“In Johannesburg, there is no mountain,” says architect Anthony Orelowitz. “There’s no sea.” He is referring to Table Mountain in Cape Town. Houses in Cape Town tend to look outwards, seeking to catch a glimpse of the ocean or frame a view of the mountain. “Here, you have to create your own habitat,” Anthony says.
That, at heart, was the basis of his response to Johannesburg’s urban character when he designed his own home in the city’s famously forested suburbs. Anthony is primarily a commercial architect. His firm, Paragon, is responsible for some of the city’s most significant architectural landmarks. But, he says, “I hadn’t done a house in nearly 15 years.” Nevertheless, working closely with architect Elliot Marsden and interior designer Julia Day, he conjured a vision of what it means to make a home in Joburg, at once perfectly suited to the city and utterly unlike its neighbours.
The plot of land Anthony was to build his home on had previously been a tennis court: accessed via a long driveway at the end of a “panhandle”, surrounded by neighbours on all sides and far from the street. It felt like a self-contained island with huge jungly trees in a sea of suburbia.
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