South African Colonial Architecture and the case of Durban City Hall. An integration of different European architectural cultures
Abstract
The Bay of Durban was discovered in 1497. The city – founded in the cove – was in a strategic position for trades. However, the municipality did not taste an intense development until the nineteenth century when it was annexed to the United Kingdom. In fact, included in an international trade system, the port suffered an economic progress which rapidly transformed the port in the principal center of the region. The opportunity drew the attention of many workers from all over the neighboring provinces, who moved to Durban looking for a job opportunity. This presence of different communities and cultures fashioned both local life and architecture. The rural houses maintained a connection with Dutch heritage tradition of first colonists, as well as a more formal and monumental style had been imported during British domination in order to characterize the government buildings. In this respect, the new City Hall – built in the early 1900’s – with its neo-Baroque-style provided the most stable link to European cultural, developing the model of Belfast’s City Hall in Ireland at that time under construction.
References
C. E. Brett, Buildings of Belfast, 1700-1914, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1967.
A. Brodie (eds.), Directory of British Architects, 1834-1914, II, A&C Black, London, 2001.
E. H. Brookes, C. de B. Webb, A history of Natal, University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg, 1965.
G. Dominy, H. Paterson, Fort Napier. The imperial base that shaped the city, in Pietermaritzburg, 1838-1988: A New Portrait of an African City, edited by J. P. Laband, R. Haswell, University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg, 1988, pp. 102-109.
A. Duminy, B. Guest (eds.), Natal and Zululand from Earliest Times to 1910: A New History, University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg, 1989.
A. Felstead, J. Franklin (eds.), Directory of British Architects, 1834-1914, I, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2001.
H. F. Fynn, The Diary of Henry Francis Fynn, Shuter and Shoote, Pietermaritzburg, 1969.
B. Guest, Gandhi’s Natal. The State of the Colony in 1893, in “Nataliaâ€, 23/24 (1993/1994), pp. 68-75.
B. Guest, J. M. Sellers (eds.), Enterprise and exploitation in a Victorian Colony: aspects of the economic and social history of colonial Natal, University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg, 1985.
W. P. M. Henderson, Durban: fitty years municipal History, Robinson & Co., Durban, 1904.
M. Hillebrand, Aspects of architecture in Natal, 1880-1914, Unpublished MA. Thesis, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1975.
Z. A. Konczacki, Public finance and economic development of Natal, 1893-1910, Duke University Press, Durham, 1967.
N. Mercury, Urban Municipal Buildings: Important Meeting of Town Council, Historical Association of South Africa (September 17, 1904).
A. Muntoni, Lineamenti di Storia dell’architettura contemporanea, Laterza, Bari, 2007.
I. S. Okoye, Architecture, History and Debate on identity in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa, in “Journal of the Society of Architectural Historiansâ€, 56, 1997, pp. 204-206.
D. Picton-Seymour, Historical Buildings in South Africa, Struikhof Publishers, Cape Town, 1989.
C. Robertazzi, Breve storia del Sud Africa, Sansoni, Firenze, 1959.
J. Schellekens, A Note on the Dutch Origins of South African Colonial Architecture, in “Journal of the Society of Architectural Historiansâ€, 56, 1997, pp. 204-206.
J. Van Der Meulen, Northern European Origins of South African Colonial Architecture, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 22, 1963, pp. 51-61.
