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“Toon mij uw huis en ik zal zeggen wie u bent”
[Show me your house and I will tell you who you are].
(Late 18th century triple gabled façade (now altered) of Hoop-op-Constantia with
Victorian architrave, c1850, T. Bowler, see Obholzer et al. 1989:112).
Cape Dutch Architecture History
When Jan van Riebeeck’s band of about one hundred mostly poverty
stricken, illiterate and unskilled men (a few with wives and children) had
splashed ashore in Table Bay one of their first tasks was to erect a canvas
covered shelter of planks. Thus began the architectural history of the Cape
settlement.
The interest in Cape Dutch architecture can be said to have begun in
1900 when Alice Fayne Trotter’s Old colonial houses of the Cape of Good
Hope was published with an Introduction by Herbert Baker, to whom the
first use of the term is attributed. Numerous works have since appeared,
for example De Bosdari (1953), Biermann (1955), Pearse (1959), Van der
Meulen (1962), Trefois (1968). All of these contribute to our knowledge of
Cape colonial architecture.
The design focus of my research is the unique form of rural
architecture that is traditionally referred to as “Cape Dutch”.
The architectural palette of the house used spatial design to distinguish hierarchy within the household and its site.
Using the spatial qualities of this design as a tool to understanding the segregated cityscape of Cape Town.
Earlier rendition of using the Cape Dutch house design as a map to navigated Cape Town
Brief 4 : AoS004
Cape Dutch house design as Cape Town
Brief 5: AoS005
Cape Dutch House - Cape Town
The concept of ‘home’ has been researched and theorized across disciplines - topics ranging from the idea of home, the interior, the psyche, liminal space, contested space to gender and politics..
Discussions of home can help better understand and challenge perceptions of self and the extension of self.
The Heterotopia
The directory plan
Each room serves as an archive of works discovered on the micro scale of the home and simultaneously on the macro scale of the city
Cape Dutch house design as Cape Town
Brief 6: AoS006
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