The architectural history of healthcare in South Africa remains greatly understudied, as do the consequences of the 1918–19 Spanish Flu, which ravaged its population. Yet that pandemic had great consequences for South African society, spatial planning and the development of healthcare, of which the latter two were still in their infancy at the time. This article explores the link between disease and design in South Africa through the presentation of the histories of selected hospitals, maternity homes, orphanages and a special care school designed by émigré Dutch architects from the 1920s to the 1970s. It is the product of desktop and archival research, site visits and interviews undertaken in both South Africa and the Netherlands. It outlines the disparity of care that was provided for different groups and is a first attempt to identify healthcare ideas transposed into the subcontinent fuelled by the tragic experiences of the Spanish Flu pandemic. Due to this health crisis, communities – structured in terms of language, faith and race – attempted to develop their own facilities for the care of their own. Where communities had no means of their own, charitable organisations tried to fill the void. Over the course of the twentieth century, public healthcare was centralised, but many of the community and charitable institutions persist. By chance or choice, émigré Dutch architects made a disproportionately large contribution to the development of healthcare facilities in South Africa, not only in the number and range of facilities they designed, but also by introducing contemporary ideas into South African healthcare design.@en

Pieter Simon Dijkstra (1884-1968) is regarded as a noted Protestant church designer in South Africa, but his contribution to the built environment in the Netherlands is much less well known. His life and career in the country of his birth are of interest because they are closely aligned with the religious turbulence of the period, in which the anti-revolutionary clergyman-politician Abraham Kuyper played a prominent role. The building of new Reformed churches and schools was a direct expression of the zealous determination to spread the ‘true faith’. The architecture of the new Reformed churches was often modest and restrained, influenced by Kuyper’s view that the church space should serve the ‘gathering of the faithful’ and be arranged in such a way that congregants could see and hear one other and the minister. Dijkstra, born to a clergyman father with a missionary zeal, delivered various designs in this Reformed context. Although Dijkstra grew up and trained in the northern Netherlands, Zeeland became his main area of operation. In 1908, after time spent working in Groningen (Spijk) and Germany, Dijkstra settled in Vlissingen (Flushing) where he set up his own architectural practice. At the time Vlissingen was an internationally oriented city undergoing a radical transformation under the direction of the liberal alderman of public works, J.G. van Niftrik jr. (1889-1924). Dijkstra designed two new hall-type Reformed churches: one in Geersdijk (1910) and the Eben Haëzer church in Vlissingen (1910). There followed a remarkable inter-denominational collaboration after the English Presbyterian community’s place of worship in the St Jacob’s Church was destroyed by fire in 1911. After Dijkstra’s initial design for a simple hall church was rejected, the authoritative Catholic architect Pierre Cuypers (1827-1921) was commissioned to provide a sketch design for a small yet monumental building. Cuypers’ design for a neogothic church based on an octagonal plan was further elaborated by Dijkstra. The church was inaugurated in 1914. This unique project was followed by the Vlaswiek Reformed Church in Bovensmilde (Drenthe, 1915) and the Reformed Church in Kamperland (Noord-Beveland, 1923). The design for this robust church with corner tower and amphitheatre arrangement is in line with Kuyper’s views and foreshadows Dijkstra’s later church designs in South Africa. Dijkstra designed school buildings for the various Reformed communities in and around Vlissingen (in Koudekerke and Arnemuiden) and social housing estates, including three for the Protestant-Christian housing association Gemeenschappelijk Belang (Common Interest), partly in collaboration with P.J. Hamers (1882-1966). Among his commissions for retail spaces is the striking expressionist radio shop he designed for H.J. van der Meer en Zonen (1923 and 1926), still extant. In 1927, all out of the blue, Dijkstra decided to emigrate with his family to South Africa, where he continued to develop as a Reformed church architect. This article not only provides an assessment of his Dutch oeuvre as a prefiguration of his South African work, but it also positions him as an interesting architect within the Dutch context of his day, characterized as it was by verzuiling (lit. ‘pillarization’, a form of compartmentalization along socio-political or religious lines).@en

A Conservation Management Plan (CMP) for governing, managing, maintaining and eventual changes of the Aula Building at the Delft University of Technology, aimed at optimizing the balance between the value as a listed national monument and the value for daily use of the building.
The CMP provides advice to all parties concerned, based on studies of the building concerning the Cultural Building History; Use and Safety; Concrete Structures and Surfaces; Energy and services; and Public (Outdoor) Spaces.
The CMP however is not a plan for renovation, restauration or modernization of the Aula Building. The advice provides considerations and principles to be used when a plan for the building is developed.
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Addressing the complex legacies of the past in architectural education and built constructions, calls for a reconsidering of the principles of architectural design and conservation. The current challenges of housing, sustainable development and heritage adaptation present huge dilemmas for architects. Yet today architects are only by exception trained to detect heritage values prior to drafting their interventions for adaptive reuse or upgrading. To this day, Western architectural thinking is influenced by the Vitruvian triad Firmitas, Utilitas and Venustas, and the truncated maxim ‘Form Follows Function’ as disseminated by the protagonists of the Modern Movement. These established a divide between the design for new-build and the care of already existing buildings. This divide is marked by the two Charters of Athens: the 1931 Carta del Restauro adopted at the First International Congress of Architects and Technicians of Historic Monuments, and La Chartre d’Athènes presented by Le Corbusier as a result of the 4th CIAM Congress on the Functional City (1933). This paper attempts to bridge the identified divide by adding the idea of ‘Dignitas’ (dignity) as an equal virtue to the Vitruvian triad. Though not new for itself, this concept may aid to raise awareness of architectural dignity in extant buildings.@en

Final report of the research project KaDEr@en

Values are at the core of design for the built environment. Values influence not only the final outcome of a design process, but also the process of design (who gets involved, how this engagement is managed, and whose voices are heard in the design process). Values also influence how spatial designs are used, preserved and managed. This chapter explores the growing awareness of the city and (heritage) values commons and identifies ways of dealing with these abstract concepts. It concludes that values only exist when they are commonly held and that built heritage values emerge through communication between people exchanging ideas about the existing environment the humans have created. Where in the past this communication was between experts, we are now broadening the discussion to include every stakeholder. Values are our intangible commons, and their curation should be a common endeavour.@en

This paper continues on from a recently completed research project on shared built heritage of South Africa and the Netherlands from 1902–61, mainly created by Dutch–born architects. It focuses on two pioneering female architects in South Africa, Gertruida Brinkman (1906–77, née Siemerink) and Eleanor Ferguson (also Stakesby–Lewis; 1900–82), both of Dutch descent and married to South African architects. They were not only the first two women architects to lead a private practice in southern Africa, but also introduced ideas of the Modern Movement through their built projects, while continuously demonstrating a great concern for quality of life. Brinkman, graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand, was based in Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha). She undertook two ‘grand tours’, through respectively Europe (1939) and Brazil (1954), which influenced her oeuvre. The other protagonist, the globetrotter Ferguson, trained at the Delft Institute of Technology (now TU Delft) and relocated subsequently to South Africa. With her third husband, she set up a joint practice in Johannesburg in 1938 and acted, under her maiden name, as its principal designer. The personal circumstances of both pioneers resulted in other priorities than seeking publicity in architectural journals. They focussed on designing and building, alongside a general social commitment additional to raising their children. Consequently, their legacies are hitherto scarcely known, except for some incidental references, which triggered our interest. By applying a combination of field, archival and bibliographical investigations with oral history research, we can now draft portraits of these two pioneering women architects. Their discovered portfolios reached far beyond the domestic sphere, including amongst others clubs, office buildings, schools, hospitals and industrial buildings and complexes. These discoveries show that biographical research is essential to augment the limited bibliographical information available on the contributions made by female architects to the built environment.@en

Deze publicatie is een weerslag van de uitkomsten van het KaDEr-project (Karakteristiek Duurzaam Erfgoed) dat de TU Delft in opdracht van en in samenwerking met de Provincie Gelderland heeft uitgevoerd. De lezer wordt meegenomen in de zoektocht om invulling te geven aan de relatie wetenschap, praktijk en beleid rondom duurzaam erfgoed op verschillende schaalniveaus. Aan de hand van acht bijdragen wordt gereflecteerd op het proces en de uitkomsten. De auteurs gaan in op een thema dat gedurende de afgelopen vier jaar aan de orde is geweest. Ook nemen zij stelling in met betrekking tot het debat dat naar aanleiding van dit thema gevoerd is en in veel gevallen nog verder gevoerd kan worden. Daarnaast hebben we een aantal meer zijdelings betrokkenen gevraagd om stelling te nemen met een uitspraak naar aanleiding van hun ervaringen tijdens het project.

Het KaDEr-project omvatte na een intensieve voorbereiding vier kalenderjaren. We denken dat op het onderdelen nog een vervolg behoeft. KaDEr staat dus voor Karakteristiek Duurzaam Erfgoed en in het project is gewerkt aan energetische duurzaamheid, financieel gezond perspectief, functioneel gebruik en het borgen kennis op lange termijn. Het project zelf werd opgebouwd rond vier Living Labs om theorie en praktijk aan elkaar te koppelen:
 Living Lab XL-Stad: Zutphen, Winterswijk en Elburg. Daarbij droegen we vanuit KaDEr bij aan een onderzoek naar Kerkenvisies en de Energietransitie voor diverse gemeenten;
 Living Lab L-Stad: Landgoederen, waar het Baaksebeek-gebied en Gelders Arcadië centraal stonden en het onderzoek resulteerde in de betreffende Ontwerpatlas;
 Living Lab M-Typologie: Kerken. Nationaal en regionaal een opgave die veel aandacht kreeg de afgelopen vier jaar. Specifiek keken wij vanuit KaDEr naar het functioneren van Energiescans en de Financiële Duurzaamheid aan de hand van de Eusebiuskerk in Arnhem en de Stevenskerk in Nijmegen;
 Living Lab S-Gebouw: Reuversweerd. Een (bouw)locatie die we vier jaar lang intensief hebben gevolgd en waar alle partijen veel van hebben geleerd. We hebben daarnaast onderzoek gedaan naar Afwegingsmodellen voor het verduurzamen van monumenten en de Gevolgen van het na-isoleren van monumenten met binnenisolatie.

Er werden binnen de Living Labs en deelonderzoeken diverse overkoepelende thema’s aan de orde gesteld en beproefd en daar is lering uitgetrokken. Dit heeft zich ook vertaald in het gaandeweg aanpassen van de aanpak en in de voorbereiding van nieuw beleid. Het geeft ook aanleiding om op lange termijn zaken anders te gaan doen. Wat er is geleerd en waar bijgestuurd kan worden is in acht hoofdstukken samengevat. We reflecteren op het proces van het KaDEr-project. We geven adviezen voor het bijsturen van beleid. Een visie op de toekomst, vanuit de provincie zelf, komt vervolgens aan de orde. Tijdens de vier jaren van uitvoering van het project is er op diverse schaalgebieden geacteerd.

Op het grote schaalgebied is met het Living Lab L-Gebied (Landgoederen), een koppeling met het Europese Innocastle project gemaakt. Daar hebben ook ontwerpprojecten met studenten plaatsgevonden en er is een Ontwerpatlas samengesteld.

Het leren van elkaar stond van het begin af aan bij het KaDEr-project centraal Samen met het Gelders Restauratie Centrum en de Monumentenwacht Gelderland zijn er onderwerpen via kennisoverdracht en workshops uitgewerkt. Via de koppeling van onderwijs aan bijvoorbeeld de stad werd in het Living Lab XL-Stad tussen studenten, gemeenteambtenaren en gebouweigenaren samengewerkt om van elkaar te leren.

Bijzonder is het kerkelijk erfgoed en de wijze waarop de Kerkenvisie als instrument een rol zal spelen bij de herontwikkeling van kerken. Dit is in de praktijk samen met drie gemeenten uit de Oost-Achterhoek uitgewerkt. In het KaDEr project komen zo theorie en praktijk mooi samen. Concreet kunnen en zullen beslissingen op het schaalgebied van gebouw en materiaalgebruik belangrijke gevolgen hebben voor opdrachtverlening, uitvoering, instandhouding en subsidieverstrekking aan erfgoed.

Door alle schalen heen richtten we steeds de blik op de toekomst. Daarbij kunnen we aan de energietransitie, die steeds urgenter wordt, niet voorbijgaan. Daar ligt zeker voor historische binnensteden een uitdaging. In twee gemeenten is hiervoor een inspirerende driedaagse ‘roadshow’ gehouden en is een energietransitie roadmap uitgewerkt.

Het KaDEr-project heeft geleid tot een veelheid aan leerzame ervaringen die nu in de nabije de toekomst kunnen inspireren en hun weerslag krijgen in provinciaal beleid dat een duurzame instandhouding van monumentaal erfgoed binnen de provincie Gelderland een stap verder brengt. Duurzame instandhouding biedt een visie op de lange termijn en is de basis voor een maatschappelijk verantwoorde werkwijze.

Het KaDEr-project kon alleen tot stand komen door een goede samenwerking tussen en vele krachtsinspanningen van vele partijen en personen. Namens de TU Delft bedankt de redactie van de publicatie KaDEr-stellingen alle betrokken personen bij de provincie Gelderland, de gemeenteambtenaren in Zutphen, Elburg, Winterswijk, Aalten en Oost-Gelre, de partners van de Gelderse Erfgoed Alliantie, de monumenteneigenaren en hun architecten, adviseurs en projectleiders op locatie en met name die op Reuversweerd. Daarnaast was het succes van KaDEr niet mogelijk geweest zonder de inzet van docenten, onderzoekers vanuit drie afdelingen van de faculteit Bouwkunde van de TU Delft en de vele studenten die vier jaar lang aan het project hebben gewerkt en het tot een inspirerend en leerzaam geheel hebben gemaakt.
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The chapter explores the architectural legacy of South Africa and presents numerous highlights from over 300 years. @en

The newly created Union of South Africa attracted over seventy Dutch-born architects and civil engineers who migrated to practice their profession there, when the country was still part of the British Commonwealth (1910-1961). These Hollanders brought with them knowledge on both modern technologies and global values of modernity, but they also struggled with the special conditions of a deeply divided society. Their legacy is subject of a transcontinental research and dissemination project, 'Tectonic ZA Wilhelmiens'. This explores their hitherto unrecognised contribution to the globalisation of the Modern Movement, their built residue and its local relevance for today and the future in a vastly changed environment. This paper presents the legacy of two Dutch modernists in South Africa, Henk Niegeman and Jaap van Niftrik. Their oeuvres present not only a geographic translocation and assimilation of ideas, but have also survived into a new South African era.

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Several Dutch émigré architects contributed considerably to the civil infrastructure of South Africa over the C20, but most of their work remains obscure as they were produced in the name of the municipal departments they served, such as Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Cape Town. Some other Dutch-born architects working in private practice were commissioned by specific organisations for designing schools, hospitals and other community facilities. This chapter contribution presented new information and insights into the contribution of these architects in the infrastructural development of South Africa.@en

The multi-faceted topic of building for communities of faith in South Africa during the C20 is explored. This contribution signals not only that there were a great variety of religious denominations for which Dutch-related designs were made for buildings and applied arts, but also that these places have exerted a great influence in the local community and town development.@en

How Heritage Learns explores the dynamics that come into play when public housing becomes valourised as heritage in the Netherlands and how that, in turn modulates the evolution of this protected housing. It builds on the foundation set by the thesis of Steward Brand, that buildings learn through the adaptation of their fabric to external forces: changing fashion, technologies and economy. This dissertation investigates different key drivers for change: Energy, Economy and Comfort (2E+Co). To understand how and why the housing heritage evolved over time, an ecology of ideas is developed that sees buildings as organisms evolving and learning in their environments, providing a multi-sided theoretic model for analysis. Three case studies are extensively explored: the Justus van Effen Quarter in Rotterdam (1921–22) and the King’s Wives of Landlust (1937–38) and Jeruzalem public housing complexes (1949–52), both in Amsterdam. These are all exemplary monuments of Dutch public housing and all three have undergone repeat renovations since their construction. The research not only highlighted their various learning cycles, but also uncovered exciting new information on their origins and histories. What sets public housing heritage apart is the presence of a Story. However, the case studies reveal that the Stones were modulated by dominant 2E+Co ambitions common to all public housing. Above all, How Heritage Learns shows that past promises of increased performance and efficiency were never fulfilled. Without structured reflective observation we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes. Such lessons are all the more important at a time when the built environment stands at the cusp of another revolution driven by environmental imperatives.@en

This catalogue features archival photographs related to the work of four Dutch immigrant architects: Mello Damstra, Ed Payens, John van de Werke and Jaap van Niftrik. Their various design works in the C20th South African context illustrate hybridity and international exchanges in architecture and serve as evidence of a unique shared architectural heritage. The publication forms part of the Tectonic ZA Wilhelmiens research project of the Department of Architecture, University of Pretoria, supported financially by the Netherlands Embassy in Pretoria through its Shared Cultural Heritage Programme. It is intended as a companion piece to the the book Common Ground: Dutch-South African Architectural Exchanges 1902-61 published in 2021 by LM Publishers, the Netherlands@en

The contribution outlines cross-continental careers of six Dutch-born architects who had worked both in the Netherlands and South Africa, and often also in other countries. The small yet representative selection includes JE Ferguson, JC Jongens, JC Meischke, HTO Niegeman, AJC Voorvelt and C Wegerif.@en

Continuity and change have become crucial themes for the built environment and heritage buildings; also in the education and practice of architects. Embedding built heritage values into studio-based design education is a daunting new challenge that demands new didactic perspectives and tools. To address the dilemmas that come with design assignments for adaptive reuse, an experiment with new didactic analytical tools has been conducted in the Heritage & Architecture (H&A) architectural design studios at the Delft University of Technology. The analysis attempts to connect matter—physical structures—and meaning in a structured graphical process through predefined mapping exercises. Our aim is to introduce a step-by-step method for exploration that can form the foundation of values-based design from built heritage. Central to our multifaceted approach is a specially developed matrix that is meant to support design-oriented analysis of heritage buildings. This paper situates the H&A perspective on the adaptive reuse of valorised buildings within the heritage discourse and architectural design education in general and further gives insight into the didactics, the tools, their uses and initial results. After a critical reflection on our points of departure, based in an evaluation of results, peer discussion and student evaluation, we conclude that the applied methodology is instructive to the educational goals but also merits further development. One of the lessons learnt for future teaching includes allowing students freedom to discover values themselves. An important conclusion is that an earlier and broader foundation that engages the continuation of tangible and intangible heritage values in the ever-changing built environment is required in architectural educational practice.

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the conceptualisation of the Smart Sustainable City (SSC) with new concepts of resilience thinking in relation to urgent societal challenges facing the built environment. The paper aims to identify novel methodologies for smart reuse of heritage sites with a pluralist past as integral to inclusive urban development.

Design/methodology/approach – SSC concepts in the global literature are studied to define a new reference framework for integrated urban planning strategies in which cultural resilience and co-creation matter. This framework, augmented by UNESCO’s holistic recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL), was tested in two investigative projects: the historic centre of South Africa’s capital Tshwane and the proximate former Westfort leprosy colony.

Findings – The research confirms that SSC concepts need enlargement to become more inclusive in acknowledging “cultural diversity” of communities and engaging “chrono-diversity” of extant fabric. A paradigm shift in the discourse on integrated urban (re)development and adaptive reuse of built heritage is identified, influenced by resilience and sustainability thinking. Both projects show that different architectural intervention strategies are required to modulate built fabric and its emergent qualities and to unlock embedded cultural energy.

Originality/value – Together with a critical review of SSC concepts and the HUL in relation to urban (re) development, this paper provides innovative methodologies on creative adaptation of urban heritage, reconciling “hard” and “soft” issues, tested in the highly resilient systems of Tshwane.@en

The Section for Heritage and Architecture of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at the Delft University of Technology specializes in architectural education for adaptive reuse of heritage buildings, with a specific focus on the built heritage of the 20th century. Our approach combines architectural design and technological knowledge with an approach that places values as central informants. Here we present our approach, explore the past and project a future evolution of our educational methodology. Finally, we reflect on the lasting relevance of the tangible and intangible heritage of the recent past as aim and source of our educational practice.@en

Educating heritage architects requires not only a thorough knowledge of extant built fabric and the methodologies for repair (tangible), but also understanding of intangible values and their relationship to the tangible, in short relating matter to meaning. To this aim a Heritage Value Matrix has been developed as a graphic mapping, analysis and evaluation tool. This has been tested through application in education practice and is presented in this paper.@en