HOT LUNCH | Drawing inspiration from enduring design

Sitting in the downstairs bar at the Rand Club beneath a monumental stained-glass panel, I am struck by the insistent message conveyed by one of Joburg’s great monuments to gold-rush wealth and colonial ambition 120-odd years after architects William Leck and Frank Emley first set it in stone.

I am having lunch with architect Mfundo Maphumulo, a man whose life began in displacement, and the irony is not lost on me. Tonight he will take to the stage as master of ceremonies at the biannual South African Institute of Architects awards. Over lunch he is in a thoughtful, reflective and philosophical mood.

Maphumulo was born in KwaZulu-Natal in a place called Bhekulwandle, which translates as “sea view”. His childhood was shaped by one of the most turbulent periods in South Africa’s recent history.

“Our house was bombed in 1992,” he tells me matter of factly. “I was nine years old and we were inside.”

His family survived, but the event changed everything. Forced to move repeatedly, he grew up in different communities and environments across the province. Looking back, he sees the experience not only as trauma, but also as a gift.

“It made me more grateful for life. It made me have more zeal for life.”

An only child, he also carries the memory of two older brothers who died before he was born. “I have this personal mantra that I’m living for the two older brothers who never got to live. So I try to live life to the best that I can.”

It’s an extraordinary response to difficult beginnings, and perhaps explains the sense of purpose that runs through his work.

Architecture, he says, was never part of a grand childhood plan. He originally wanted to design cars, spending his school years sketching vehicles and dreaming of automotive design. It was his mother who gently nudged him in another direction after he attended an architecture programme during a grade 11 career week.

“She said, ‘Why don’t you do architecture? You seem to enjoy it and you’re also quite creative.’”

Twenty-five years later he is one of KwaZulu-Natal’s most respected architects, known particularly for public projects and civic buildings.

The conversation turns to the relationship between buildings and society. Through the Rand Club windows lies a rapidly changing city that tells its story in brick, concrete and steel. Joburg’s architecture records its ambitions, inequalities, foibles, weaknesses and many reinventions.

Maphumulo believes buildings are never neutral. “They are vessels for civilisation and nation-building.”

Public architecture, in particular, carries a special responsibility. “You are not designing for a narrow audience. You are designing for a much wider audience. It has to cater for a multiplicity of divergent views.”

There is also the challenge of time. “Buildings have to outlast you as the creator. They have to stand the test of time.”

That philosophy informs his own approach to design. Simplicity, he believes, is often the hardest and most enduring achievement. “When you can do less with what’s available and the output is much greater, I think you would have done well.”

The architect he currently admires most is the late Indian master Balkrishna Doshi, whose work fused modernism with local culture and climate.

Maphumulo will soon travel to India to study some of Doshi’s modernist buildings firsthand as part of research for a new campus project.

“What moves me about his work is that it is timeless,” he says. “If you are able to create work that does not date easily, you have achieved quite a lot.”

The conversation shifts to healing, and how architecture can function less as a technical profession and more as a form of social repair. Much of Maphumulo’s work takes place in rural and previously overlooked communities. He speaks with particular excitement about a library project now under construction.

“It is a simple library, but in an area that was underserved. The thought of 200 kids a day coming into that space gives me purpose and hope.”

His involvement with the South African Institute of Architects grows from the same belief. The organisation exists, he says, to strengthen the profession, advocate for good design and celebrate architectural excellence. The awards taking place that night represent the pinnacle of that effort.

“It is the apex event of the year where we are celebrating good architecture.”

As one of this year’s judges, he spent weeks reviewing projects from across the country.

“It is always gratifying to see what colleagues are doing and to celebrate work that contributes positively to society.”

Before we part, I ask him which South African buildings every citizen should visit at least once. He pauses before naming three. The first is Freedom Park. The second is the Apartheid Museum.

“I think every South African should visit them at least once — for nation-building, for reparation and for building towards a more positive future.”

The third is Johannesburg’s Constitutional Court.

“That building defines the democratic state from an architectural point of view.”