From Bauhaus to our House

This striking abode in Cape Town has been carefully renovated to become a cosy home and a unique showcase of modern design

- Robyn Alexander

Stylist and interior designer Laureen Rossouw first saw this property five years ago. She and her lawyer husband Koos were about to move out of their City Bowl apartment in Cape Town, South Africa, when she spotted a picture of “a dilapidated house with classic Bauhaus lines” in the papers. “I thought it might be a bad picture or wishful thinking,” she says, but she quickly made her way to the house, which was ideally located in the City Bowl suburb of Oranjezicht, on the edge of one of Cape Town’s most charming parks.

As soon as she saw the characterful building, Laureen was smitten. “I immediately phoned Koos to tell him I had found my dream house. He loved it too, although when he saw how much work there was to do, he couldn’t hide his disappointment,” she says. It took much persuasion to convince him, she adds— although not that much, it seems, since “at 3pm on the same day, we signed [the offer].”

NATURAL CONNECTIONS

And so began a lengthy process of planning and building, conceived by Laureen in partnership with her daughter Renée Rossouw. Renée is an architect by training and an acclaimed designer who was part of a group of young African creatives who had worked on furniture giant IKEA’s Överallt collection in 2019.