ARCHITECTURE OF THE EASTERN CAPE
Franco Frescura
To the outsider the eastern Cape presents something of an enigma. First impressions of its principal town, Port Elizabeth, tend to confirm its cliched reputation as a "windy and friendly city", but closer scrutiny reveals that the region's facade of assumed Victorian gentility can hide a complex and often hostile nature.
For one thing, its physical environment has a rugged beauty which belies its true character. It is given to prolonged droughts, periodic flooding, seasonal high winds and spreading desertification. Historically few parts have encouraged permanent settlement, as so many nineteenth century settlers from Europe discovered at their own cost. Campbell visited Bethelsdorp, near Port Elizabeth, in 1813 and found the ground to be rocky, the water brackish, the population transient and conventional agriculture almost impossible. He concluded that "it has a most miserable appearance as a village."
In spite of these difficulties immigrants to the region managed to survive and, in a few notable instances, their settlements even flourished. However being an area singularly devoid of natural resources, economic development tended to gravitate from the outset upon its one major asset, the natural harbour at Algoa Bay. As a result Port Elizabeth has grown largely as a response to economic and political events elsewhere in southern Africa. It acted as a funnel for Britain's military adventures in the interior, it benefited from the Oudtshoorn "feather flutter", the Kimberley diamond discoveries and later, the development of an apartheid infrastructure in the Ciskei/Transkei region. Significantly its most recent economic resurgence is directly linked to the discoveries of gas at Mossel Bay.
As a result of such wild economic swings, patronage in the eastern Cape has generally been conservative, with a narrow provincial base, and has acted as a restraining factor upon the creativity of local architects. Thus although such varied styles as English Georgian, Victorian neo-Gothic, Edwardian Art Nouveau, Classical Revivalism, Modern Movement, Art Deco and, more recently, Post Modernism have all found reflection in local buildings, few of these have reached the levels of flamboyance and flair achieved elsewhere in the country.
Indeed the eclectic and multi-faceted nature of local architecture may well be deemed to reflect the region's rich cultural heritage, but it also speaks of a people who are still trying to define an identity and life-goal for themselves. The harsh environment and insecure economic climate combine to produce an architecture which is invariably functional, often austere and always endowed with a distinct regional character. It also speaks of social insecurity, impermanence of land tenure and an inability to project one's future much beyond the next harvest, the next labour strike or the next economic crisis. The Port Elizabeth of today vocalises the fears of a broader Southern African society of tomorrow.
This edition of Architecture SA is dedicated to the built environment of the eastern Cape. It has attempted to portray a wide range of concerns. Some, like housing, may be perceived to fall within a larger pattern of issues common to Southern Africa as a whole. Others, like conservation, are more regional in nature. The tragic burlesque of Bisho, on the other hand, says much about the socio-political realities which the profession of architecture will have to face up to if it is to play a meaningful role in the context of a future southern Africa.
Ironically, the growth of a vibrant conservation movement in the eastern Cape may be linked to a lack of capital investment in local industry. This has made it expedient to conserve old structures rather than demolish them. As a result the region has managed to retain much of its historical urban fabric as well as many of its more important public and private structures. Perhaps it would be true to say that unlike Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth would rather go surfing than watch its cultural heritage being imploded on a Sunday afternoon as part of a corporate bread-and-circuses policy.
POSTSCRIPT
In 1988 I was invited to be the guest editor for an issue of Architecture SA on the subject of “Architecture in the Eastern Cape”. (Architecture SA: Guest Editor, May/June 1988. Special edition on The Architecture of the Eastern Cape).