FLOATING CONCRETE
THIS MODERN HOME PRESENTS A PUBLIC FACE TO THE WORLD, WHILE RETAINING A BEAUTIFUL INTIMACY WITHIN WITH ITS CURATED MIX OF ART AND DESIGN
The owner’s collection of art and design gives this apartment a lively character
It’s a testament to the subtle power of Team Architects’ design that pedestrians passing along Buitengracht Street in Cape Town, South Africa, only take passing notice of the four stories of piled concrete boxes, which are wedged neatly in between two colourful Georgian houses. But once you’ve stood in front of it and drunk in its crazy concrete symmetries, it’s all that you can see. “What makes the building most interesting is the context,” says Philip Stiekema, founder and director of Team Architects. “The three materials—concrete, wood, steel—are entirely different, but really come together because they have the same DNA.” Covering the entire site footprint, it’s an almost miraculous achievement, an edifice that speaks to the past of the Bo Kaap neighbourhood as well as to its future, but also very pertinently to its contested present. It carries with it the strengths of the district’s history and also the potential of what is to come.
POETIC HARMONY
The top two floors are the home of Michael Fitzgerald, and if the building itself is a concrete symphony, Fitzgerald’s abode is a love poem. Dubbed the “skypad”, every element in the penthouse apartment is calculated to enhance the conversation between interior and exterior: between the quiet, companionable beauty of the MidCentury furniture, the eclectic marriage of contemporary and tribal African art, and the Janus-like exterior views. Fitzgerald has been assimilating his furniture and art collection into his home for 20 years. “It’s like my tent, I move them from house to house,” he says. Why the name Skypad? “It really does feel like a pad in the sky,” explains Fitzgerald. “And it’s a cooler word than penthouse.”
An apartment built to drink in the views must of necessity, function as a framing device. One of the most beautiful examples of this is a tall window, tucked away at the end of a passage, which is full of a riotously colourful collection of Mid- Century glass vases. The light streaming through mediates in both directions: the sometimes grubby realism of the houses outside, as well as the joyous magic of the apartment’s interior.
MATERIAL MATTERS
For the architecture team (who have lived and worked in the Bo Kaap for 26 years), the concrete exterior is a way to draw a connection between the heavy walls of the neighbourhood’s Georgian buildings, and also to give the building “a pre-patina, a materiality, with the concrete feeling old when it’s cast.” For Fitzgerald, it’s more about his passion for concrete, and about how it speaks to his soul. His favourite architect (and the inspiration for the Skypad) is Tadao Ando, and it feels as if Fitzgerald is living one of Ando’s maxims—the idea that “dwelling in a house is a search for the heart”. “I’ve always loved concrete,” says Fitzgerald. “You can see its bones and the stitches where it was built. And the art just screams out.” An important part of the building is its courtyards. “The Southeaster wind is where the view is,” explains Stiekema. “So you turn your back to it to with some building bulk, and then you re-expose it by having some of that bulk open.” The result is a series of areas that work in different weather conditions, either demarcated by windows, sliding doors, or in the case of the gorgeous, rectangular roof pool, by the bowl of the sky itself.
ART ATTACK
While the art collection might occasionally scream, it also whispers secrets. When pressed to choose a favourite, he singles out a contemporary piece by Phil Frost, a painted door. “It’s very tribal, but very contemporary as well. He’s painted five faces underneath and then covered it in white filigree, as it were.” It’s a fitting metaphor for the amalgam of styles and eras that Fitzgerald has collected, and perhaps even for the construction of the house itself. On the ground floor of the house is Fitzgerald’s art gallery and consultancy, where he displays the beautiful tribal art pieces that are the grounding of his business life. On the top floor, these pieces dance with the contemporary and give the house its heart. It’s a dwelling whose intimacy is both a statement and a state of mind. When I ask Fitzgerald for a final thought to articulate this, he reaches out almost unconsciously and caresses the rough concrete wall. “I just love the concrete. I love the fact that it’s not perfect. None of it’s perfect. It’s powerful but friendly.”