Club Arcade through the ages
A thoroughfare in Durban where decisive steps where taken by some giants of SA’s liberation
THIS week’s pictures of old and new Durban, brought to you by our correspondent, shows a street photo of the old Club Arcade in the 1920s, in neo-classical style, as well as a view of the interior. Adjacent thereto was a four-storey building, which was named Anglo-African House. The picture is from Ian Morrison’s Durban:
published in 1987.
From
1956 by John McIntyre, for Leslie Street: “This little cul de sac off Gardiner St connects up with Club Arcade and gives access to the Durban Club.”
So it was only when Club Arcade gave way to Netherlands Bank (Nedbank) building in the early 1960s that Durban Club Place was introduced as a link road, to replace the former pedestrian thoroughfare.
The Nedbank building was designed by the notable Johannesburg architect Norman Eaton, his only Durban building, and is highly prized for its modernist form and style of that period.
In 1961, Anglo-African house on the other corner was replaced by the high rise Norwich Union House. This was designed by Durban architects Horace H Grant and FA Jackson.
The Insurance Company was founded in Norwich, England in 1797. The first South African branch was in Cape Town, about 1890. The 1938 Durban street directory has their early
Durban offices elsewhere in the central city.
The first 15m approximately from the street corner of the Durban Club Place façade is windowless on all 16 floors. It was here that the company placed their emblem, the spire of Norwich Cathedral in bronze relief, together with their name. The stepped set-back of Nedbank from the street boundary made this space highly visible on approach from the west.
I had two 1980s postcard-size photos from the city’s advertising signs office, for the Nedbank pylon sign, but both obscured the Norwich Castle logo on the wall opposite.
Sometime after 2000, Norwich Union underwent a merger and is now part of Liberty Life group.
In 2017, the present building owners, property regeneration agents Urban Lime, commissioned a giant mural of Anton Lembede on the blank wall, by Sakhile Mhlongo, a graduate in Fine Arts from DUT.
Anton Lembede has been described as “the principal architect of South Africa’s first full-fledged ideology of African nationalism”. Born in Eston, KwaZulu Natal, he was homeschooled by his mother until the age of 13. His performance at local schools then earned him a scholarship to the prestigious Adams College, one of the teachers there being Albert Luthuli.
Before matriculating, he started teaching in Natal. Moving to the Orange Free State, he enrolled with Unisa and obtained BA and LLB degrees while teaching.
Lembede became a lawyer in Johannesburg, with Dr Pixley ka-Isaka Seme. He was instrumental in the formation of the ANC Youth League and its first president. Lembede was influential, with Nelson Mandela, Water Sisulu and Oliver Tambo, in formulating strategy and direction towards achievement of freedom.
Lembede died suddenly at the age of 33. Mhlongo’s image of Lembede striding with his briefcase, captures the energy and spirit of the young campaigner.