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 »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 »Gerald Garner of Joburg Places Gerald Garner of Joburg Places is no stranger to Jozi-ites and regeneration issues in this ever-changing city. He has written 4 books on Joburg and has taken walking tours for many years. I first went on a tour with Gerald 4 years ago and have been several times since – […]
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 »No One Eloff Street Last week’s Pick of the Week was the week-end Pop-Up market at Joziburg Lane. Heeding my own suggestion, on Saturday I met up with a friend who’s always up for a bit of exploring and off we went to No One Eloff (cnr Wemmer Jubilee). Gerald Garner of Joburg Places fame, and […]
Read More »Newtown Junction: mixed-use office and retail development A huge mixed-use office and retail development, Newtown Junction, is being built behind Museum Africa where the old potato sheds of the Market building stood. References to the old poultry shed, the original station master’s residence as well as the potato sheds will all be included in the […]
Read More »Piece: a gem of a shop selling beautifully designed hand crafted items NB Now moved to Ellis House 23 Voorhout St Doorfontein Piece used to be in the Firs in Rosebank but as of 2017 has moved to new premises in Ellis House Doornfontein. Piece is one of Joburg’s most special shops run by a […]
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 »Rooftop venues are all the rage in Jozi Which comes first – the chicken or the egg? In the case of the built environment it is surely the buildings which must precede the functional possibilities they offer. So as the supply of high rise inner city developments has increased, so the demand for a venue […]
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 […]
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