Contact Artefacts please if you have any comments or more information regarding this record.	Menu Home Upfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon		House Barker - AMASENI Westcliff Ridge, Johannesburg, Gauteng Douglas Maurice COWIN: Architect

Date: 1936 Client: Mrs AF Barker Type: Homestead Style: Modern Status: Extant Street: 9 Woolsten Road

Designed by Douglas Cowin in Feb 1936 for AE Barker. Air conditioning is included on the original drawings - possibly a first in Johannesburg. AE Barker supplied air-conditioning mainly on industrial scale. The shallow pitched roof, wide eaves and the windows which come directly below the eaves are some of the elements Cowin used here and in his own house Casa Bedo, derived from the prairie style house of Frank Lloyd Wright. The use of a pitched roof instead of the flat roof was a practical consideration as well as an aesthetic Cowin preferred. The squareness of the structure, use of steel windows flush with the walls, steel tubing for balustrades, porthole windows are elements of the Modern Movement. Together with the blue slate roof, this house is typical of what became the "Houghton Style". (Flo Bird, November 2015 : submitted by William MARTINSON) Books that reference House Barker - AMASENI MacMillan, Allister & Rosenthal, Eric. 1948. Homes of the Golden City. Cape Town: Hortors. pg 3 ill