Saturday, March 9, 2024

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

 




BEING THERE (AMANZI)

I stayed in Zimbabwe for 23 years, as a resident and then a citizen, but never a tourist, although I did take holidays with my children. Camping or sometimes staying in National Parks lodges. Actually that's not quite true. I did get a couple of chances to play the tourist in the grand style towards the end of my time in this beautiful but troubled country.

I have the privilege of staying like a tourist this week at the beautiful Amanzi Lodge. Initially I was all for camping out at my house as I go through the last of my junk prior to sale. But I was persuaded otherwise, and I have honestly needed the tranquility of this green haven as I sort through the mountain of paperwork that I accumulated in my time as an educator and then an architect.

 




Zimbabwe has so much potential. I doubt that I will live to see its Renaissance now. It's a tragedy of the human condition that those who start out as liberators all too often end as tyrants. Sadly Africa is not renowned for leadership renewal, with some exceptions.

Still the people I meet are wonderful now as they were 40 years ago, when I decided to settle in this country that I had come to as a volunteer building teacher. So glad to reconnect.

 



Three items from the detritus of my past life in Zimbabwe.

Hand held scanner. An input device that I used with early versions of desktop publishing software. Those were the days when "WYSIWYG" was an exciting new concept. It was slow and the size limit was annoying, but I really felt empowered by this little beauty.

Digitizer tablet. Another input device, but for commands. I spent many hours writing menu files, and creating paper overlays. Was that effort translate into a net productivity gain?

General specification. Definitely pre-digital, but I did try to run it through a early version of OCR. In 1990s Zimbabwe, the materials and processes available were simple enough that you could do quite basic drawings and set standards by referring to this document.

I was attracted by the simplicity of life in Zimbabwe but at the same time I embraced digital tools eagerly when they arrived. It's a paradox. I struggle with it still.

 



The original MS Surface came with a pen that mimicked a fingertip. Squishy rubber blobs don't make for precision. But at least you are drawing directly into a digital file format. Colour fidelity that scanning struggles to deliver. Think of all the hours spent trying to get a pure white background without losing some linework.

I think this landscape may be my best work with this particular toolset. It does come close to the feel of a watercolour sketch.

I don't remember which app this was. Quite amazing how ephemeral the hardware and software tools have been. How could I possibly achieve anything like a mature style, or mastery of the craft, when my pencil box changes radically every time I open it?

All the same, it's been a hell of a ride, and the Samsung Note has brought some stability to my process in recent years. Rarely as relaxed and spontaneous as this though.

There are no solutions, only trade-offs.

 



 

This is an abstract landscape. A digital sketch from a dozen years ago. It amounts to little more than playing with the tools. But with the passage of time I can look back with some fondness. I don't even remember the techniques I used. There must have been some basic layering... or maybe not.

It seems to me that, in this kind of work the ideas come bubbling up from my subconscious of there own accord, and the conscious brain is like a friend, looking over my shoulder. "oh, that's nice, what about??... "hmm, doesn't it need something more going on in the central focus. Just where is the central focus anyway?"

It was similar when I used to play in a small blues group. I knew the chord structure and with luck would remember the words. (not my strong point) I listened to the bass and rhythm parts with my peripheral hearing. Then my fingers would do their thing, muscle memory or whatever. And there it is again, the conscious self, sitting on my shoulder. "take it down low, oh, here we go there's a question and answer thing happening here, where can we take that?"

I'm not claiming to be a great artist (whatever that means) Just saying that creative work in real time, improvising visually or musically, these are peak experiences for me.

 



Thursday, February 29, 2024

INTO AFRICA - A FORMER LIFE

 Somewhere roughly over Mogadishu. On my way back to Zimbabwe for what could perhaps be the last time. I hope not, but given how long it's been and all the different kinds of water that have flowed under myriad bridges... You never know.

I lost my citizenship during the pandemic. I had always intended to go back to Harare to retire. My hand was forced, but then I realised it no longer made any sense. That troubled country still clutches at my heart. It will be an emotional trip, I'm selling my house. Shipping a few things and letting go of the rest.

Almost 20 years now since I moved to Dubai. Economic necessity with university fees looming. I was working as hard as ever, but most of the projects never got off the ground. It was fun in a way, doing concept after concept. I think I imagined that we would bounce back in a year or two. Exploring an integrated 2D /3D approach but I didn't really have the tools yet.



I watched a podcast recently with the guy who started @last software. They knew that people were using it for free, but he didn't care. He reasoned that if the community grew big enough and people loved the experience, profitability would come in time. Interesting guy.

I was hoping to get my hands on Architectural Desktop but nobody had a broken version. Those were interesting times. Queueing all day for petrol. Buying groceries in bulk because they held their value better than paper money. Then suddenly I was on a plane to Dubai, little realising I would stay for twenty years.

But now the sands are starting to shift beneath my feet again.


These two buildings in Zimbabwe have something in common. They were designed by the same person. Apart from that, they are worlds apart, symbols perhaps of the enormous gap between rich and poor.

One is in the capital, also a city of contrasts, with its leafy northern suburbs, and dusty townships. The other is deep in the rural areas, where land tenure operates along traditional lines. I offer no judgement. Are modern ways better? By some standards yes. By others perhaps not.

Either way, resistance is futile. You can retreat into the simple physicality of a life on the land, but sooner or later the tentacles of modernity will seek you out.

I designed both these buildings and this week I saw them again after almost two decades. Time spent in that desert fantasy called Dubai, also a city of contrasts. Like so many Zimbabweans I went overseas in search of money, for the betterment of my family.

There have been ups and downs, but ultimately no regrets. And likewise, I remain proud of these two buildings, equally so, in fact. Though for different reasons.

It's great to be back.


Sam Levy's Village where life seems good. Could all of Zimbabwe have seen prosperity like this by now, almost 45 years after independence?



By way of contrast, here is Chivu, where we turned left, on our journey down "kumusha." Life goes on, in its own dusty way. There is a deeper history here. The post office echoes the government style of the 1930s. A small and simple building, but given dignity by just a hint of the classical spirit.

The hotel no longer operates, I think. Not a beautiful building perhaps, but redolent of the Dutch colonial style that once held sway in Southern Africa.

Finally, the retail traders of Indian origin who were willing in the 50s and 60s to invest in shops that served the needs of the majority population. A pragmatic approach to building but it has a character all the same, a recognisable ambience. It speaks the truth about itself.

"The Way We Build" is a never ending story of human life, of materials, climate and culture.


While at Rusununguko I started working on a children's alphabet book. As a project, it didn't go very far, but this was one of the early studies.

I was relatively fresh from the UK and a period of my life when I flirted with the idea of becoming an illustrator and visual story teller. I was fascinated by the challenge of using my freehand Rotring pen drawing style to depict the very different landscape and culture I found myself in.



On reflection, I decided that a simpler style would be good for young children learning to read, so I came up with this character called "hari" (sounding like a Christian name in English and the Shona word for a clay pot)

I thought all this work was lost. I didn't even remember very clearly what I had done, but while sorting through the remnants my papers in Zimbabwe, I came across these drawings.

A mixture of emotions. The excitement of discovery. Pride in the creativity of my younger self. Disappointment at how many projects I have started but never finished.