Johannesburg dates its beginnings to the discovery of gold in 1886. Its downtown, where skyscrapers tower over deep mines, was abandoned by business in recent decades, and squatters turned the office towers into high-rise slums. But now, as the city celebrates its 125th birthday, creative South Africans are seeing gold in warehouses and cheap office space, and they're revitalising neighbourhoods with galleries, museums, shops, studios, clubs and restaurants.
When Fiona Rankin-Smith was making plans to renovate an office building to house a new museum, she thought she would be building a lonely outpost for art in gritty central Johannesburg. But nine years and $4.7 million (Dh17.2 million) later, as she prepared to move 10,000 African paintings, sculpture and other pieces out of storage and into the new Wits Art Museum, she finds South Africa's economic hub is returning to its roots.
When the museum opens early next year in the Braamfontein neighbourhood, its neighbours will include private galleries drawn to the area in part by plans for the Wits, which is owned by Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand.
One side of the glass and concrete museum features brickwork that resembles basketweave. Brass knobs dot another façade covered in blue tiles from the 1970s-era building's original exterior, a pattern inspired by Zulu beadwork from the museum that incorporated British brass buttons.
Johannesburg's nickname is Egoli or "city of gold", and antiquarian book dealer Jonathan Klass says downtown draws its resilience from the energy that made it a mining capital and from "its ability to change".
"People are accepting the change and trying to create the change and go with it," he said.
Collectors Treasury, the shop started by Klass, his brother Geoff and their late mother, has had homes in several buildings in and around central Johannesburg since 1974. The brothers have seen other attempts to revive downtown, and praise the latest because it is bringing back residents and business. An area that was a business district for whites under apartheid is home to a vibrant multinational community, including Africans from elsewhere on the continent.
Hoarders' headquarters
Collectors Treasury's home since 1991 is a hoarder's paradise — eight storeys of books and other antiques in the former headquarters of a company that imported printing presses. It's located at the gateway of an eastern downtown neighbourhood developers call Maboneng Precinct. Maboneng means "place of light" in Sotho, one of South Africa's 11 official languages.
Renowned South African artist William Kentridge, whose grandfather once had law offices in downtown Johannesburg, has moved into a studio in a complex of Maboneng warehouses that now houses hip shops and apartments. The neighbourhood has an art house cinema.
New York-born musician Joao Orecchia organised a series of concerts in Maboneng over the past year in not-quite renovated buildings. Audiences climbing six storeys to a rooftop for one concert could see the rubble of what had been the elevator from the staircase wrapped around the shaft. Once on the roof, they were captivated by the view, Orecchia said.
Artists "aren't afraid to come and find a space and do something," Orecchia said. "As an artist, you almost have an obligation to contribute to that picture of what Johannesburg is."
Trendy clubs and restaurants are popping up to serve gallery hoppers. At Randlords, the safari-chic decor of antelope skin rugs and beads looks wonderful. The club on the roof of a 22-storey office tower was named to evoke the mining magnates who made their fortunes on the rand — or ridge — of rock underpinning Johannesburg. It opened as a bar when the World Cup soccer games came to South Africa in 2010.
The Nelson Mandela Bridge stretches from the foot of Randlords across a river of railway tracks to Newtown, a performing-arts hub. Newer dance and concert venues have been established around Newtown's venerable Market Theatre, where political plays for interracial audiences once challenged apartheid thinking.
All these sites are easy to reach thanks to a rapid bus system known as Rea Vaya that got up and running in time for the World Cup. Soon a central station on the bus routes will be connected to a new light rail to the airport.
Johannesburg is struggling to get the balance right, making a city centre that is comfortable for the affluent, the poor and struggling middle classes who have made downtown their home since apartheid ended. But there is still plenty of work to be done.
Johannesburg, South Africa
FLY... Emirates
- From Dubai to Johannesburg for Dh4,530.
- Or try Qatar Airways, from Dubai (via Doha) to Johannesburg for Dh4,610.
- — Information courtesy the Holiday Lounge by Dnata. Ph: 04 3492886
