Hans Hallen, the architect appointed to design the library, saw the building as ‘a series of treasuries with a central forum’.
His concept departed radically from the Cape Dutch style of the estate within which it is located.
He wrote the following article for Optima shortly after the library opened in 1984.
Fine libraries, art galleries and museums convey a sense of age and authority. Private collections built up over time by a single individual also develop a unique character. The design for the new Brenthurst Library building sought to reflect these truths. Forms and materials have been chosen deliberately to provide classical or neo-classical allusions, at the same time indicating that the library’s owner and guiding spirit belongs to modern Africa.
Thus, the centre of the building is a reception area the cross-vaulting of which echoes Roman and Romanesque crypts. Set into the domed roof are four large circular windows filled, not with glass, but with translucent marble. The roof is supported on four pillars; short passages run through each of them like cloisters. The main entrance is through one of the pillars; its sculptured door, designed and cast in aluminium by Andrew Verster, is a clear reference to those seen guarding Italian baptisteries. Marble is used extensively – as exterior cladding, between brick courses, and as a flooring material – while water and sculpture are brought into Renaissance-like combination, an allusion confirmed by the apse that visitors see before entering the building.
Other materials, however, declare the building to be in South Africa and of the 20th century. The sills of the dome’s circular windows are lined with gold leaf. Wide use is made of red and black Transvaal granite, both polished and rough. Brick and travertine facades are inset with stainless steel columns. The free-standing sculpture by Edoardo Villa that towers over the shallow lake beside the forecourt is in black steel.
Within the building are two strongly contrasting murals. That by Andrew Verster, in the book stack area, is 20 metres long and serves as an evocation of the bleached-out colours of the highveld landscape. The other is in the reception area – a huge and darkly powerful work by the Australian, Leonard French, who was invited by Harry Oppenheimer to visit South Africa and produce whatever he felt inspired to. It is called The Bridge and depicts the destructive gap still to be closed – or, according to another interpretation, that might open up – between the peoples of South Africa. Its positioning within the building is not without significance, for it suggests the library is offered not as a refuge from current realities, but as a means of gaining perspective on them.
Published in Optima vol.32, no.2, 1984, p. 82
