SOUTH, Basil Hugh

Architect

Was born in Mafeking. He trained at the School of Architecture, Pretoria University and practised in Pretoria [although, with the institutional arrangement at the time, graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand]. He was talented but died young; he is said to have been among the most promising architects of his generation. He died in Pretoria.

(SAAR Dec 1952:303 obit)

Basil SOUTH, with COLE BOWEN, each played their role in developing an architecture which was to distinguish the Pretoria graduates:
Looming large was Basil SOUTH, a Wits graduate and, with the professor, the only full-time lecturer [at the Pretoria School] in the early fifties. Imposing, but never pompous, he was over six feet [1,8m] tall and of heavy build: his movements were slow and deliberate. One remembers small things. In days when first-years did pencil-and-wash rendering of Classical orders he made a grand entrance into the studio carrying a big leaf in a vase:
''Here, ladies and gentlemen, you have a full-scale example of the Acanthus leaf which has caused you such trial and tribulation.''
Though we were wary of his red pencil on our drawings, he knew how to criticize positively. He was kind...

South designed stage-sets for local repertory companies, which made him particularly sensitive to the aspect of effects in architecture. This was reflected in the articulation of his façades, and these were modelled for sun control, an acknowledgment of his admiration for CORB and South American architecture as embodied by, for example, NIEMEYER. Forms, shapes, and the grouping of buildings and building elements were handled in accordance with Hambidge's 'Dynamic Symmetry'. These principles were impressed upon receptive students, such as JOOSTE, FAGAN and Cor GROBBELAAR. SOUTH was an excellent critic of student design schemes by discerning problem areas quickly and clearly, a particular quality inherited by JOOSTE in his practice. His energies as teacher were expended on hand-picked ''worthy'' students. He did not have his own practice and worked in association with colleagues. The Hillcrest High School, done under the auspices of REES-POOLE's office can be attributed to him. (Pers com Gerneke, Du Toit in Fisher et al 1996:128).

Gwen FAGAN (2016:32) relates:

Basil South, Gawie's class lecturer, had died suddenly of tick-bite fever and his beautiful plot at Kameeldrift was put on the market. Gawie FAGAN arranged for a loan from Volkskas, where he had taken a job as resident architect, to buy the plot as we had decided that our children should grow up on a farm and not in the city. The little house had two bedrooms, a living-dining space and small kitchen. The floors were plain cement and in front was a wide cement stoep with a tin lean-to roof.
There was a labourer's cottage, a cement dam and outbuildings, all on the ten uncultivated morgen with a rivulet forming the lower boundary. This all felt overwhelmingly large and because we had been so happy at Ronde Geluk, we called our new home Langgeluk.

Publ: 'Imposing the abstract on nature: the townplanner Le Corbusier' SAAR Aug 1937:383-392; TAD MHG 2051/52

All truncated references not fully cited in 'References' are those of Joanna Walker's original text and cited in full in the 'Bibliography' entry of the Lexicon.

List of projects

With photographs
With notes

Springbok flats, (since altered): c1938. Tshwane (Pretoria), Gauteng - Architect

References

Fagan, Gwen. 2016. Gwendoline's Gawie. Cape Town: Breestraat Publikasies. pp 32

Fisher, RC, Le Roux, SW. 1998. Architecture of the Transvaal. Pretoria: UNISA. pp 128, 215

Herbert, Gilbert. 1975. Martienssen & the international style: The modern movement in South African architecture. Cape Town - Rotterdam: AA Balkema. pp 172, 195