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.