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 Azavedo Bassonia, Johannesburg, Gauteng Amancio d’Alpoim Miranda (Pancho) GUEDES: Architect

Date: 1982 Type: Homestead Status: Proposed Street: Stand 11

Pancho Guedes delivered a lecture to the Architectural Association in London in 1980 presenting seven related 'stories' about some of his recent work, all of which were 'Bubblies', his twenty-fifth style. Bubblies are a family of designs all incorporating curved forms. The seventh story was titled 'A few round houses' and included a description of a round house in the southern suburbs of Johannesburg - derived from Pancho's sketch design for the Riverlea Youth Centre. Some weeks ago a countryman of mine who is a foreman in a construction company asked me to draw him a house on the crest of a hillside to the south of Johannesburg. The house I did for him is very much a double storeyed half of the youth centre. A sharp drop of one metre in the middle of the site splits the ground floor of the house and the terrace into two levels. The service wing consisting of the garage, laundry and servant's room locks the circular house to the angle of the street. The concrete circular wall is tall and monumental, and its two double curved gables will reinforce the character of the house when it eventually stands surrounded by other houses. The garden side is colored and soft and made up of angular terraces and verandahs supported on fat columns. It all receded spatially towards the low concrete roof gutters and ties up with the round wall by running the coloured band from the terraces around it. The balustrades bend and twist themselves into pergolas. They are the grandchildren of the balustrades Pedro and I designed for the F. Dicca office building in Lourenco Marques [Maputo] eight years ago. ____________________________________ Extract from a transcript of a talk delivered to the Architectural Association (AA) in London in 1980 ,during an exhibition of Pancho Guedes' work hosted by the AA and arranged by his son Pedro Guedes. The talk was published by the AA. Guedes, Pancho. Recent Work. Annals of the Architectural Association School of Architecture. Volume 1 No 1. Winter 1981-1982. pp 129-132. Submitted by Pedro Guedes via William Martinson from the Pancho Guedes archive.