Barbican 3
Note : This work was part of a series of small pencil and gouache works I did in 2007. I was based in Fordsburg at the Lilian Rd Studios and I ventured into the CBD regularly to do drawings on site. The pencil drawing would often then have an overlay of gouache which was worked up later in the studio. The Barbican has always fascinated me as an example of 1930s Joburg Deco architecture. Late one night in the 1980s I ended up in the loft at the Barbican, which was rented by a photographer whose name I don't recall.. The party went on for some time and in the very early hours we went downstairs and my friend Ian struck up a conversation in Zulu with the nightwatchman. It went on for a while and the upshot was Ian took off his shirt and gave it to him. And then we wandered off into the morning light ....
Carl Becker
The Barbican Building, on the corner of President and Rissik streets in the heart of the Johannesburg CBD, was completed in 1931 in a mix of eclectic classicism and art deco styles. Originally built with ground-floor shop space, a first-floor tearoom with a balcony with canvas awnings, and seven floors of offices, with a studio and servants’ quarters on the top floor, its Corinthian columns and ornamental cornices and railings make it one of the city’s most attractive building.1 After years of neglect and vandalism, the building was renovated and restored to something like its former glory and is now owned by First National Bank.
1. Lucille Davie (2011) http://www.theheritageportal.co.za/article/looking-back-restoration-barbican-building
