Contact Artefacts
please if you have any comments or more information regarding this record.
Menu
HomeUpfront
Now Up
Books
Towns
Structures
People
Firms
Lexicon
Iziko South African Museum
Central Cape Town, Western Cape
 |  |  |  |  |
Contact Artefacts | MenuHomeUpfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon | Iziko South African Museum | | ||||||
| |||||||||
Click to view map Coordinates: | First the Natural History Museum then South African Museum now the Iziko South African Museum. THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM was founded in 1856, during the Governorship of Sir George Grey, chiefly owing to the exertions of Sir T. Maclear, Dr. Patte, Mr. C. A. Fairbridge, and the first curator, Mr. E. L. Layard. The present building recently erected, to which the collections were transferred in January, 1897, is situated at the top end of the Municipal Gardens in Cape Town. [Anon, c. 1899. Picturesque South Africa - An album of Photographic Views. Cape Town: Dennis Edwards & Co. p 49.] The museum building could well have faced onto Church Square in Pretoria; instead it faces down the Public Gardens, looking out across war memorials and rose beds. This building was in fact designed in 1893 by J E Vixseboxse, Government architect for the Orange Free State from 1890-93. His was the winning design in an open competition for a new museum, the exhibits having previously been housed at the South African Library, lower down Queen Victoria Street. C A Fairbridge, the lawyer, who lived at The Mimosas, Sea Point, was largely responsible for the erection of this much-needed building and his friend Edgar Layard was the curator. The cost per square foot was 7d and the perspective drawing shows the building in its original colouring of red brick, striped and embellished with ochre. What can still be seen of the interior, such as the main staircase, is magnificent with wrought iron work, but it is unfortunate that the recent additions unsympathetically overshadow the original building with its peculiarly Republican style. (Picton-Seymour, 1989: 15-16; Pryce-Lewis list) Books that reference Iziko South African Museum
|
|
