The picture of old Durban this week takes in its iconic office block “The Glass House” on La Lucia Ridge when it was the only decentralised office space standing among the sugar cane on uMhlanga Rocks Drive.
This iconic building was designed by architect Hans Heyerdahl Hallen, who was born in Durban in 1930 and schooled at Durban High School.
Built in the mid 1970s, it set a new standard for future commercialised office space. The 4 000m² building sought to consolidate six of Tongaat Hulett's offices around KZN into one functional space.
The “temple in the canefield”" was designed as a low-rise, three-storey rectangular envelope with minimal external fabric and an air-conditioned interior. The semi basement originally housed the computer systems for the offices, but today accommodates storerooms, generators and waste recycling areas.
The Glass House is set on 2ha of land and is now surrounded by three other office buildings, including parking. A coffee shop formed part of the design from the start and is still an important meeting place for the entire park.
When Tongaat Hulett left the building in 2003, it had started to show signs of wear and tear. JT Ross bought the property and surrounding land. The original Glass House was restored and turned into a multi-tenant space with MultiChoice, MWeb, First National Bank, Pernod Ricard and First Technology among the original tenants.
More than 45 years later, the La Lucia Ridge landscape is almost unrecognisable. But despite the sugar cane having disappeared amid a plethora of office retail and residential developments, the Glass House still stands out.
Our photographer Shelley Kjonstad could only approximate the original shot by shooting from the 10th floor conference centre at the top of uMhlanga’s Coastlands Hotel.
Kjonstad would like to thank the hotel’s head of security, Philani Mzelemu, who went out of his way to get the shot taken. “Not only did he organise all the necessary permissions, but when the light proved too poor to shoot an acceptable picture, he said I should call him as soon as the weather cleared. And he set it up again,” said Kjonstad.
The Independent on Saturday