Contact Artefacts please if you have any comments or more information regarding this record.			Theological Seminary (Kweekskool) Stellenbosch, Western Cape Robert MacBeth ROBERTSON: Architect Folkert Wilko HESSE: Architect

Date: c1900 Type: Seminary Status: Extant   Click to view map Coordinates: 33°56'20.42" S 18°51'50.60" E Alt: 119m

The original designs were gorgeously exuberant, in the best Monte Carlo tradition. Baroque decorations were piled carelessly, one on top of another, up the centrepiece of this precisely symmetrical building; palm trees, replacing decayed Van der Stel oaks, added to the illusion of Mediterranean 'gilt plush'! The turreted mansard roofs were of fish-scaled slate and corrugated-iron, and there were double-storeyed verandahs of elaborate ironwork - composed of all the devices of the Victorian pre-fab mass-production age, strung together, resulting in a gay building for a serious purpose. 'This building has unfortunately been modernized in recent times and made ridiculous and hideous in appearance' [sic]. [Extracted and edited from Picton-Seymour, 1977:137] (SAA&B May 1905:157) All truncated references not fully cited below are those of Joanna Walker's original text and cited in full in the 'Bibliography' entry of the Lexicon. Writings about this entry Picton-Seymour, Désirée. 1977. Victorian Buildings in South Africa. Cape Town: AA Balkema. pg 136 ill, 137 Radford, D. 1979. The architecture of the Western Cape, 1838 1901. A study of the impact of Victorian aesthetics and technology on South African architecture. Johannesburg: Unpublished Ph.D thesis. Dept of Arch. University of the Witwatersrand. pg 130 Brown, E Die Kweekskool: in Swart, Marius J (ed). 1989. Afrikanerbakens: pp 38-39