ZWART, Wibo J

Architect

BArch (Natal).

TPIA (1956); ISAA (1956).

CHIPKIN (1993:299) states in his chapter 'Patio Houses' (294-304) that he is of the tradition of houses where 'the atmosphere exudes a robust African spirit without sentimentality'. He believed in the ''discipline of the use of natural materials''. He used standard-manufacture steel windows and ''not a square inch of plaster''.

CHIPKIN (2008: 379) recalls that his

distinctive kraal houses, I suspect, were influenced by the Pretoria regionalists as well as by the Pearlman family's Roodepoort Brickworks, rough semi-face commons and clinker brick in blues and plums - a brick much favoured by a generation of Johannesburg vernacular architects, ... .

In 1959 he was found in the employ of the NATIONAL BUILDING RESEARCH INSTITUTE (NBRI) of the CSIR at the time when DMcG CALDERWOOD was there developing so-called 'Native Housing'.

As Chipkin states 'He died tragically young.'

List of projects

With photographs
With notes

Courtyard House: 1960s. Johannesburg, Gauteng - Architect

Books citing ZWART

Chipkin, Clive M. 1993. Johannesburg Style - Architecture & Society 1880s - 1960s. Cape Town: David Phillip. pp 287, 295, 299

Chipkin, Clive M. 2008. Johannesburg Transition - Architecture & Society 1950 - 2000. Johannesburg: STE Publishers. pp 379

ISAA. 1959. The Yearbook of the Institute of South African Architects and Chapter of SA Quantity Surveyors 1958-1959 : Die Jaarboek van die Instituut van Suid-Afrikaanse Argitekte en Tak van Suid-Afrikaanse Bourekenaars 1958-1959. Johannesburg: ISAA. pp 101, 198

Wale, Laurie (Editor). 1962. New home building ideas : Architects' plans for southern Africa. Cape Town: Purnell & Sons. pp 17