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Overwhelming the Farber Building

A bland glass-plated giant will piggy-back onto a sound example of the Modern Movement in Cape Town

The Farber Building, one of the few extant examples of the Modern movement in architecture in Cape Town, is to be overwhelmed by an eighteen-storey plate-glass skyscraper. The developers had sought to have the 1935 building designed by Roberts & Small demolished, but the city fathers wisely refused permission. The price of its salvation, however, is that the boring skyscraper will piggy-back onto this actually rather inoffensive Modern structure.

What’s worse is that the massing of the new building is completely inappropriate to its site on the corner of Hans Strijdom-laan and Bree Street. As you can see in the final photo, it destroys the existing easy transition of structure heights and overwhelms the neighbouring space — though this will partly be “solved” when the open lot across Bree Street is developed as an equally dull office tower.

Needless to say, painting the clean white Modern building a dark grey is even more lamentable. Crap design and poor planning: Cape Town can do better!

Published at 8:54 pm on Tuesday 5 June 2012. Categories: Architecture Cape Town Errant Thoughts South Africa Tags: , , .
Comments

My late father, architect E Douglas Andrews, worked for Roberts and Small in those days.

— Lyndall Murray 24 Jul 2015 1:10 pm

My father bought his first vehicle in Cape Town at Faber in 1971, the Renault 4
Brings back many memories with the renault, could fill the tank for about R25.00 before the Suez problem, I think about 6 cents a litre in those days.

— David Brebner 24 Jul 2015 7:16 pm

I worked at Farbers (employed by Harry Farber himself) and worked in the spares department for a number of years in the 1950’s l went past there in April 2022 on holiday from Durban and although the building is still there, it is in terrible shape. I fear it will not last long.

— Leonard Yarlett 11 Jul 2022 12:17 pm
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