CLIVE CHIPKIN
what I’ve learnt about Joburg
CLIVE Chipkin was born in Joburg in 1929. He graduated from the Wits School of Architecture in 1954. In 1958 he opened a private practice and was a founder of Architects Against Apartheid. He is the author of
Johannesburg Style: Architecture and Society 1880s to 1960s and Johannesburg Transition Architecture and Society from 1950. He lives in Joburg and was recently the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of the Witwatersrand.
To try and catch the flow of it, Joburg is and has been from the beginning a laissez faire capitalist city and the
unexpected happens. It has a certain amount of infrastructure and infrastructure has an effect. The recent infrastructure has been a major factor on decision-making; massive urbanisation has forced certain decisions and a lot of the decisions are completely haphazard. Yet when you look at them retrospectively, there is an amazing kind of surprising logic in some of it. The rise of the second CBD at Sandton, if we look back, most of us didn’t expect it. What happened was it was almost fortuitous, and yet it’s in a good position. It’s on an acropolis, it’s quite dramatic, but if you chose on a map, would that be the spot? Probably not, but it has a certain logic of its own. What happened was that there was empty ground. I remember it, we used to go for walks and to sit and it had a lot of building rubble on it. Empty ground, a snobbish neighbourhood that didn’t want any development, and Michael Rapp. He was a young CA looking for work, and he spotted this and thought they’d open a little neighbourhood shopping centre and that was how it began. Sandton is now an international centre of trade and finance and it’s known throughout Africa. There are a couple of points in town that are known. Ponte is known right up to Somalia. You meet people from the Congo and they say “we’ll meet at Ponte” because it doesn’t matter, they can find it, even if they don’t like it — that’s another discussion. These are pointers from our past and all our pointers are clogging up. I have a newspaper clipping that says — it doesn’t sound possible — that in two years’ time the population of Joburg will reach 14 million. That’s what the mayor says. The growth of Joburg is quite dramatic and it’s got a self-correcting mechanism and it’s growing madly along the arteries. The growth towards Krugersdorp is of a momentous size. I dug out this old AA map, I think it’s from 1977, to me that’s still quite recent, and all that area was still countryside. Now it’s all full. We’ll soon be holding Ventersdorp in our grasp here, and the density is enormous. I’d make a wild guess and say that’s a million people. The amazing thing is the integration that’s taking place there. The apartheid system might have been reinforced by the capitalist system towards the old CBD but here it’s collapsing.
The old CBD cannot disappear. There is a lot of substance there and I can’t see it disappearing. Someone will wake up one day and see that there’s a huge asset. There’s no continuity. There was a postmodern period when there was pseudo-continuity. If cities are going to be viable they’re going to have to obey the laws of globalisation, but in actual fact the variability of Joburg is surely related to this economy in which any unexpected development can occur. You don’t know what’s expected with a little group around the corner, they’ve spotted something and they’re building something. I have a very complex attitude to the past but it certainly is not to save. I’m happy to save a hell of a lot but I’m also ready to clear. I think heritage organisations win quite a lot of battles but I’m not sure they should win them all. I think it’s a debate that goes on between different power groups and different intellectual concepts. In this type of city there are so many different interpretations, and I’m not dissatisfied with that. But the basic structural economics is inequality, and the economics needs a new style every five years and that’s why you see Dubaistyle buildings forming up the road. It could be anywhere. Don’t let’s get caught in that term “world class”, I mean what the hell does it mean? What city is world class? Even if
It was almost fortuitous . . . It’s on an acropolis, it’s quite dramatic, but if you chose on a map, would that be the spot?
there’s an integrated plan it doesn’t work either, so I’m not too sure there’s a method of urbanisation that really does integrate as much as some would want. Cities are bungling things. The great layout cities are the hierarchical cities, which we know — New York, which is quite brilliant because of the grid, which created the discipline, but the total chaos is also fantastic. Who wants an amazing city? You create cities by interventions at different points where someone sees something fantastic to do. I don’t think we have a master plan of a major city. I think Joburg grows and a lot of the growth is more favourable than it looks. It’s bungled its way through and while there’s a lot of conversation and analysis going on — it must be one of the most over-analysed cities in the world — it goes into drawers. We’re not an 18th-century society. We’re not a well-mannered society where people build elegant spaces and compatible housing and nice little squares. We’re not; we’re a confused, multicultural society full of dynamics and I’m far less critical than some. I’m quite enjoying watching the growth of the city.