March 13, 2006
By Lucille Davie
THE 104-year-old Rand Steam Laundry site in Richmond was recently sold and the new owners, Imperial Properties, plan to redevelop their acquisition.
The historic four-acre site is now a ramshackle collection of light-industrial businesses, most located in the old buildings but others in additions to the original village in Napier Road.
Imperial Properties bought the site from the Amoils brothers, who own buildings in the CBD.
The laundry site from Napier Road, with its prominent chimneys
"We plan to re-develop the site into something very attractive," says John Carstens, the managing director of Imperial Properties, adding that his company views the purchase as a "strategic site for future expansion".
Despite the age and significance of the area, it has no official heritage recognition. However, referring to its heritage, Carstens says he will be "sensitive to those matters", at the same time acknowledging that the site has approval, obtained by the previous owners, for the construction of a 17-storey residential block.
"We would not do anything as intrusive as this," he says, explaining that Imperial would consider a building of two to three storeys.
Whatever is built, it will be "very much an improvement" on the "eyesore" at present, he adds.
Flo Bird, the chairperson of the Parktown and Westcliff Heritage Trust and a fierce defender of the city's heritage, intends submitting an application to the Provincial Heritage Resources Agency to oppose the demolition of the site, and have it declared a provincial heritage site.
"The survival of the laundry buildings in Richmond is a memento of the social history of early mining days and also a reminder of the reliance of the mining town on the natural streams of the Witwatersrand," she says.
Carstens wants to be seen as an ally of those wanting to improve the area. "We will consult with all relevant people," he says, adding that the site's relevance is "a perception thing", but that Imperial will work within the framework of the law.
If there were to be too many objections to Imperial's plans, although these are not definite at present, he would consider using the rights it had to build a high-density residential unit.
History
Rand Steam Laundries and Cleaning and Dyeing Works was established in 1902 and consisted of a small village with cottages for workers and managers; a blacksmith; a farrier for making and maintaining its carts, which were used for collecting and delivering laundry; and a soap-making section. It nestled on a curve of the Gas Works spruit, from which it drew its water supply.
It was believed to be "the largest establishment of its kind in the whole sub-continent", according to the South African Who's Who in Business 1919/1920.
The nearby Braamfontein Spruit was the site of the town's early manual laundry service, dating from 1890, just three years after the town was established. isiZulu washermen called Amawasha set up a laundry business on the banks of the spruit, where the German school is situated today.
The men hailed from KwaZulu-Natal, where they had observed Indian men washing Durban's laundry. They set up as a guild and washed Johannesburg's laundry until they were finally forced out of business in 1914.
Men took to washing the town's laundry because there were very few women in the gold-rush town.
From 1946
Stanley Amoils says that towards the end the last year he had had a large number of enquiries regarding the Richmond site. "Imperial offered a price we couldn't refuse."
Besides, he says, he and his brothers are getting old, with no children waiting in the wings to take over and manage the properties they own.
Amoils says the family bought the property in 1946 when it was still a large laundry. "We had 400 employees – it was the biggest private laundry in South Africa."
The business took in laundry from hospitals as far afield as Vereeniging and Boksburg, as well as from many Joburg hotels. In addition, it collected laundry from 2 000 households in central and northern Joburg.
"We had 15 vehicles, collecting from our regular customers every week," he says. The operation ran night and day.
When the family business moved into the complex in 1946, the cottages that existed on the site – housing managers and workmen originally – were already vacant and were converted into offices. Large accounting machines were installed in these offices, necessary to keep track of the many laundry customers.
The Richmond laundry site is now rundown and untidy
"The cottages along Napier Road were used by the night watchmen and boilermen, who had to get the boilers going at 4am," he explains.
But by the late 1950s times were changing and centralised laundries and dry-cleaning businesses were being established. "We saw what was happening," Amoils says, and the brothers sold the business to Advance Laundries, their main opposition, in 1962.
Residential status
They also applied to the council for general residential status for the site, with a view to building a 17-storey block of flats with a restaurant on the ground floor, which was granted. But very soon afterwards, the City council said it would be expropriating the property to make way for the A6, linking Carse O'Gowrie Road in Parktown with the northern suburbs, with a major intersection at the laundry site.
This never happened but a new proposal to build the A3 was put on the table. After many delays the A3 was finally finished towards the end of the 1990s, taking a corner of the property on its way to join Barry Hertzog Drive.
While the process dragged on the owners let the buildings for light industrial purposes, for which they are still used today.
The surrounding area had begun to change too. Milpark Hospital opened, the Milpark Holiday Inn was built, the SABC soared into the sky, the glass Auto & General building went up, and up the road in Napier Road office blocks and laboratories opened.
The 17-storey residential block was no longer suitable, says Amoils. The council suggested that they demolish and build an office park but the brothers weren't keen to get involved in a business not within their stable.
Amoils says that the agreement of sale with Imperial includes the owners getting the necessary heritage approval for demolition.
Historic site
There is still a water storage and filtration tank at the site, as well as "roofscapes with large serried ranks of sheet metal ventilators", used for steam outlet, which have become a well-known landmark in the area.
Bird believes that some of the buildings are "architecturally sophisticated", with "longitudinal parallel girder trusses on columns supported by smaller transverse roof trusses", having been specially constructed to accommodate large steam machinery.
In addition, the cottages for coloureds and whites are a significant reminder of the times. A compound for blacks on the site has disappeared.
Bird wants this architecture recognised under "technical innovation", as allowed for in the National Heritage Resources Act of 1999. It is one of the last remaining examples of a steam-driven industrial site in the city.
"The site and buildings lend themselves to some potentially very successful adaptive re-use possibilities without destroying the original character," says Bird. "Demolition should be strenuously resisted."
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