Contact Artefacts
please if you have any comments or more information regarding this record.

List of Projects

MüLLER, JH

Born: fl. 1890

Architect


A Dutch architect working in Bloemfontein around 1890, Muller seems to have been a notoriously bad tempered and unadaptable man whose behaviour is better documented than his career. He was the first architect in the Orange Free State to produce and use concrete bricks but whether he actually had a practice there is not known. According to Schoeman (1982:69) Muller was the architect of first concrete building in the Orange Free State. He won a prize in an Eisteddfod for 'a perfect repertoire of architectural and engineering drawings' (Schoeman 1982:103.) His name is first mentioned as acting supervisor of JE VIXSEBOXSE's Post Office building in Bloemfontein (1890), and is known to have made detailed drawings of bridges over the Bloem Spruit. After only a few months with the authorities, he was dismissed by E THIANGE who then re-appointed him to oversee the building of the bridge over the Kromelmboogspruit(?); he was asked to resign again in 1898 and F Lennox CANNING was appointed in his place by the Town Council in 1892 whom he had abused in a letter, likening them 'to a team of asses, who had been elevated to the position of horses' (see Schoeman 1982:104.).

A feature of Bloemfontein in the 1890s, the years of cast-iron and fretwork, were the pedestrian bridges over the Spruit. Vehicular traffic still used the drifts. The first of these bridges in Church Street was designed by Müller. (from Schoeman 1980:123)

List of projects

With photographs
With notes

Pedestrian Bridge: c1890. Bloemfontein, Free State - Architect
Post Office: 1891. Bloemfontein, Free State - Project Architect

Books citing MüLLER

Schoeman, Karel. 1980. Bloemfontein: die ontstaan van 'n stad. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau. pp 123

Schoeman, Karel. 1982. Vrystaatse erfenis : Bouwerk en geboue in die 19de eeu. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau. pp 69, 103-104, 114