I remember I went with Mikey to Sodwana. He went to dive and I simply went to get beach sand in my swimming trunks.
I remembered you could buy one of these giant pineapples on the side of the road. The owner of the stall, using a machete fit for killing gorillas, would chop off the geometric, prickly skin with a number of violently deathly blows, and with the final swoosh, decapitating the poor fruit, sending its crown plummeting to the earth, discarded to reveal a golden yellow, Tonya Harding-tangy, sweet as gsus fruit. As the origami-looking effort was handed to me to be sucked, licked, bitten and devoured, I raised it in awe like Simba, and there by the light of the G-d-given golden orb, it glistened in the north eastern sunshine.
Every day as I missile down the M1 hurtling south I get a glimpse of the sparkling Marc reflecting the radiance of the setting sun, sitting hugged as a crown jewel in its perch on the periphery of the Sandton CBD, and I recall licking pineapples during those lazy days in Sods.
It certainly demands a moment of rubber necking for its an unusual shape in unusual colours. There is no doubt, it intrigued me, it intrigued others.
The Marc now sits where the legendary Village Walk mall once sat.
Village Walk was an innovative mall In that one could walk directly off the street into the mall. It was open to pedestrians with limited barriers to entrance. It had the Blues Room where I saw Barney Simon, it had a workable pseudo Italian street scene offering coffee shops, eateries, Sweets For/From Heaven and volumes of air and space. But what I remember most distinctly, was that when I was in standard 8 or 9, we started to go out on the jol, well I was a bit of a late bloomer, so it was really then when other kids were doing lines of coke off of toilet seats I was innocently listening to Dave Matthews albums on a cd player in my batman pj's. The point being it offered nightlife, it offered hailing cabs, it offered a "trevi-like' fountain which we sat upon and tossed coppers into, and it offered a relationship between inside and out.
For whatever reason the legendary Village Walk where we hung out as school kids was demolished to give way to The Marc.
As the concrete core climbed and the skew columns splayed like a stray rod in a game of pick-up-sticks my expectations were high. The raw structure of the building was a thing of aesthetics, it was an expression of beauty.
Lipsticked and mascara'd, the structure polished has taken on it's Faberge-type look. Its shiny, its glossy-mag ready, its enticing. But is it my kinda good architecture?
The plaza-like space in-front of the Pineapple on Rivonia road is deep and roomy. It's textured cobbled paving, the sculptural piece of landscape art , and the soft green landscaping to cools things off, offer a distinctive human scale to the building complex. The gentle rise to the Seattle Coffee too gives a living-in-Manhatten-coffee-sipping-in-a-wee-bodega effect. These, created as an engagement with the public. An interface that’s appealing.
Maude street is unique in the Sandton CBD context. It's narrow like a rabbits warren. Buildings tower on each side of the road, leaning in like Sheryl Sandbergh. and there is an attempt at on-grade retail.
Given the Maude slope, either side of the road is still defensive with The Marc's retail bunkered below ground and Nedbank's raised on high. It's not pretty, but, it'll work. which reminds me of a story.
I played golf as a junior and I made it into our club's handicap league. Handicap league consisted of players with handicaps from say 3 and upwards. Our teams worst handicap was about an 8. I got into the team as an 18.I wasn't there as a future prospect, I was there to win dirty. Sunday arrived for my debut league match. Typically the worst handicapped pair would fire up the tee box first. Around the tee box as I stepped up to my ball were my teammates,7 of them, the opposition players, numbering 8, the two team managers, and some supportive parents. I pseudo warmed-up doing a few loose swings dusting the tee with my club head, addressed the ball swinging my hips, and then, zeroing in on the ball with lazer-beam focus, I took a wide long coiled swing. Boooooom. the ball ricocheted at knots speed off of the club face. My head flew up in expectation of witnessing the ball careening tiger line down the fair way. but alas, there it was dribbling, bobbing, skipping like Heidi in the Alps, landing gently, deftly, maybe, 100meters away. I heard a clap. A clap.
My captain sympathetic to the moment, walked up to me, hand on shoulder, positively consoling me, he offered, 'Chaity, it'll work'.
I learnt, while working at Osmond Lange about the necessity of ‘grain’ in architecture. Fine grain creates interest in architecture. It's that which holds the attention of the passerby, it keeps the eye engaged and the spirit uplifted. Jutting balconies, recesses in the façade, projecting nibs and recessed nooks, windows and their cills, pushes and pulls on the face of the building, the play of light and shade. The architectural dance. This is the fine grain.
The Marc and the ENS building play a different game. They make use of solid forms generating 'wow's' from afar. but up close, its homogenous, flat. When we were small kids we played with square and circle and triangular blocks. but as we grew up we took on toys with more definition, finer details, intricacies like Lego, model building, Technica, and Mechano.
I've no doubt the building performs functionally and that its economically viable. The two street access points are endearing. and I still get a smile when I pass by the Pineapple.i love how the The ENS drips off down the buildings façade like liquid Crayola. and im eager to get a cappuccino moustache at Seattle soon.
But I will stop short when we draw 'cool' shapes and begin calling it architecture.
I heard a poignant quote by one of contemporary times most lauded architects, he of Guggenheim fame, Frank Gehry, 'most of our cities are built with just faceless glass, only for economies and not for humanities'. Sadly, this has become all too true.
