Art Deco Joburg

I have always loved the Roaring Twenties, the Jazz Age and Art Deco.

wearing 20's vintage in college

I love the spirit of the bright young things of the time,

Great Gatsby Dinner Dance at Mantoloking Yacht Club

their attitude and lust for life, ...

Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governor's Island, NY

their whimsy and freedom, ...

close-up of my butterfly cloche

their style.

Chrysler Building, NYC

Not surprising since I grew up amongst the finest collection of Art Deco architecture in the world.















But I was however quite surprised when on a Past Experiences walking tour recently through downtown Joburg, the tour guide made the claim that Johannesburg has the third-largest number of Art Deco buildings of any city in the world. What? I had never equated Johannesburg or South Africa with Art Deco. New York, Miami, Paris, Chicago, yes. But Joburg? While not an Art Deco architecture tour, she still managed to point out several buildings we passed along the way to begin to substantiate her claim.

And later on when I did the math, I read that Johannesburg had a huge growth spurt during the 20's and 30's that coincided with the emergence of the Art Deco movement. According to an article in the Christian Science Monitor, "The Art Deco buildings of Johannesburg, its suburbs, and the nearby city of Springs are monuments to one of the greatest boom times in South African history - the 1930s. It was during this decade that the price of gold skyrocketed, and lifted this country - and this city founded by gold-miners - out of the Great Depression. The construction boom that ensued saw skyscrapers rivaling those in New York spring from South Africa's dry veld grassland."

The Chamber of Mines

"Art Deco in Johannesburg, writes Frederico Fresch in De Arte magazine, "served to create for this dusty - if rapidly expanding - town in one of the farthest reaches of the empire ... a sense of wealth and glamour." The South African architecture expert says the "would-be sophistication" was meant to "counteract the incipient provincialism associated with a colonial city."




Many of these buildings are luckily protected by heritage and architectural trusts. And many have the coveted Blue Plaque designation. I have not seen an exclusive Art Deco walking tour offered by any of the local walking tour companies, but I plan to put together my own version and visit as many as I can as I move about town. First stop, the Astor Mansions.

And they are not just in the CBD. Outside the city, there are also a number of suburbs which have original Art Deco buildings. Yeoville,  Parktown, Greenside and Killarney to name a few. And then there's the Springs central business center in Sedibeng, home to a large collection of Art Deco structures with a total of 34 buildings! In fact, it claims to have the second largest number of small scale Art Deco buildings after Miami. One of its Art Deco gems is the Central Fire Station built in 1938. 

I found out that Rand Airport in Germiston, Ekhuruleni, was where part of the Amelia Earhart Story was filmed by the Moonlighting Film Production Services. The movie starred Hilary Swank as Earhart and Richard Gere as her husband George Putman. Rand Airport, which was shot to be both the Miami and Burbank airports, was selected because its art deco look and feel resembled those airports in the 1930s. The terminal building has remained virtually the same since it was built. 

Johannesburg continues to surprise me!

(PP: Post this posting I did find an exclusively art deco walking tour of the CBD put on by the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation. It was perfect!)