Design is a virus

KwaThema, after an election, into a recession.

It’s surprising.

Optimistic.

Saturday’s new visitors to KwaThema were Professor Bruno de Meulder from Leuven and Eindhoven and Randall Bird from Wits, with shared interests spanning architectural history, housing and urbanism. Like with all visitors to the site, we began by climbing up the beerhall to the gallery and looking over the park. It remains an exceptional space from which to take stock of the township.

The beerhall has been neglected, and the basket hoop and board stolen. Someone’s reinforced the street edge barriers to keep cars out, which is good, but there seems to be a near complete absence of ownership of the structure. Yet on either side, there are great signs of the park itself coming into its own as a public space.

The Imvelo Youth Development brigade which includes some of the Project volunteers were taking a break from gardening the west side of the park, which they’ve transformed with bollards, signs, flowers and two paved shortcuts. There’s no vandalism of their work.

 

We strolled over to Stan’s Place to find that he was out at his new venture, the Zanzibar Jazz Lounge, which he has opened in the old qota shop that backs onto the park. It’s a cool venue with artworks, a stoep at the front, and the obligatory citigolf-based sound system. Stan’s mates were enjoying their quartz and jazz.

It really struck me as I strolled back to the car how much this place had grown on me in just a few weeks. I felt simultaneously sad about the damaged court and thrilled by the unexpected contamination of design and build into the surrounding community space. Perhaps the beerhall, in all its emptiness, is destined to remain ours, as outsiders, or noone’s. But still a space for the imagination to fill.

We stopped at Anthony’s Chess Academy on the way out. The park has been given play equipment and was full of kids jostling to use the swings. And the Academy is doing great. On their way to the Nationals in Cape Town in December, in their new white T-Shirts.