ESSAY FROM SOUTHERN AFRICA

Jeremy Smith reports from South Africa, where he and architect Peter Rich buckled up and set off together in search of rainbows.

There’s little point in talking about the weather in Southern Africa. Winter clouds rarely make the forecast, with the sun seemingly arriving larger than it did the day before and with a relentlessness matching only the emptiness and beauty of the landscape. Narratives are super-tough here, for this is somewhere many have travelled to but also a place many have travelled from. Out of Africa exchange rates these days have none of the weight of those colonial mining suitcases and, today, South Africa is packing short at least two million houses. That, according to the United Nations, “leaves some 12 million people in dire need of hous[ing]”. 1 Such altitudes take some climbing. So, before giving a masterclass to the South African Institute of Architects and a professorial lecture at…

You're reading a preview of

Architecture NZ (Digital) - 1 Issue, March-April 2025

DiscountMags is a licensed distributor (not a publisher) of the above content and Publication through Zinio LLC. Accordingly, we have no editorial control over the Publications. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including those made in Publications offered on our website, are those of the respective author(s) or publisher(s) and not of DiscountMags. DiscountMags does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, or usefulness of all or any portion of any publication or any services or offers made by third parties, nor will we be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information contained in any Publication, or your use of services offered, or your acceptance of any offers made through the Service or the Publications. For content removal requests, please contact Zinio.