Allocating a particular style to design or architecture has always been a contentious issue for me as it raises many questions about the state of architecture in South Africa. It’s good to see that the days of clients requesting Tuscan or Georgian styled homes are numbered but it has always amazed me that clients would want to spend millions of Rands on a home based on elements from foreign or historical architectural buildings. There are many reasons for this but the main in my opinion is that for the ordinary South African who has money to spend on a new home does not have a clue what South African Architecture is. For most people when this term is used, grass huts and rondawels spring to mind however even in trying to categorise a South African “style” we end up in the same boat as before: Back on the cruise ship of style…..

The term “style” is part of our modern lives and this may be where the connection can be made between style and design. You only have to watch Fashion TV, read ladies fashion magazines or men’s health articles to hear the words “style”, and “modern” used over and over to describe the latest “fashion” trends and what is acceptable in today’s lifestyle. We can’t escape it unless you live in a box so why should architecture be separated from this consciousness, after all, being an Architect is being a designer and our clients want to fit in, some want to show off, and others don’t know any better, and end up paying huge amounts of money to make their homes look like a mansion ripped from the hills of Tuscany and placed in sub-tropical plains of Africa. What’s worse is that most of these styles are rip-offs of the original and look nothing like the Tuscan homes of central Italy.

I’m not being completely fair by picking on Tuscan homes only as there are many foreign fashionable styles that have been imposed on our landscape. Today we are finding that more and more people are now asking for modern homes. What does the word “modern” mean: It means up-to-date, current, recent or new. This is all fare and well however when a client refers to modern architecture the same old precedents appear from their scrap books. The flat roofed, block-like, glass faced white boxes. This is why is it can be dangerous to categorise architecture into types or styles. Does modern architecture always have to be referred to as the cold, clean lined, clutter-less design type or can it be anything new, recent, current or up to date?

We think the latter is true and will not be confined to the common ideas of what modern architecture is thought to be. Every client is unique and every site is different to the next. With this in mind every design should be unique and should respond to the client’s needs and the restrictions of their site. So let’s throw the categories away and rather create spaces for our clients without restricting the designs by placing a style to them.