UNEARTHED

A FORGOTTEN GEM- and a secret garden - were uncovered and celebrated in this CURVACEOUS ALTERATION that pays homage to its hidden architectural roots.

- GRAHAM WOOD

“I THINK THE SUNSET SOLDIT, ” says architect Vedhant Maharaj. The outlook from this house on the crest of the Parkview ridge stretches across 270 degrees of the city’s urban forest – and the sunsets are spectacular.

The character of this unexpected Modernist gem was buried beneath various additions and alterations, not least a steel mono-pitched roof that had been plonked on top. “But it had good bones. You could see that,” says Vedhant, who founded Rebel Base Collective, the multidisciplinary architecture and design studio, in 2017.

A little investigation revealed the home had been designed in 1935 by a firm called Small and Schaerer, who created several well-known Joburg buildings, including Central Fire Station. By the 1930s, they were known for “an eclectic Modernistic style, with balconies jutting out at irregular spacings” as one account on architectural heritage database Artefacts describes it. It also mentions that their designs “tend towards the picturesque” – an approach that emphasises not just formal beauty but also a sense of the sublime.

Now owned by Nothando Ndebele, this Parkview home fits that description pretty well. With the tackedon additions cleared away, a double-storey Modernist house emerged with, as Vedhant describes it, “little pull-out balconies and cubes and blocks”. Inside, many of the original features remained intact, from the wooden floors to the sweeping, Art Deco-inflected staircase and balustrade. Vedhant and Nothando both refer to the soaring interior as having something of the “church” or “cathedral” about it.