A 50-year architectural snap shot

Sandy Grant | Wednesday December 2, 2015 15:11

 

That said, the  anniversary does provide an opportunity for us to look at the architectural scene and to see how we started in 1966 and how we have ended up after those 49/50 years.

The government enclave in Gaborone is not a bad place at which to start with those three hugely contrasting ministerial blocks -  that is the four protectorate designed buildings setting a decent standard with which to begin, leading on to Croce and Marshall and then of course to the latest generation of government buildings in the main CBD.

Then there are even more contrasts with the now redundant Barclays Bank building with its interesting interior and its dead pan exterior, the elongated and rather boring Leno building, Poso House, the Telecomms building with an intriguing interior which few outsiders can enjoy, and the various Embassy buildings which can be appreciated by even fewer.

The hotel scene had a more modest start with the old Gaborone Hotel and the Tati and Grand in Francistown, all three being much of a muchness with cockroaches more or less everywhere.

Then in Gaborone came the Holiday Inn under different names, the Palm, and a sudden blossoming of new hotels; and a similar pattern in Francistown with the Marang and Thapama Hotels and then there, in Kasane and elsewhere in the country, a rush with more CEDA backed hotels and lodges, beating the anniversary deadline.

If school buildings only rarely win architectural awards, the country’s now numerous universities, from a standing start, should be architecturally to the fore. The only architectural award achieved since 1966 of which I have heard, however, was for the Bokaa Dam – but I could never pin down the details.

Hospitals, as perhaps was to be expected, have moved from the single story Princess Marina to the giant new University Hospital in Gaborone. Corporate buildings starting with Debswana House in Gaborone, gravitated onwards to the Orapa House fortress to the new diamond building near the airport, the new airport terminal and the spectacular Innovation Hub.

Malls, beginning with the two prototypes in Gaborone, the Main Mall and the African Mall have moved on to, not least, Game and Airport Junction and to replica malls around the country.

Railway stations in 1966, albeit small, were beautifully proportioned– but from then on, it was rapidly downhill with the new Gaborone station, replacing its historical cousin on the western side of the tracks, being of quite spectacular ugliness. Hopefully, this will not be a precedent for the future.