HARARE BUILDINGS

 I moved to Dubai in 2004. It seemed quite daunting at the time after 23 years in Zimbabwe, and at least 5 years of increasing economic stress and decline. We agreed on a 3 month trial period. Then I had a month back in Zimbabwe to put my affairs in order.

I spent some time digitising what I could of my accumulated papers and photos. Part of this was a project I had been working on for a few years to document the built history of Harare and Zimbabwe.

To impose some order on this, I created maps in Autocad and divided the city up into zones, with increasing resolution, zooming in towards the centre. I haven't looked at these for a long time, but my recent visit stimulated a renewed interest.

There are folders within folders with the maps acting as an index. In some cases there are folders for individual buildings with date built, architect, etc. Here I show a photograph I took on 2004 of Standard Bank in Manica Road at the bottom of First Street, by Alfred Cope-Christie, one of the architectural giants of the early Colonial period.

 

Call it nostalgia if you like. Google Earth has been taking me back in time to a city I lived in for Twenty years. My children grew up here. We lived in three different houses. I worked for the ministry of education, then I revived my aborted architecture career.

Compensation House is a rather splendid slab block with hints of Lee Corbusier and of the early South American modernists. Frank Lincoln had teamed up with Driver-Jowitt who introduced concrete-frame Modernism to Harare.

I don't know who did what in this case, but they did do some interesting work together. I knew Frank towards the end of his life. Indeed I attended his Funeral Service in Mauritius. He was quite a character.

The mosaic mural is on the national gallery by Peter Old field, who I also knew. The clock tower belongs to a government building in the Mediterranean-Classical style that served so well across the country in the 1930s when Major Roberts was director of Public Works.

Finally Westgate Shopping Centre. Concept design by an American firm, detailed development by Clinton & Evans, where I worked. My main contribution was a couple of courtyard office blocks along the northern edge.

Memories rescued, cobwebs dusted off. Smartphones do have a positive side. 🤣🤣

 

Since my recent visit to Zimbabwe I have gained a number of new connections. This feels really good. I spent 23 years there, brought up 3 children. Changed my citizenship. Sadly this was all drifting into the haze of history after 20 years of economic exile and inadvertently losing that citizenship.

I want to pass something on if I can. 73 years old and planning to retire at some point 🤔 Posting thoughts and memories here seems as good a way as any.

Shortly before I got the chance to move to Dubai, I compiled a brochure for Clinton & Evans where I had been working for a dozen years. I will share this over the next few days. Maybe someone will take an interest in recording the architectural history of 20th century Zimbabwe as I always intended to do.

Millennium Towers, Reserve Bank & Karigamombe Centre. Three C&E buildings dominating the skyline of downtown Harare, Samora Machel Avenue.

The good the bad and the ugly. All human life is here. Those are quotes, 😁I was the lead architect for six of these hotel projects. Four of them never got past first base. The other two were refurbishments. All the same I look back on that period with great fondness.

 

 I was the lead architect for six of these hotel projects. Four of them never got past first base. The other two were refurbishments. All the same I look back on that period with great fondness.

Mike Clinton showed great trust in his staff. Perhaps that was his secret sauce. Vic Falls was the peak I think. Flying up once a week in a small plane. Gardini and Sons working round the clock to get the critical work done in a very narrow shut-down slot.

I used to love going on site in Zimbabwe and Malawi. Such a cooperative spirit between architect and contractor. We talk about collaboration and BIM, but very often the reality is a scrabble for commercial advantage. We achieved good outcomes with simpler technology and much leaner documentation back in Africa.

Progress is over-rated in my humble opinion. It can become a runaway train. I still love Revit, speak up for BIM. But a word of caution, a pinch of salt. It's people who count at the end of the day. Keep it simple. Show some respect. Enjoy the moment.

Tatenda. Garai zvakanaka. (it's a song)

 

The Clinton & Evans machine, pumping out commercial projects in the 80s and 90s. What might have been if the politically leadership hadn't been so ideologically possessed.

Historically speaking, freedom fighters have a nasty habit of turning into corrupt elites, quite blind to their own failings. I didn't see this until I had been in Zimbabwe for a dozen years. It came to me slowly, and luckily I had been pushed out of my two previous jobs and ended up working for a strictly commercial firm. Lucky because I was insulated from the economic decline for a few years while my kids were approaching adulthood.

The first two projects are mine. Drawn with Autocad, and taken from concept to completion, with minimal support. Everything was lean in those days. We had no choice.

The image of the entrance to Century Towers was generated from an Autocad 3d model of the exterior shell. The glass came out looking very flat so I enhanced the image in my own intuitive way by selecting rectangles and lightening or darkening them until I was happy.

I wonder if I still have that file?

 

 

More office projects by Clinton & Evans. Two of these are mine, both featuring face brick, and neither of them in the town centre.

Mike Clinton was a big believer in a kind of double skin design for offices. The outer skin would be flush glazing with reflective glass. The inner would be conventional construction, steel frame windows and plastered brickwork with whatever arrangement worked for the internal layout. In between would be a space wide enough to walk around, and it would be ventilated.

The idea was to give thermal, acoustic and dust protection while allowing the exterior Elevations to have clean modern lines, unrelated to the internal glazing pattern.Was it effective? Cost effective? Honest?

You will have to form your own opinion. I was sceptical at first, but came around gradually. Think of it as a variation on the rain-screen façade