Powers that be need to protect our heritage more closely

THEletter by Gilbert Colyn concerning the 18th century warehouse on Bree Street, Cape Town (Cape Times, July 10, 2015), refers.

Mr Colyn, an experienced senior and respected architect, expressed serious concern about the unavoidable damage which will accompany the erection of the two columns piercing the ceiling and floor of the loft of the historic Melck warehouse on Bree Street, Cape Town. (Ten such columns rising above the roof of the warehouse are to provide for the overhead base to the proposed multistoreyed office block on top of and straddling the historic structure.)

As a senior architect myself, I share his concern, but want to add a further distressing threat to the integrity of the building, which it would seem the city officials may not have considered or may have overlooked.

A close study of the drawings provided raised the concern about the underlying structural changes at ground/foundation level that may be required for the substantial foundation bases of all these structural columns to carry the load of a multistoreyed building in an area of known possible weak substratum.

Such unknown extensive foundation design requirements may permanently jeopardise the whole structure of the historic building, which will be straddled by the new development.

It is also obvious that the question of structural cross bracing of all these slender and long columns has not been considered. One also wonders whether a proper structural study of existing foundations and the extent of future foundations has been done.

Another distressing threat to the integrity of the historic building lies in the complete disregard, in the present proposal, of the historic reality and the substantial change in the Bree Street facade. By changing the positions and window-openings on the first floor of the Bree Street facade, purportedly “to restore the facade to an earlier appearance” is palpably misleading. The present first floor windows are in their original historic positions.

In their Heritage Statement of 2014, the applicants concede: “At first floor level, 9 of the original 21 small window openings remain (although none of them have their original frames or moving parts)”; and further states: “(T)welve modern windows matching the extant ancient openings (are to) be inserted into the facade in the approximate original positions”. In other words, the other 12 windows, spaced along the entire facade of the old building, find themselves in completely new positions!

The applicant justifies this by claiming, “the return to the row of simple small openings at first floor… are consistent with the idea of essence of the 18th century warehouse” – thus taking the redesign of the historic building into his own hands! What is also not mentioned, is that this repositioning of the original windows and the addition of 12 new windows will involve breaking into the original exemplary stone work of the original walls, and bricking up the previous openings so left. This will be an unjustifiable and destructive desecration of the oldest of the buildings on “the street block containing the most intact group of buildings in any street block in South Africa” (Page 39 of report to the Spelum committee, May 22, 2015).

I do believe the general public is entitled to expect from the powers that be to protect our heritage from such ill-advised proposals.

Du Plessis is a construction and property dispute consultant and valuer