inward, at her own professional biography. The works acquired by LACMA, whose holdings also include a terracotta pot by Kenyan-British ceramic artist Magdalene Odundo (see W*240), are an expression of personal growth – ‘about me growing in the industry, growing taller’, she says. Measuring over a metre tall, Ukukhula 1 features protruding jagged triangular forms, while Ukukhula 2 comes with agglomerations of studio shavings added to its surface.

Energised by the response to these recent works, Poswa has been working on a half-dozen new sculptures. The new work references grinding stones and traditional wooden maize stampers, which she noticed while attending her grandmother’s funeral. ‘I am still exploring my background, where I come from,’ she says. 

As originally featured in the October 2019 issue of Wallpaper* (W*247) – on newsstands now

INFORMATION

Poswa is part of Southern Guild's debut showing at PAD London, 30 September – 6 October. pad-fairs.com/london; southernguild.co.za; imisoceramics.co.za

Since its conception in 2007, PAD London has evolved beyond how it set out as a space for ‘post-war and contemporary design and decorative arts’. Now, in Mayfair’s Berkeley Square, the showcase has a fruitful selection of collectible 20th century and midcentury design, glass and ceramics, plus a hefty jewellery offering that whets the appetite before Frieze frenzy kicks off in the capital.

Collectors and spectators are invited to experience eleven galleries from South Africa to South West London for the first time this 13th edition, adding to the roster of participation from 68 galleries in total from 14 countries.

Aside from beauty and its allure, the narratives behind works give the fair a unique draw. Turning a sad story around is Gareth Neal’s Block III that will launch with London-based Sarah Myerscough Gallery. In 2017, the original piece was stolen from Neal’s van and after two years of sourcing the ideal wood, he has now resurrected its form. Knotted gnarled lumber comes together through digital and hand craft for an elegent yet sculptural piece – this will join collections by Christopher Kurtz, Eleanor Lakelin and more at the stand.

Cape Town-based Southern Guild will be plotting new ground at PAD with 18 pieces from a new leather-clad seating pod by Porky Hefer to the results of ceramicist Andile Dyalvane’s 2019 artist residency at Leach Pottery In St Ives. Another newcomer, Luis Sendino and Jacobo Valenti, founders of Barcelona-based Side Gallery will bring organic 20th century works by Brazilian masters Joaquim Tenreiro and Sergio Rodrigues, and will set these in dialogue with contemporary compositions by Julie Richoz and Sabine Marcelis.

Elsewhere, an enchanting new Patagonian quartzite table will launch at Paris-based Galerie BSL’s stand, courtesy of Chinese-French duo Studio MVW.  The warm stone in the ‘Jinye’ series (translating to ‘Gold Leaf’ from Chinese) derives from a vulcanian region in Brazil and is technically composed with the brass layers to produce the structure of the table.

Winners of last year’s Best Stand at the PAD Prize, Carpenters Workshop Gallery will arrive with another show stopping performance, that will centre around a chandelier of Nacho Carbonell, giving hints to the blockbuster display currently on view in Venice, Dysfunctional.  

On view 30 September - 6 October, PAD London prides in ‘cultivating eclecticism, authenticity and connoisseurship with unparalleled passion and flair.’ Stay tuned for more discoveries this week.

INFORMATION

Pad London, 30 September - 6 October; pad-fairs.com

ADDRESS

Berkeley Square, W1

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South African artist William Kentridge is currently the subject of an extensive retrospective in Cape Town that is split between two new private museums: the Thomas Heatherwick-designed Zeitz MOCAA, launched in 2017, and Norval Foundation, designed by local practice dhk Architects and opened last year. Although independently conceived, the Kentridge double bill represents the largest-ever survey of this prolific Johannesburg-based artist.

The two exhibitions share the title, ‘Why Should I Hesitate’, with Norval focusing on Kentridge’s sculptural output – hesitantly started in 1984 and definitively resumed in 2000 – and Zeitz showcasing his drawings, printmaking, films and tapestries. Nigerian curator Azu Nwagbogu, who co-curated the Zeitz exhibition with the museum’s assistant curator Tammy Langtry, described his exhibition as a ‘humongous and momentous exploration of 40 years of Kentridge’.

‘It is a big exhibition, but it was quite tightly edited from a large number of things,’ conceded Kentridge, who worked with Anne McIlleron and Sabine Theunissen on the spectacular exhibition design. Despite the remarkable amount of material on view at Zeitz, including unseen preparatory drawings and short documentaries describing how his works are made, the displays cover only half of Kentridge’s total filmic output and a mere 2 per cent of his drawings.

Zeitz’s poky exhibition halls have been given a makeover to accommodate the ambitious scale of Kentridge’s recent work. Previously shown at the museum in a reduced form, More Sweetly Play the Dance (2015), an eight-channel video installation featuring a procession of marching figures seen in silhouette, now elegantly unfurls across all 40m of its conceived length.

The procession is a key motif in Kentridge’s work. Inside Norval, the displays include a shelf arrangement of 44 diminutive figurines depicting, among other things, an aquiline nose, ampersand character and scissors, all recurring forms from the artist’s recent practice. The stouter shape and design of the works in Lexicon (2018) differ from the 25 ambulant figures in Procession (2000), an important early sculpture work that hints at the influence of Alberto Giacometti. 

Kentridge’s interest in marches and cortèges is traceable back to a drawing titled Arc/Procession: Develop, Catch Up, Even Surpass (1990). Zeitz’s show features a preparatory drawing for this important work dated 1989. It is displayed near a sombre linocut print from 1976 depicting members of Kentridge’s family holidaying in Cape Town, in 1933, as well as a sampling of his fusty neo-expressionist drawings from the 1980s. 

Kentridge’s career is a tale of creative drift across media, notably from drawing to film, and later sculpture. Recent projects like The Head & The Load, a theatrical spectacle recalling Africa’s participation in the First World War that premiered at the Tate Modern last year, speaks to his openness to exploring new modes and disciplines. This willingness to innovate, a hallmark of his two exhibitions, is grounded in a simple faith. 

‘For me drawing is the heart of the activity, even if the drawing is done with an actor rather than a stick of charcoal,’ said Kentridge.

INFORMATION

‘Why Should I Hesitate’, until 23 March 2020, Zeitz MOCAA and Norval Foundation. zeitzmocaa.museum; norvalfoundation.org

Multidisciplinary design studio Lemon has expanded its Johannesburg-based business to open a new showroom in Cape Town’s coastal Seapoint district. The fresh space reflects the brand’s evolution – it originated with wallpaper and prints, and now offers furniture and art.

Lemon is the brainchild of brothers Kevin and Ricky Frankental, who launched the product and graphic design studio in 2007. This new Cape Town space provides a centralised drawing board for Lemon’s design processes, and is a coastal creative hub for the company. The pair were drawn to a slower, residential spot in the bustling district for their vision. ‘The idea was to design somewhere that people would come to purposefully, rather than as a result of merely passing by,’ the team explain.

‘Since we started Lemon over a decade ago, who we are and what we do has evolved and grown,’ says Kevin Frankental. ‘Despite having been in business for some years, in many ways we feel we’re just getting started.’ Among the in-house designs including the Vondel marble coffee table and timber Winston sideboard, Lemon also distributes Danish brands &Tradition and Menu. Lemon’s edit comprises earthy tones, graphic prints and eclectic surfaces which echo the team’s broad skillset and experimentation – the studio has a unique make up of illustrators, artists, photographers and designers.

‘Being able to offer a full spectrum of products means that we can contribute to creating whole environments that speak to living and working well,’ explains Frankental. ‘By displaying our designs this way, people can imagine living with and around them – they can envision how they’d fit into their lives.’ 

INFORMATION

madebylemon.co.za

Bolstering an already expansive design landscape, Gorgeous George has just opened its doors in Cape Town's vibrant inner city. Located between St George’s Mall and the famed Green Market Square, the 32-room boutique property comprises two landmark buildings – one Art Deco, the other Edwardian – originally stitched together in the 1940s and now repurposed by local firm Urbane Citizen Architecture.

Inside, the Johannesburg-based interior designer, Tristan du Plessis has focused on a strong contemporary African aesthetic, dressing the raw, urban bones of the building, like the steel window frames and concrete beams, with a bold palette and pieces from top South African talent including furniture by David Krynauw, Gregor Jenkin, Dokter and Misses and Porky Hefer, whose crocodile swing chair certainly turns heads. ‘I wanted to go with people who were making really unique contemporary African design, like Jenkin, who is taking Victorian-style design and turning it on its head by crafting it in metal,’ explains du Plessis.

Diversions, of course, are dominated by Cape Town's wine, surf and mountain offerings, but don't miss out on Gigi Rooftop, the hotel's plant-filled indoor-outdoor bar, restaurant and pool space, where chef Guy Bennet serves a menu of updated classics – using fresh, local and seasonal ingredients – against a backdrop over downtown and beyond.

ADDRESS

118 St George’s Mall

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Though Cape Town’s latest restaurant tests new territory, FYN is actually the realisation of a space that acclaimed chef Peter Tempelhoff had conceptualised over 22 years ago, when he first started cooking.

Found on the corner of Church Square and Parliament Street in Cape Town’s inner city, the historic Speakers’ Corner location in which FYN sits is a newly restored combination of two separate heritage buildings, built as early as 1898. Having been handed the fifth floor as a blank slab of concrete, Tempelhoff tasked Tristan du Plessis of Studio A to create a hybridised space that blended Japanese and South African influences.

The resulting materials – which centre around ropes, beads, wood and stone – are evident from the second you enter the restaurant. Boasting expansive views over Table Mountain, FYN’s interior is in itself worth marvelling over. An expansive wood-bead roof installation from Christoph Karl floats weightlessly suspended above the kitchen counter, where diners engage in an interactive experience, with servings such as the crispy and chewy rice with white fish, aged soy and wasabi furikake.

In FYN, Tempelhoff compresses an elaborate menu thanks to a kaiseki approach, with small sequenced platings offering three or four courses simultaneously, many of which incorporate varying tastes and variations of the same ingredient, including the unmissable daikon four ways.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

5th Floor
Speakers Corner
37 Parliament Str

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Since it opened in 1983, the Sandton Sun hotel has capitalised on its location in Johannesburg’s Sandton quarter, informally known as Africa’s richest square mile, by luring power suits, celebrities and top brass politicians alike. The arrival of Alice & Fifth in the hotel’s basement will only raise the stakes for competitors.

Local designer Tristan Plessis Studio has unraveled the subterranean labyrinth of varying volumes to create a series of dramatic room-sets, including three bars and dining rooms. The entrance sets the tone with a bijou corridor topped by a ceiling carved from a solid piece of hand-moulded polished stainless steel to look like liquid mercury; whilst creamy wall panels curve, Inception-like, up and over plush, crescent shaped banquettes.

In the kitchen, executive chefs Justin Josephs and Jacques Cronje have conceived a contemporary African menu that is defiantly protein-based, though you should follow the rib-eye with the Malva pudding, a local baked classic of sponge and caramelised sugar.

ADDRESS

Corner Alice Lane and 5th Street

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From the gates of Namib Tsaris Conservancy, a private reserve located in a remote valley of the Namib Desert, it’s a 30km drive to The Nest. The journey is best undertaken during the day, for at night, stars alone illuminate the dirt roads, and leopards and hyenas prowl the land. On approach, a swimming pool and a grid of solar panels are the most visible signs of human life, for the isolated hideaway itself, with its thatched roof and soft lighting, is a barely-there silhouette in the landscape.

The nearest town is 125km away and wildlife, which congregates around a floodlit watering hole, provides the only company. Seclusion is just one of The Nest’s selling points. On hand are a local chef, butler and guide, as well as a helipad. It’s a short flight to the World Heritage Site of Sossusvlei, home to glowing red sand dunes, and Deadvlei, a graveyard of 700-year-old camel thorn trees.

It was on this same spot that, eight years ago, South African designer Porky Hefer and Swen Bachran, owner of the 24,000-hectare conservancy, camped out. They had come to survey the site as a location for a dwelling that could be a scaled-up version of the ‘nests’ – pod-like furniture – that Hefer was becoming known for (last year, one of his ‘Humanest’ hanging chairs, handwoven in kooboo cane, sold at Sotheby’s for £12,500).

While they dreamed up their crazy scheme (Hefer had never designed a house before and materials would need to be transported from 480km away), they observed the vast, labyrinthine nests of the local sociable weaver birds. Such nests can house hundreds of birds, who gather in different ‘rooms’ – outer, cool spaces during the day, and warm, inner areas when night-time temperatures plummet. Why not apply their efficient techniques to a house for humans, thought Hefer?

‘It was an organic process. We built everything on site using local artisans and materials in the traditional style of the area. Building off the grid was both a difficulty and a blessing,’ explains the designer, who spent three years finding a local builder up to the task. ‘It meant we could do what we wanted but logistically it was insane.’ Audience participation was also a hindrance: baboons dismantled the outdoor shower and a leopard cub shacked up under the foundations.Hefer and his wife, designer and curator Yelda Bayraktar, began work on the interiors, later handing over to Cape Town specialist Maybe Corpaci. They opted for ‘built-in furniture, much like that of a nest, accented by a few great pieces with a modernist touch’.

While Hefer drew every last detail, Bachran was on a quest of his own. In 2010 he had bought the original plot of land, a former farm, as a weekend escape from Windhoek and Cape Town, where he runs property businesses. He soon acquired more land and, ‘fuelled by a passion for nature’, he set about ‘rehabilitating the results of a hundred years’ worth of bad farming practice’. The area was once populated by abundant wildlife, thanks to its almost year-round natural pools and waterfalls. Bachran installed new roads, removed miles of fencing and is gradually reintroducing antelopes, zebras, giraffes, big cats and rodents. There are plans to reintroduce the endangered black rhino too.

Bachran will continue to grow the reserve. Hefer, meanwhile, is working on more vernacular houses elsewhere. Next up is a coconut palm-thatched treehouse for a new resort in the Maldives, and some ‘Tadao Ando-esque designs’ in Rwanda, where he is working with local architects who build with sticks and mud using ancient techniques.

While the Namibian hideaway was taking shape, so too was Hefer’s reputation: his nests and, more recently, his oversized seating pods depicting endangered species, handmade from eco-friendly materials, have propelled him onto the world stage as an ethical designer with a mission. ‘For years, I pitched my nests to safari camps and lodges. People didn’t get it, but I kept on trucking. Finally, I met someone mad enough to say yes,’ he says. ‘Swen and I are a pair of obsessives who never take no for an answer.’

The Nest won the Best New Private House category in the 2019 Wallpaper* Design Awards. For more information, see the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2019.

As originally featured in the November 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*236)

INFORMATION

The Nest is available to rent. For more information, email info@namibtsaris.com and visit the Animal Farm website

The sloping suburbs hugging Cape Town’s historic centre are home to a mosaic of architectural styles, but rare is the building that defies common typologies. Cape Dutch, Victorian and art deco homes still predominate in tony neighbourhoods such as Oranjezicht and Tamboerskloof, while the luxe new villas in Higgovale are really updated interpretations of Palm Springs modernism. Even Bo-Kaap, where art collector Michael Fitzgerald recently built his extrovert cubist living space, is a museum to long-ago styles.

Once known as the Malay Quarter, in reference to Muslim inhabitants often descended from slaves, Bo-Kaap is best known for its spicy cuisine and brightly coloured Cape Dutch and Georgian terrace homes. ‘Being a Scotsman I always wanted to live in a castle,’ says Fitzgerald of the rectilinear structure he opted to build on a vacant plot on the ritzier edge of this historically working-class neighbourhood.

Fitzgerald, who was born in Trinidad and followed in his father’s footsteps as an oilman before seguing into modelling, and later art dealing, drew inspiration from Tadao Ando’s early domestic architecture when composing his brief. His favourite Ando building is Azuma House (1976), a windowless house in Osaka. Assiduously quarantined from its neighbours by high concrete walls, the house has an exposed courtyard connecting two living areas. ‘You always risk getting cold or wet,’ says Fitzgerald. ‘It is absolutely fabulous.’

Cape Town’s verticality is an antidote to Osaka’s floodplain flatness. The views of the surrounding mountains from the upper two floors of Fitzgerald’s mixed-use building also clarify the home’s nickname, ‘Skypad’. Local firm Team Architects, whose studio is now located on the first and second floors, supervised the design. This is their third project for Fitzgerald.

Although a new build on a vacant plot, the Bo-Kaap property had its challenges. The site is bounded on three sides by existing heritage buildings. ‘One of the key things for us was to create simple proportions on the street façade,’ says Team Architects’ Philip Stiekema. The cuboid form with extruded elements rising over the congested Buitengracht Street may look at odds with the adjacent mix of shabby residences and industrial buildings, but its structure is rooted in the architectural lines of the neighbourhood’s older homes, says the architect.

While Ando is Fitzgerald’s chief reference point, Stiekema also drew inspiration from the inventive materiality and sculptural qualities of Italian architect Carlo Scarpa’s work. ‘We tried to avoid the highway grey of aggregate concrete by pushing the colour mix,’ says Stiekema of the oxidised tone of the new building. ‘The driving force of the design, though, is its spatial, structural and formal complexity, and our attempt to synthesise all these things in a design characterised by its politeness.’ The last word is carefully chosen. In the past year, anti-gentrification protests have become more common in Bo-Kaap. After nearly three centuries, the neighbourhood’s traditional Muslim inhabitants are slowly being squeezed out as developers move in. Both Fitzgerald and Stiekema are aware of the current sensitivities.

Fitzgerald, a well-built man of 61 with a brush cut, leads me from his open-plan kitchen, past a Sudanese wood sculpture adorned with a beaded necklace from Nigeria, onto his sun-kissed terrace that in summer is shielded from the Cape’s vicious south-east winds. He points to an enormous development higher up the slope of Signal Hill. It is one of three large-scale developments, Stiekema later tells me when we speak, that have run roughshod over the community. ‘The upheaval is very complex and speaks to an unheard frustration,’ says Stiekema, who has been a Bo-Kaap resident since 1991. His team worked closely with Cape Town’s heritage department on the new building to avoid any community issues. The only pushback Fitzgerald has received since taking occupation was a snarky comment by a local youth.

The podium design of the Skypad incorporates off-street parking on the ground floor (a mandatory planning requirement) as well as a small gallery showcasing Fitzgerald’s holdings of traditional African art. ‘I can say I am an expert now, but I wasn’t when I started out two decades ago,’ Fitzgerald says of his career trading wood sculpture from equatorial Africa. ‘You’d buy things you thought were real only to find out they weren’t.’ Stock-in-trade African artefacts are stored in a modest storage area down a flight of stairs. ‘I don’t keep things piled up in cupboards. I’m not a hoarder,’ says Fitzgerald, whose tastes extend from traditional African art to work by contemporary South African artists, many associated with Cape Town’s Blank and Stevenson galleries. ‘I don’t ever deliberately buy something to sell. I will buy it if I like it, in the knowledge that one day it will move on. You get African art dealers who have thousands of pieces, but I am quite minimalist in my approach to it all.’

Fitzgerald, who also consults, began collecting contemporary art while living in London in the 1980s. His go-to gallery was Joshua and Kitty Bowler’s Crucial Gallery, an experimental space on Portobello Road that championed raw work in metals and found materials. The sleeper-wood bench and table in the dining area is a reminder of this earlier phase in his collecting.

A notable feature of the voluminous living area is the grated steel walkway overhead, which connects the two en-suite bedrooms, with an additional section leading to a swimming pool. It too recalls a younger moment in Fitzgerald’s journey: ‘The oil rigs chased me all the way here,’ he laughs. ‘This is what I’m used to. They are uncomfortable to walk on, but tough.’

As originally featured in the November 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*236)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the The Curator website and the Team Architects website

Marian Goodman Gallery has kicked off its 2018-2019 season with an inaugural presentation by draughtsman, performance artist and sculptor Kemang Wa Lehulere at its London outpost. The Cape-town native initially rose to prominence in 2006 with Gugulective, an artist-led, community-engaged collective co-founded with childhood artistic associate, Unathi Sigenu and is rapidly emerging as one of South Africa’s most prominent artistic exports.

Last year he scooped both Deutsche Bank’s Artist of the Year honour and the Malcolm McLaren Award at Performa 17 in New York, exposure that piqued the interest of Marian Goodman Gallery. Drawing on years of social activism, the artist confronts themes of post-apartheid unrest and broader socio-politics by recounting and re-enacting what he deems to be ‘deleted scenes’ from South African history.

The show – titled ‘not even the departed stay grounded’ – features both new works and reworked strands lifted from the multi-element Performa commission, I cut my skin to liberate the splinter, comprising messages-in-bottles, imposing sphinx-like ceramic dogs and bird houses indicating the prevalence of forced removals under apartheid. The exhibition sees an expansion of new imagery with large chalk wall drawings and objects bound and suspended by shoelaces spanning floor to ceiling.

The artist will present a partial reiteration of his now distinctive salvaged classroom desk and chair construction, defaced and riddled with generations of juvenile inscriptions – personal initials and crude carvings of genitalia – exuding themes of collective revolt and a poignant narration of the 1976 student uprising. ‘The works are not as huge and complex as my previous installations. I want to simplify and distil ideas I have been thinking through,’ the artist tells Wallpaper*.

‘Wa Lehulere’s exhibitions and performances are spaces for working out ideas’ says School of the Art Institute of Chicago professor Delinda Collier, ‘not allowing something to be fixed into a static representation is very much at the heart of all he does.’ Visitors to the exhibition will be encouraged to donate books to be passed on to Wa Lehulere’s forthcoming library project in Gugulethu.

INFORMATION

‘Kemang Wa Lehulere: not even the departed stay grounded’ is on view until 20 October. For more information, visit the Marian Goodman Gallery website

ADDRESS

Marian Goodman Gallery
5-8 Lower John Street
London W1F 9DY

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Embedded within the scenic backdrop of the South African coast is a rural retreat that has undergone quite a design refit. Part of a small beachfront community, La Belle Vue is the fruit of a creative collaboration between a duo of Cape Town practices, interior design group OKHA and Bomax Architects. The house, which belongs to a native international executive, was revitalized to ‘provide a place of sanctuary and repose’, states OKHA, from the owner’s busy working life.

The two firms worked closely to realize a new harmonious lease of life for the concrete construct. The project began with an exterior overhaul by Bomax Architects, who created new outdoor spaces by connecting each of the three levels with the exterior facade. Now increasingly open to the elements, the house breathes in the sea air and invites in natural light, forging a multi-sensory connection with the surrounding landscape.

This intrinsic link with location is tangibly echoed inside. Ceramics and sculptures by local South African artisans combine with an array of bespoke furniture pieces by OKHA to reflect the client’s African heritage.

The open-plan ground floor employs a monochrome palette, and furnishings include a custom console etched with graphics influenced by African tribal geometrics and scarification in the dining room. Meanwhile in living room, the custom sofa and ottoman work well with the minimalist architecture.

Upstairs, the first-floor entertainment level takes a retro spin with rich African earth-inspired tones, geometry and curves courtesy of Tom Dixon pendant lights and orange ‘Togo’ chairs by Ligne Roset. The master bedroom follows suit, continuing the bespoke theme with a custom-designed American oak bed, rug and ottoman.

Alive with a mix of African heritage and contemporary design, La Belle Vue masterfully articulates African modernism – another home-grown success for the pair of South African firms.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the OKHA website and the Bomax Architects website

An organic green grocer and coffee shop have been designed by young South African design firm Master Studio, creating a duo of visually connected spots in the emerging Cape Town suburb of Sea Point. Despite their different functions, the design-focused boutiques employ the same material palette, ethos and atmosphere, as envisioned by their steadfast designer.

Yaniv Chen, co-founder of Master Studio, secured the project because of ‘one key principle'. ‘When you’re a young company like we are, you’re on the hunt for an aesthetic that is unique to you,' he explains. ‘It's very easy in today’s age for design to become derivative. What got us in the door was our understanding of the balance between minimalism and warmth, alongside our emphasis on the past, which we translate into a contemporary context.'

According to Chen (who lives in the area), the locale is changing by the day. ‘The community has become quite young and exciting,' he explains, referencing the growing bicycle commuter-culture, which is ‘great for the city, and obviously our carbon footprint'; a restaurant called The Shop, ‘opened by a lovely husband-and-wife team, with fantastic food and the original 1970s and 80s vernacular of Sea Point instilled in the design'; and Hescheng restaurant, which is ‘not beautiful, but offers the best Chinese food in Cape Town, and has been there forever.’ The influx of foot traffic into the area has allowed businesses like this to thrive; something that makes Chen ‘personally, incredibly happy.’

Paulines, the coffee shop Master Studio has just completed, has attracted coffee culture vultures. ‘On this end of Sea Point there were no coffee shops until Paulines opened,' Chen explains. ‘It has added huge value, and created a fantastic street culture that wasn’t here before.' The narrow, standing-room only coffee bar pairs texturally interesting walls clad in Sisal (a natural fibre from the Agave plant) with the clean, functional lines of a Corian bar, together forming a space you'll want to linger in long after your espresso has been drained.

Chen was keen to reflect the district that he respects and calls home in each of the interiors. ‘Each store integrates the suburb's architectural vernacular into the space’s fabricated forms,' he adds. ‘Throughout Sea Point, there is a strong art deco influence, and we wanted to pay homage to the South African architects of the past by creating curved forms juxtaposed by strong linear elements.'

Chen chose to maintain simplicity, providing a plain vessel for the products to be displayed, opposed to a space with superfluous design elements. Characterful warmth breaks up the clean lines, in the form of Supawood – a hardy substrate made of compressed sawdust. ‘In keeping with the stores' holistic ideology we chose to line the space with this material. No piece is the same, and colours change in accordance with the wood the sawdust comes from.'

Sans (a mini department store and green grocer) is inspired by Japanese woodworking techniques, craft, and tradition; three things upheld by each product stocked inside. Master Studio respected this methodology by creating all of its own joinery, with no screws, nails or bolts, particularly in the architecture of movable shelving units that delineate the multi-purpose space into separate food and furniture sections.

The two, street-facing boutiques are a stone’s throw from each other, and their shared aesthetic gives the district a unique visual identity. But the area remains in flux. ‘Many property development companies are sadly demolishing the old Victorian houses and art deco apartment blocks, building soulless grey apartment buildings in an effort to further gentrify Sea Point,’ Chen explains. Not on his watch. Master Studio is currently on a mission to restore and save a heritage home in the area. If these three Sea Point projects are anything to go by, expect a thoughtful fusion of styles, ages and materials that respect the tradition of this somewhat unlikely Cape Town suburb, while nodding to the potential of its future. 

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Master Studio website