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MenuHomeUpfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon | OWENS, Alaric BasilBorn: 1914 04 01Died: 2009 11 27 ArchitectSACA:Reg No: 815 Year registered: 1943 | ||||
DipArch (Rand, 1941), ISAA, Ric graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand in March 1941 with a Diploma in Architecture and went to work for the Johannesburg municipality. Shortly therafter he went to Durban and joined the Royal Navy as an ordinary seaman because he had been told that all architects would be deployed to the Ministry of Works to plan for the army training camps that would be required. He served in a destroyer until he was selected for officer training, and was sent to Canada where he qualified as a pilot for the Fleet Air Arm. We met in Scotland in 1943 and married in December. He was demobilized when the war ended in 1945 and returned to his old job but was almost immediately offered one by Clifford TIMLIN, nephew of William TIMLIN, in Kimberley. He found the pace too slow, so started up his own practice, with a friend, Frank JOUBERT. Ric worked there for 23 years, by which time the practice had grown rather large, with a third partner Carl VAN NIEKERK running a branch in Pretoria because it was always impossible to get potential staff to live in Kimberley where he is recorded in 1959. In that same year he is recorded as principal and partner in the practice JOUBERT, OWENS and VAN NIEKERK of address Board of Executors Building, Stockdale Street, Cape Province. The practice was to become JOUBERT, OWENS, VAN NIEKERK, WATT and PARTNERS recorded in 1969 of address 509 United Building, Chapel Street, Kimberley. Most of the work was for the Cape Provincial Architects Department – things like new hospitals, schools and school hostels and so on. Ric's enjoyment came from domestic architecture, although he loved the challenge of difficult planning such as that for the Supreme Court in Kimberley, which required three sets of entrances and internal routes for whites, coloureds and blacks, with each set designed so that the paths of the accused, witnesses, lawyers and judges should never cross until they arrived in court. The Pretoria branch had grown rapidly and in 1968 his partners felt that he should be in Joburg to supervise a big new building for Liberty Life, so we moved, but almost immediately there was some sort of downturn and the project fell through. So Ric commuted to Pretoria, where they were working mainly on large commercial and government buildings; not his favourite kind of architecture. There were now nine partners and he was inevitably immersed in administration and far from his drawing board, so he retired in 1972, aged 58. He then took a building course – bricklaying, tiling etc - and converted the old-fashioned bathroom in our Parkview house into two small modern ones. He went on to extensions for both our daughters' houses, working alone and mixing his own concrete. Woodworking had always been a serious hobby and he designed and fitted cupboards and study carrels on both jobs. Furniture making began to take over from building and he created beautiful pieces for the family and friends until he was nearly ninety. Frank Lloyd Wright and LE CORBUSIER formed his architectural style, and he kept up with new design developments, so was happy to work part-time for a while for Jo NOERO, who was then at Wits. He greatly admired Jo's originality and design flair, especially for low-cost housing, and Jo valued Ric's experience and his meticulous and beautifully hand-lettered drawings. Mary Lilian Owens (October 2011) Submitted by William MARTINSON List of projects With photographs With notes
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