Wits West Campus

By Kathy Munro

The Rand Show remained on the congested Milner Park site until the early 1980s. It was due to the leadership, determination and drive of Vice-Chancellor Professor DJ du Plessis (affectionately known as Sonny) that Wits finally acquired the land. Chris Barron, in an obituary, wrote: “Seldom has a university owe more to the vision and bloody-mindedness o one man than Wits owes to Sonny du Plessis.”

Barnato Hall of Residence

By 1983 the Wits slogan was “Tomorrow begins at Wits today” and Wits, with its 15 629 students, prided itself on being the “largest English-medium university in Africa”. The West Campus of today is surely du Plessis’ legacy. The last Rand Easter Show was held there in 1984 and Wits took possession of the land on 1 January 1985.

Planning was essential and was placed in the capable hands of David Sleeman, the University’s planner, and the manager of the Wits estates, Piet Hugo, working with academics such as John Muller and Frank Nabarro. There were three key development plans. In 1979 an initial Physical Growth Plan set out the creative expansionary ideas incorporating the showground site. The first Academic Precinct Plan of 1983 set out activity zones for the new campus based on academic clustering of related departments and faculties. The spatial correlation of East and West Campus positioned academic buildings to the south of both campuses, residential in the centre and sporting activities to the north with a system of pathways linking the old and the new and aimed to unite the expanded campus. A third, longer-term development plan of the 1980s provided the basis for phased improvements as showground exhibition areas transformed into new academic residential and recreational buildings served by roads, walkways, parking and open spaces. Landscaping was always an important design element, with efforts made to preserve the mature trees. The layout of the campus retained the central dividing south-north axis of a bricked walkway running from the Charles Skeen stadium and the Tower of Light down the hill towards the residences and lower sports fields to Empire Road. The original path was self-importantly titled “the Avenue of Prosperity” and later renamed Victory Road. This spine is intersected by University Road, today a bricked pathway named the Weiner Mall, at right angles running east to west, enabling staff and students to move from peripheral parking areas to their offices and lecture rooms. Wisely, cars have been kept out of a green central campus park. A further piece of wisdom was not to build any sky-scraper buildings – it is all kept to a human scale, with most old and new buildings limited to two storeys.

The Champion tree – over 100 years

Hidden gem - waterfall hewn from the Witwatersrand rock.

The spacious Gavin Relly Green

The Wits Plus (Centre for Part- Time Studies) building - a new vision for the old AECI pavilion

The old Rand Show sports arena, renamed the Charles Skeen Arena, was preserved as a green lung and stayed put as a sports venue with its overhang of grandstands, now woefully underutilised. But it was here that in 1991 Wits conferred an honorary doctorate on Nelson Mandela. The well-hidden water reservoir close to the green running track remains in place behind the small car park. The old commentators’ box used for stadium events was only recently demolished. The circular horse exercise yard and stables became a student coffee shop, with the name changing from the Arena Coffee Shop to the Village Coffee Shop over time. A wonderful architectural and engineering challenge for the future would be to convert the 1960s grandstand into large lecture venues. Can it be done? Ideas from our alumni are welcome.

The old Faculties of Commerce, Law and Education moved to the West Campus and made new homes for themselves. Existing West Campus buildings were adapted where possible and a campus feel began to emerge. The West Campus was never the hub of student social life like the East Campus, but over the years the grey paint brought harmony to disparate buildings.

The Chamber of Mines pavilion, retaining its impressive entrance behind four high, angular columns, became the Law Building. The original windows were sacrificed, as were the monumental period wall sculptures. The model mine has gone and this building now houses offices, lecture and seminar rooms and the Law Library. It is difficult to get a sense of a planned building, as there have been so many additions. The latest has been the handsome and commodious Chalsty Conference Centre at the rear, a generous donation to the School of Law by John and Jennifer Chalsty, who are Wits alumni. A lovely Eduardo Villa sculpture, the Red Madonna, also a gift from the Chalstys, graces the well-lit entrance foyer. The Government Building, the showpiece of the 1936 Empire Exhibition, became the Barclays Commerce Building (later the First National Bank Building); the AECI Pavilion became the Sports Administration Building and was later redeveloped as the Wits Plus Centre for parttime studies. The two utilitarian, cavernous canteens were transformed into the Commerce Library and the Education Building (the latter was later given new life as the FCLM building). My office was relocated from Central Block to the West Campus when my department, Economic History, rejoined Economics in 1993. Initially I felt uprooted from the heart of the university. How could I bear to leave my lovely office in the East Annex of Central Block? It was a surprise when after a mere month I found that I felt completely at home on the West Campus, appreciating the proximity of two libraries, the Commerce Library and the Law Library, and enjoying a walk through the gardens.

The Bien Donne Restaurant became the DJ du Plessis Building, with its cavernous entrance hall and giant multipurpose lecture theatre. The Centre for Applied Legal Studies, the Van Schaik bookshop and student society rooms are located here. The Flower Hall no longer lifts the spirit with autumn blooms but keeps the name and is an examination venue; Hall 29 doubles as a sports venue and an examination hall. The small neat brick Dairy Board pavilion became the Staff Training and Development Unit and later the Centre for Learning and Teaching Development.

The oldest structures on the West Campus are two rather old-fashioned but functional grandstands at the Charles Skeen Stadium, dating from the 1920s. A clever adaptation married the larger of these grandstands with a modern purpose when the wedged rear was redeveloped to insert two state-of-the-art tiered lecture rooms and two tutorial rooms.

One of the less successful of the new buildings is the New Commerce Building. It was erected rapidly on factory construction principles in the late 1980s, as a sudden spurt in the numbers of Commerce students forced some quick construction of four large lecture theatres and a top-floor examination venue (later converted into lecture rooms). This building is substandard with its flat roof, unimaginative use of space and poor ventilation; although the four large lecture rooms, with seating for up to 275 students, function effectively and have served generations of students studying diverse subjects such as Accountancy, Law and Economics. A redeeming feature is the lovely arched window on the first-floor landing, with its view over the Charles Skeen sports arena.

An important addition was the extraordinary construction in 1989 of the paved platform over the M1 motorway, called the AMIC deck, at a cost of R18 million. It was the single most important link between East Campus and West Campus and enabled large numbers of students to move rapidly between the two. It takes exactly 10 minutes of walking at a fast pace to move from FNB to Central Block. The 1989 Chamber of Mines Building facing the AMIC deck on the brow of the ridge of the West Campus was also an important addition. It has an aesthetic appeal as the building is well sited, but sadly funds were exhausted and the back of the building shows a gaping space with rusting iron rods protruding from eroding concrete. Today it is the intention to complete the fourth quadrant of the building and add lecture theatres and laboratories.

In 1986, Johannesburg’s centenary year, the mining finance house, Johannesburg Consolidated Investments, financed the construction of Barnato Hall residence towards the lower end of the West Campus slope. It is home to 370 undergraduate and postgraduate students and was named in honour of the founder of JCI, Barney Barnato. The building is designed around two courtyards and the prominent feature is the use of awardwinning Marley concrete roof tiles. Adjacent to Barnato Hall is the David Webster Hall of residences, completed in 1992 and named in honour of the Wits academic David Webster, who was assassinated in Johannesburg in 1989. An unusual amenity is the small, rather shallow swimming pool for disabled students. The third West Campus residence is the West Campus Village, a self-catering residence for postgraduate men and women students. The eight small buildings each house up to 24 students.

Cape Dutch architecture – echoes from the 1936 Empire Exhibition.

Eduardo Villa sculpture, The Red Madonna, in the Chalsty Conference Centre

The West Campus has preserved and retained four sizeable Ernest Ullmann sculptures. Monumental in scale, these works were commissioned in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Family is five metres in height and was cast in situ in concrete. The Cross Bearers in granite has recently been repositioned in front of the Rembrandt Gallery. The Miners in concrete and The Pioneer in travertine stand in the small garden near the modern main entrance of the Oliver Schreiner Law building. The work of Paul Stein and Neels Coetzee has enhanced the main north-south axis. The abstract Stein sculpture of giant steel rectangles appearing to collapse on themselves is called Concatenation and represents the books of the nearby Commerce Library.

Today’s Law Building started life in 1953 when the Chamber of Mines built a permanent new pavilion. It was meant to underscore the role of gold and the contribution of the miner in the expanding South African economy. The mock working gold mine enabled the visitor to experience the simulation of heat, vibrations and on-site drilling; and a prize souvenir for any child was a sample of rock cores. To celebrate the Union of South Africa and in Commonwealth obeisance, in 1960 the Chamber outdid all previous exhibitions with a magnificent display of gold ware from the private collection of Queen Elizabeth II. These treasures thrilled the royalist crowds. I first discovered the treasures of Pforzheim, Germany, when a display of fine antique jewellery was exhibited in the 1970s.

The architectural landmark structure on the West Campus is the Tower of Light. Now 72 years old, the tower qualifies for protected heritage status. How many Wits alumni remember that boomed appeal to “meet your lost child at the Tower of Light”? It was the unmissable gathering node each year during the Rand Easter Show. The Tower of Light was commissioned by the Victoria Falls and

Transvaal Power Company for the Empire Exhibition of 1936. It is worth remembering that 1936 was not an illustrious year in South African history, as it was the year when Smuts and Hertzog promulgated the Native Land and Trust Act and the Representation of Natives Act, which removed black people from the common voters’ roll in the Cape.

The Tower is 60 metres high and built of reinforced concrete using Pretoria Portland Cement. The viewing platform (now closed) was accessed by a rear outer stair and an inner ladder staircase. The soaring tower actually ends too soon as it does not reach the expected pinnacle. The features of round, porthole windows and wrought-iron balustrade are integral to the Art Deco style of Johannesburg of the 1930s. Clive Chipkin cites a 1936 source attributing the design of the tower to Professor GE Pearse, the first professor of Architecture at Wits, citing the authority of Bernard Cooke, but appears to question this attribution, with the comment that the Wits Department of Architecture was unenthusiastic about the “modernistic explosions” at the Empire Exhibition. Bruce Murray, in his history of Wits, states that Pearse was not a proponent of modern design, though he protected its advocates in his school. It was Pearse who designed the University’s Coat of Arms.

In later years Springbok Radio broadcast from the Tower of Light and as children we gathered to collect the autographed portrait postcards of the radio announcers. In 1964 alterations enabled the tower to support the cableway that ran down the hill to Empire Road. That structure was later removed.

Recently, cellphone reception receivers have been attached to each of the tower’s fins but these are temporary structures. And, contrary to rumour, there is no hint of demolition. Many of us who work on the West Campus experience a small daily pleasure when we walk past the tower on the way to a lecture or the library. In the changing light at different times of the day, the geometric shapes become an optical illusion.

The AMIC deck - connecting East to West over the M1.

Alumni House and the second or “other” Wits staff and convocation club and conference centre are located in a curious cluster of fantasy Cape farm buildings with elegant gables and arched barn doors, which also date back to 1936. They are glorious follies designed by FHP Fleming (according to Gutsche) for the Western Cape wine industry. However, Chipkin attributes the designs to JA Hoogterp, a Baker protégé. So here is another puzzle. The Central Building was Cape House, built to exhibit a display of antique Cape furniture for the 1936 Empire Exhibition. The date 1679 is a prominent feature of one gable of the adjacent long barn (a latterday conference centre and chapel) and adds confusion to the eclectic landscape. The oak trees, planted in 1936, add to the artificial but somehow authentic patina of age. This is a club of Wits staff and alumni and is the convivial meeting venue for the Witwatersrand University Engineers’ Association and the Kudus running club. The University is planning to enlarge and further develop the social facilities for the benefit of a wider and more diverse Wits community.

Today’s First National Bank building houses the School of Accountancy and is undergoing a remarkable, R60 million redevelopment to add two large, semicircular lecture rooms to the south side. Our award-winning architect is Heather Dodd of the firm of Savage and Dodd. Since late 2007 our staff and students have endured working, studying and teaching on a building site. The original building dates back to 1936 and a heritage feature worthy of preservation is a lovely plaster frieze above the main south door with its fine curvilinear tracery, three moulded cherubs and dripping grapes.

The Rembrandt Gallery is another small, interesting building that survives intact but is currently in rather poor condition. This small exhibition area was originally called the Rembrandt Pavilion and was built for the Rembrandt Tobacco Manufacturing Corporation. It is slightly set back from the road and the design (three triangular arches) and materials used are typical of the 1960s. The architect was Jan van Wyk and the building was completed in 1964. The Rembrandt Art Centre, as it became known, was the venue for many important annual exhibitions organised each year by the Rembrandt van Rijn Art Foundation and its purpose was to promote the arts. My own souvenir of this effort is a catalogue of a Rodin and his Contemporaries exhibition held in the Gallery in the 1970s. The last exhibition was that of 40 paintings by Pierneef and 20 Van Wouw bronze sculptures. The Rembrandt Foundation donated the building to Wits in 1980 and at that time the intention was to hold future art exhibitions. The pleasure of this small building is the play of light penetrating the perspex and glass panes, and the interior atmosphere echoes that of a Dutch Reformed church.

Today this building is used as a storage space for some of Wits’ rock art collection, awaiting rehousing in the Origins Centre. However it is the intention of the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management to raise about R5 million to restore the building for use as a multifunctional teaching and conference venue or electronic cyber library for postgraduate students. Although it is not 60 years old, a recent technical analysis by Dr Johan Bruwer argues that this building is of sufficient importance to warrant protection and preservation.

Should any Wits alumni have any early photographs of the Rand Easter Show or its reincarnation as the Wits West Campus, please contact the author on katherine.munro@wits.ac.za.

Sources: Anna H Smith: Johannesburg Street Names 1971 Henry Paine, Barry Gould and Johan Bruwer: The Rembrandt Gallery, Wits University Report on the Condition of the Building April 2008 Thelma Gutsche: A Very Smart Medal: The Story of the Witwatersrand Agricultural Society 1970 John Maud: City Government: The Johannesburg Experiment Oxford John Lang: Bullion Johannesburg: Men, Mines and the Challenge of Conflict 1986 Ernest Ullmann: Designs on Life Howard Timmins 1970 Bruce K Murray: Wits: The Early Years 1982 Clive M Chipkin: Johannesburg Style, Architecture and Society 1880s - 1960s The Exhibition Visitors' Social and Business Guide to Johannesburg and the Reef - Golden Jubilee Souvenir 1936 Felix Stark (editor & publisher): Seventy Golden Years 1886 - 1956 William Martinson: Tower of Light, University of the Witwatersrand, West Campus Architectural Description City of Johannesburg, Arts Culture and Heritage Services, Immovable Heritage Inventory Form, Tower of Light; recorded by Flo Bird The University of the Witwatersrand The Reporter CUP Extra 25 July 1983