Following the prisoner with garlands of flowers He must have cut a strange figure. A small man in prison clothing surrounded by prison warders (having arrived by train from a Volksrust prison) being walked from Park Station to the Old Fort in Braamfontein. This vignette was made all the more unusual because of a following […]
Read More »This was the first question I was faced with recently at the breakfast table. Guests wanted to buy Sheshwe cloth to take home to Germany. With its German origins they felt a particular connection to this indigo blue cloth which has become so synonymous with South African traditional fabric.
Read More »Jozi heritage site: Windybrow A few months ago I set off to Doornfontein on the edge of Hillbrow, to join a tour of the revamped and restored building which I used to know as the Windybrow Theatre. (My source of all that is really new and happening within the city is often Laurice Taitz of […]
Read More »Kliptown: Soweto’s Cinderella I wrote last year about the SKY (Soweto Kliptown Youth) Foundation and Mighty Evolution Kids Nursery Preschool. (Both are located to the west of the railway line. SKY shown as Kliptown Youth Program on the map below). I spoke about the amazing tenacity of community members and their will to do the […]
Read More »Johannesburg Heritage Foundation runs great tours The Johannesburg Heritage Foundation is the most amazing activist/educational/heritage/tourism organization which, amongst other activities, runs bus and walking tours of Joburg’s historical spaces and places. Once such was the Cathedrals of Industry tour on 4th Sept where Kathy Munro (Jozi historian) and David Gurney (urban planner) led a bus […]
Read More »The Sheds@no1Fox gets another revamp Mid-morning on a cold winter’s day is not the ideal time to experience a newly launched industrial-space leisure hub in Jozi inner city, but despite the cold winter chill and the fact that few people know of the reopening, we still had a great time a few week-ends back […]
Read More »Tours with Gerald Garner of Joburg Places:highly recommended The only way to get a real sense of a city is not by driving through as an observer, but by immersing oneself in the sensory experiences of street life and activity. So while the Hop-on Hop-off Red Bus is a great way to orientate oneself to the […]
Read More »Making institutional meaning of place In The Practice of Everyday Life the French scholar De Certeau has a chapter “Walking in the City”. Here he asserts that the ‘city’ is brought into being by official bodies and large institutions which produce systems like street grids, planned urban spaces, precincts, maps etc. And it is these strategies which […]
Read More »Park Station then: and now … History of Park Station Johannesburg’s first railway station , commissioned by the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek and designed by the Dutch architect Jacob Klinkhamer, was manufactured in Rotterdam in 1895. It was brought out to the Transvaal and was re-erected at Park Halt (as Park Station was known at […]
Read More »Kloofendal: close to the urban centre, yet part of the great outdoors If one of your goals in 2013 is to take more time off and get fit while also getting into nature, then we have lots right on our doorstep in Joburg. I was sent the Friends of Kloofendal newsletter and was amazed […]
Read More »