GHOSTLY SPIRIT OF THE TIMES
New book gives a glimpse of an icon that has stood untouched for 20 years
About five years ago Swiss artist couple Leif Bennett and Yvonne Mueller were in SA on a six-month artist exchange programme. They spent three months in Joburg and three in Cape Town. In Joburg, they stayed first in Maboneng and later in Troyeville, and had studios at the Bag Factory in Fordsburg.
As they commuted, they noticed various abandoned buildings in the CBD, and began photographing them. They were particularly fascinated by the Carlton Hotel, once considered the best hotel in Africa, which had stood empty and untouched for nearly two decades.
On one particular photographic tour, their guide managed to sneak them inside.
They were stunned by what they saw. “It’s almost like the building is a ghost,” said Bennett in a Skype interview from Basel in Switzerland, where he and Mueller live. It appeared as if nothing had been disturbed since the hotel closed its doors in 1998. There was no evidence of life; no graffiti.
In the week before they left
Joburg for Cape Town, Bennett and Mueller managed to wangle their way back into the hotel for a few hours every day for about three days, this time taking a camera, tripod and a torch with them.
“It all had to go really quickly because we had [limited] time,” says Mueller.
The Carlton Hotel is 31 storeys high and has over 600 rooms, and Bennett and Mueller had to use the fire escapes to get up and down. “It was kind of scary, but we didn’t have time to be afraid,” says Bennett. The lower floors, particularly, were dark. “You could hear pipes . . . knocking sometimes,” adds Mueller.
At times it felt unsafe as well as spooky. In the presidential suite, where Nelson Mandela stayed, a pipe had burst and the floor was covered with water. “Things [were] starting to grow,” says Bennett. “Plants.” At other times, says Mueller, it “would look almost [as if] somebody had moved out a few days ago” and you could still feel
“the luxury atmosphere”.
Now the photographs, along with a compilation of snippets from books and newspaper articles that make reference to the building, have been
The hotel’s official status as an ‘international’ hotel even meant the rules of apartheid were suspended at its doors, so (rich) black tourists could stay there