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KwaZulu-Natal Institute for Architecture

160 Bulwer Road

Glenwood

Durban. 4001

Tel: 031 2017590

Fax: 031 2017586

Email: info@kznia.org.za

Website: http://www.kznia.org.za

In case one is left to wonder about the weight of the occasion, the Presidential Chain is

certainly a reminder. I would like to start by thanking Miles Pennington – the immediate

past president who carried this role with such aplomb that he made it look attractive.

Miles, during your term both Nicci and Georgie were appointed and our membership has

grown in strength during your tenure. Establishing the website and strongly driving the

marketing of our promotions has really benefited the Institute. On behalf of the members,

thank you for your contribution.

I would like to welcome everyone here tonight. This event is a celebration for architecture

and tonight I would like to speak about Architecture and its impact on us as practitioners,

on us as users, on us as people - and celebrate an approach exemplified in the exhibition

mounted on the Arts Café Wall: the Crofton and Benjamin exhibition.

IN PRAISE OF SLOWNESS

Architecture is a vast and myriad thing

For each architect here tonight architecture is not a profession, it is a passion. The study

of architecture and the engagement with it principally seeks to understand is how people

do things.

This enquiry intrinsically connects us to people, to the land; to life. The enquiry informs a

way of being as outlined in Le Corbusier’s letter to the Transvaal Group addressed to

Martienssen in 1936.

Slide 3

of architects

le corbusier, 1936

“architecture is an

attitude of mind and

not a profession”

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Kwa Dinayabande

Architecture leaves an indelible imprint on the texture of one’s life. Formative experiences

for me in my engagement with the profession of architecture have often gone beyond the

buildings being delivered.

They include memorable site visits:

I think of trips through Maputaland to Kwa Dinayabande where Portnet had sponsored a

school – the spectacular opening celebration with the pink plumes of drum majorette

headdresses contrasted by their white boots in the drying soil, mingled with the aroma of

shisha nyama and the abandoned swimming on deserted Cape Vidal beaches on the

way home.

Another was the trips to the Transkei in a Cessna Caravan at an altitude of 600 feet –

high enough to appreciate the vast wonder of the Wild Coast - low enough to make one

nervously fondle the flotation device beneath one’s seat. 1

Harber & Associates

Experiences include memorable offices: working for Rodney Harber was the most

formative introduction into the seamless combination of architecture with life: the

visceral, the messy, the magnificent. It all happened betwixt Rodney & Roz’s growing

brood, Frank Edwards’ many incarnations of Rodney’s pond, the Scotty dogs, and

multiple tin aeroplanes from Bergville suspended from jap-panel ceilings.

There were memorable people & events: working on the 98 ArchAfrica Conference with

Brian Johnson, a pre-cursor to the work for the UIA Conference which the KZNIA later

embarked. There was a sunrise swim in the Indian Ocean with Ken Yeang when he

compared the Durban Beachfront to Tel Aviv. I wonder what he would think now.

New York

The New York experiences include memorable study trips, contrasting the extremes of

reality; one could argue that life is the study trip for the profession.

Breathtaking was the trip for an Art Deco Conference. I need say no more….apart from

the lasting impact of the view from the penthouse-board room, # 1 Wall Street: the Irving

Trust Company Building by Architect Ralph Walker . And to rival that verticality there was

1 Or to put it as the Daily News did yesterday: God was in a terrific mood when he made

Pondoland

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a trip to Bombay to witness the vast horizontality of Bombay’s infamous slum: Dharavi

made famous by the movie Slumdog Milllionaire and the novel Shantiram by Gregory

David Roberts. This was part of a trip to the Rizvi College in Bombay with the Harbers in

‘98 which was life altering – the dysentery that followed felt almost life-ending.

It all leads me to ponder how we are formed by what we experience, in people and place

and how our experience informs our profession. To quote Barrie Biermann:

Slide 4

Jack Diamond

Formative approaches to the design process in the profession include a memorable

Awards Adjudication Programme with Jack Diamond, now practicing in Canada. Jack

tells the story of making his students remember a place that had made a deep impact on

them and then to draw that space in plan. In short – great places do not necessarily

make sexy plans. While part-time tutoring at UKZN in the mid-90’s Issy Benjamin was in

town for a short stint and he made a profound and lasting impression with his quote that

there is a deep distinction between designing with love or designing in fear.

Slide 5

on connection to place

barrie biermann, 1971

“the bond between an

organism and the soil

that nurtured it

[evokes] the

relationship between a

man and his native

soil…..”

on process issy benjamin, 1987

“there is a great difference between building out of love, and building out of fear”

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Alchemy

This has led me to appreciate that there is alchemy in the undertakings of this profession

– an alchemy that is apparent in the Crofton Benjamin exhibition opening here tonight.

How does one take the base material of sand and stone and create something that

elevates the human soul?

Six Themes for New Millennium

In the mid 90’s Juhani Pallasma structured Six Themes for the New Millennium – calling

architects to invest in the experiential nature of architecture. He hails slowness, plasticity,

sensuousness, authenticity, idealisation and silence as meritorious. He compels us to

avoid the reduction of architecture to visual commercial commodity, to pure visual

titillation.

Slide 6

Interestingly Jeremy Steere at his opening last Wednesday spoke about the distinction

between architecture he would like to ‘stroke’ (for this read Zaha Hadid et al) and that

which he would like to create. I would like to argue for an architecture that strokes us.

Much is being written on consumer culture, short-term gratification, the commoditisation

of the human experience. The roll-on for the built environment is architecture pushed by

time and finance: not by joy and delight. Titles like Oliver James’ Affluenza say it all and

John Naish calls for us to consider that we have, and have had “Enough”.

Slide 7

‘We’re burning through the planet’s ecology and it’s leaving us sick, tired, overweight and

angry” (Naish, 2008). Many counter-movements have been spawned.

affluenza & enough

oliver james 2007,

john naish, 2008

virus of capitalism &

consumerism:

“we’re burning

through the planet’s

ecology and it’s

leaving us sick, tired,

overweight and angry”

(naish, 2008)

six themes for next millennium juhani pallasmaa, 1994

slowness plasticity sensuousness authenticity idealisation silence

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Slow Architecture

Counter-movements in our common lexicon now include Slow Food as a backlash to Fast

Food. And recently Slow Cities. The autobahn is not celebrated in this category. So how

about Slow Architecture?

Slide 8 [www.solowarchitecture.ie].

How about purposefully engaging an architectural approach that allows for reflection. One

that determinedly understands how what we create has impact. On us as people. And on

the planet. Pallasmaa calls for an architecture that rejects momentariness, speed and

fashion.

Slide 9

He calls for an architecture for the senses.

Slide 10.

slow architecture

‘slow’ has been

described as a

process that optimises

the advantages of

technology and the

pleasures of reflection

www.slowarchitecture.

ie

on perception juhani

pallasmaa, 1995

book title: “the eyes of

the skin - architecture

and the senses”

on architecture juhani pallasmaa, 1994

“we need an architecture that rejects momentariness, speed and fashion”

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Architecture Feeling Good

I would like to argue that back in the mid 50’s Crofton and Benjamin’s concerns were

exactly these – creating spaces that FELT good. It lies boldly in the curvaceousness of

the forms, in the sensuousness of rooftop extremities, in the authenticity of place - all

qualities which resound in the work exhibited here tonight. And the timelessness of the

joy and delight captured are infectious. On a building visit to Las Vegas today Issy spoke

about designing for “the foot that dances, the voice that sings”. The buildings also hold a

dignity and a presence. A silence if you wish.

Slide 11]

If we appreciate that architecture needs to provide the spaces for our homecoming, then

the call for slowness and a reflection on what we are doing and a celebration of where

this has been achieved, is vital.

Slide 12,

I believe this is achieved in the work of Crofton Benjamin. Quoted as some of the highest

praise Issy received was a client commenting that being in the home Issy Benjamin had

designed was like being on holiday. Issy further extemporises: why not then treat work

like a holiday and then further why not treat life like a holiday?

Slide 13

Celebrating Durban

The celebration of remarkable Durban architecture and sharing those with the Durban

public is one of the key goals of the current committee’s term. As is the development of

the KZNIA Building at 160 Bulwer Road as a Centre for Architecture with greater public

accessibility.

on architecture

juhani pallasmaa,

1994

“it is the task of

architecture to

provide stable and

reliable ground for

the perception of the

world, to provide the

ground for a

homecoming”

on consequence

winston churchill, 1943 “we shape our

buildings; thereafter

they shape us”

on great architecture juhani pallasmaa, 1994

“every great architecture work has its unique silence”

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Goals

The Committee’s term ahead is a very busy one with COP 17 on the horizon and our

representation on the Climate Change Advisory Forum; Celebrating Architecture and

Human Rights on Architecture Day in October; and undertaking the groundwork for the

UIA 2014 - and we look forward to a closely knit group of professionals working together.

The KZNIA has an effective regional membership and we look forward to moving from

strength to strength.

Thank you

This is not an individual undertaking.

I would like to thank the following people tonight:

Bharti Vithal – the current vice president whose moral barometers are only matched by

her measured, steady, calm nature.

Ivor Daniel – the past past president for his listening ear and generous advice.

I would like to thank the engine room of the KZNIA: the absolute commitment of Nicci

Jeee, Emeldah Majola and Georgie Chennels and Eunice Mkhize. They hold it together.

As much as it is the presidential inauguration, the start of my term also signals the

nomination of a new committee: to the stalwarts Trish Emmett, Wally Peters, Rodney

Harber & Bruce Clarke thank you for the long distances travelled. Thank you to Kevin

Bingham, Joanne Lees, Nasreen Arabi, Mick Backler, Melissa Wilkins and to the regional

representatives who join us when they can.

To the membership who constitute this institute, thank you. The KZNIA has a national

reputation for being able to get things done.

To the team who put the exhibition together, Leon Conradie, Denni Guichard, Angela

Shaw, Richard Stretton & Stefan Mostert: you have done an incredible job!

To my friends, thank you for your enduring support.

To my colleagues at work and especially to Jonathan Edkins, thank you.

And to my family to George & Fran and to our two daughters Rachel & Sophia, who are in

the audience tonight: thank you. To my dad & Roz thank you for making the trip.

And in memory of my grandmother Dorothea Magdalena Prinsloo, who drew the plans for

the house my grandfather built – the house in which I spent some of my formative years,

thank you.

To our sponsors for the evening: Corobrick , the Concrete Institute, St Gobain, the Dawn

Group: your support is appreciated.

Lastly, I would like to thank Issy Benjamin for the light he shines – for his humility. He

leads by example and reminds us that we are obligated to enjoy our lives and to infuse

our work with that joy.

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INFORMING GOALS FOR THE TERM:

7 Goals for the current presidential term: 2011 - 2012

1. Establish a Centre for Architecture

Refurbish and adapt 160 Bulwer Road to be:

• a more accessible and public-friendly environment,

• better suited to seminars and exhibitions

2. Promote KZNIA within the profession

• through a website

• through updating events and promotions

• through providing relevant professional support to members

3. Promote architecture to the citizens of Durban

• enhance media presence

• commit to public participation in exhibitions

• ensure public events for World Architecture Day October 2011:

Architecture and Human Rights

4. Preparation for UIA 2014, entitled: architecture otherwhere

• can we imagine coming together as architects with the burden of our

geographical and historical trajectories temporarily suspended, upended,

turned upside down?

• can we suspend south looking north, east opposed to west?

• can we have less global stratifications embedded in our conversations?

• what probable worlds will emerge?

5. Engagement with COP 17:

• representation on Climate Change Advisory Forum

• faster, harder, smarter: working towards a shared vision for human(e)

settlements

6. Education: determining for office-based learning

• a tool to nurture transformation in the profession

7. Heritage

• addressing matters of accreditation to work on heritage buildings

• agitating for more structured conservation approaches