I’ve written before about how I believe that buildings have souls, and it’s struck me a lot recently, driving as I do along the length of
Rivonia Road every morning.
One of the first to go, that I noticed anyway, was the old
Alexander Forbes (previously Price Waterhouse Coopers) building, opposite
Sandton City. When it was built, I remember it looking all shiny and new, and
giving that stretch of Rivonia Road a whole different personality.
At the moment, the Village Walk is being systematically
destroyed, with massive demolition equipment ripping it apart, piece by piece.
I was never particularly fond of the centre – it always struck me as awkwardly
designed, with a weird ambience and a mostly peculiar smell – but it was a
Sandton landmark. And more importantly, it was home to probably tens, if not
hundreds, of businesses, who have no doubt either had to find a new home or
close down.
There’s also the set of buildings opposite (kind of) the
Gautrain Radisson Hotel. I’m not sure whether they were apartments or offices
(maybe that’s part of the problem), but that complex, with its faux Tudor
styling did provide a bit of personality to that stretch of Sandton. Every day
when I drive past, the pile of rubble changes shape, the buildings all gone but
for one, which is standing looking forlornly over the graveyard of its former
companions. No doubt, its days are numbered.
There was a massive complex over the road from that, that
was demolished last year sometime – townhouse-type buildings – and just one was
left standing too, I have no idea why. There are blocks of offices that have
been clearly earmarked for destruction – left to be overrun with plants (which
will grow anywhere, given the chance – yay nature) or covered with even more
advertising messages to be added to the gazillions that bombard us every day.
It’s funny, sometimes you only notice a building has gone
when workers are building a new one. For me, this happened with all the new buildings
over the road from Sandton City, on Alice Lane. I remember going to the Virgin
Money launch on one of those sites, when it was being built – and that was less
than eight years ago. It’s been removed, to make way for a new precinct. But I can’t remember any of the other
buildings that have been flattened on that block, to make way for new ones.
In writing a recent article for the Mail & Guardian, I
interviewed a property management company, where the spokesperson said that so
many buildings in Sandton are being demolished because property owners want the
higher incomes that can be achieved with higher rise buildings. There’s also
the fact that many of the older buildings were not energy efficient, or even
particularly pleasant to be in. Working space design has changed, with a
greater focus on open plan and less focus on ego offices.
This all makes sense.
But I’m sad for the buildings that are gone (and sadder for
the last ones to go, that get to watch the destruction around them). They’re
just buildings, I know. Bricks, metal and mortar. And some glass and plastic,
probably. They’re not people, with feelings and memories.
But those buildings have been home to dreams, ambitions, soaring
careers, falling fortunes, budding friendships, unresolvable feuds and the
simple day to day drudgery of all the people who spent more time there than in
their own homes, probably.
And it just feels sad to relegate them to the dump without
honouring all the life, love, drama and beautiful ordinariness that they were
home to, for so long. It’s these that give buildings their souls, I believe.
Maybe it’s not so much mourning the buildings that are gone, but tipping our
hats to all that happened in them – and the realisation that, in a world where
so much is transient, intangible, fleeting, that not even buildings are
permanent, no matter how iconic (or not) they may be.
