THE RED MUSEUM

Jo Noero's Red Museum in Port Elizabeth has been named global Building of the Year 2012 by Icon magazine in London, writes Charl Blignaut.  All text and images courtesy of Visi Magazine

An art gallery in a Port Elizabeth township was named the best building in the world this year at a glittering ceremony in London [last] week to win Building of the Year 2012 at the inaugural Icon Awards for architecture

When City Press contacted him [last] week, winning designer Jo Noero of Cape Town’s Noero Architects, said: “I didn’t even go to London because I really wasn’t expecting it.”

 

This is just one of a number of awards Jo has won for his work on the country’s most-lauded cultural centre.

The project – that began with a museum and will include an arts and craft school, a conference centre, and 250 houses for locals – aims to keep memory alive in unique ways.

So, forming the centrepiece of the design and part of the entrance to the new gallery is an old tin shack. It points to an extraordinarily rich history that Jo tapped into to create his iconic work.

Jo said: “Shacks were built here as early as 1902 and people are still living in (them). We had this shack declared a national monument. It hasn’t been restored. We’ve left it in a decrepit state on purpose. We want people to see it as it was lived in. It gets constant maintenance, though. If there’s a leak it gets patched with plastic. It’s a living monument.” 

The Red Location settlement dates to the turn of the 20th century.

 

Noero explained: “There was a British concentration camp in Uitenhage that housed mainly women and children. At the end of the Boer War, it was dismantled and brought to Port Elizabeth, where it was reassembled to be used as a barracks by the British army

“When they moved out, families were moved in. This became the first formally settled location for black urban families in Port Elizabeth. The artist, George Pemba, was born here and so was ANC leader Raymond Mhlaba. Govan Mbeki lived here, and playwright and actor Winston Ntshona lives up the road.”

Red Location was a crucial site of black resistance during apartheid. The first underground Umkhonto we Sizwe cell was formed here and the railway station witnessed the first anti-pass law resistance campaign.

http://www.visi.co.za/content/article/1952/sa-wins-building-of-the-year-2012