Life AHEAD OF ITS TIME IN SO MANY WAYS
A look at how to spend your downtime — from music, to sport, books, the theatre and the screen The suburb, once a Mecca for the middle-class, now reflects a pan-African ethic
Pedestrians tussle for space with colourful traders hawking sim cards, weaves and plastic plates overloaded with apples, bananas and oranges. In Covid times, masks in bright wax print also feature strongly.
Energy radiates off broken pavements. Languages from across the continent meld with hooting taxis and rhythmic melodies, spilling from streetside shops. Residents walk with purpose, always wary of an opportunistic thief — quick to snatch a dangling cellphone, or unguarded wallet. Welcome to Hillbrow!
This is the picture of today’s Hillbrow: a colourful, post-colonial flatland. It’s a world away from the “The Brow” which, in the 1980s, became something of an urban trailblazer as an unofficial multiracial grey area, organically emerging through expanding cracks in the apartheid regime.
For many, the area is pure nostalgia; a place where continental gentleman sipped cortados and played backgammon at Cafe Florian, or where the in-crowd partied until sunrise at the Chelsea Hotel or the Sands with “the Madonna of the townships”, Brenda Fassie.
Today, these haunts are relegated to memory, as many former inhabitants wouldn’t dare venture in. “Close your car windows, watch your handbags,” the nervous warn.
Hillbrow’s landscape may have shape-shifted from a Eurocentric slice of city life into a frenetic Pan-African neighbourhood, but it remains a cosmopolitan gateway, a place to land, find your feet and start again.
The theme is the same: the suburb is a space for hope and opportunity. Hillbrow captures the imagination, demanding we hear her wild and unique stories.
Despite the immense space that the suburb occupies in our consciousness, the area is geographically small — a triangular piece of land bordered by Clarendon Place, Catherine Avenue and Pretoria Street. It is situated on the brow of Hospital Hill (hence the name) at the northeast edge of downtown Joburg.
The suburb dates back to 1894 when original mining claims were legally changed into residential stands. On July 24 1895, and with much fanfare, the “Great Hillbrow Land Sale” took place. The area was instantly popular with the prosperous white middle class, who prized its elevated views over the town, splendid scenery and proximity to the tram station.
Originally zoned for low-density family homes, it wasn’t until height restrictions were lifted in the 1940s that the Hillbrow we know today shot skywards. From there, it developed rapidly, and remains home to some of Joburg’s most
iconic structures.
Here are just five examples, which you can still see today.
Strolling up Pietersen Street you’ll glimpse Windybrow, a grand pseudo-Tudor mansion, somewhat out of place among neighbouring modernist apartment blocks.
Designed by Frank Emley in 1896 for industrialist Theodore Reunert, the house boasted one of the first swimming pools in the town and still commands sweeping vistas across the city. The building has been a stately mansion, a boarding house, a nursing college and a theatre. Today it’s the Windybrow Arts Centre and is home to a pan-African reading lounge and community art programmes that include dance, wellness, craft and visual arts.
The Lutheran Friedenskirche, or Church of Peace, has stood on a rocky outcrop along the edge of Twist Street since 1912. Funded through support from the German kaiser, the sanctuary was designed by Theodore Schaerer in the Italian Romanesque style.
Jewel-like stained glass windows wash the church’s interiors with gently refracted sunlight, while rugged koppie stone walls anchor the building to the natural quartzite of the Hillbrow ridge — a resolute presence in a landscape of constant change.
A new community centre was built next to the church in 2014. Designed by Local Studio Architects for the Lutheran Outreach Foundation, the structure houses the Hillbrow Theatre Project, a computer centre, meeting rooms, a dance studio and a rooftop performance space. Wrapped in translucent polycarbonate sheeting, the building is flooded with natural light in the day, while at night it is a glowing symbol of renewal.
The Hillbrow or Telkom Tower is one of Joburg’s most iconic structures. It marks the heart of the city and is visible from Soweto as well as Sandton. It was built between 1968 and 1971: the construction noise continued six days a week, driving neighbouring residents mad.
At 269m or 90 storeys, this transmission tower was once home to a viewing deck, the Cloud 9 nightclub and Heinrich’s — Africa’s highest revolving restaurant. Heinrich’s, besides its international cuisine and breathtaking views, also housed brilliant tapestries by SA artist Ernest Ullmann.
But barely 10 years after it opened, the tower was closed to the public, ostensibly for “security concerns”. But the presence remains: the tower is still Joburg’s tallest structure, more than 40m higher than The Leonardo in Sandton.
Highpoint Towers, designed by
Monty Sack, looms 33 floors above the Kotze Street pavement. As a city within a city, it originally housed flats, multiple shopping levels (including the first Fontana and Estoril Books), The Hillbrow Record Centre, cinemas and even a series of garden arcades connected via stairways and open to the sky.
Opened in 1973, the structure, with steel ribbon windows and exposed concrete panels — typical of Hillbrow’s architecture — was the largest space under roof in Africa at the time.
In the mid 1970s, Ponte City at 1 Lily Avenue, Berea was a hugely desirable residential address. Ponte’s triple-storey penthouses were decked out in shaggy carpet, mirror bars, burnt orange and olive green kitchens. They offered panoramic vistas.
Now, 50 years later, the cylindrical tower, designed by Manfred Hermer, remains synonymous with the City of Gold and is an indelible part of the Joburg skyline.
Today Ponte houses a diverse demographic of occupants, including Dlala Nje, an organisation which challenges negative perceptions of Hillbrow and the inner city, through tours and “immersive urban experiences”. But Dlala Nje also provides a safe and supportive creative space and learning environment for children and young people in the neighbourhood.
The changing face of Hillbrow, so evident on the chaotic streets, can be seen manifested in these five buildings. Yet Hillbrow remains what it always was: the original cultural melting pot. In the 1970s, it was ahead of its time as a template for multiracialism; today, it’s panAfricanism in action.
Johannesburg Heritage Foundation, whose talks cover the origins of
Hillbrow, go to joburgheritage.org.za