harare
urban evolution a photographic history
JONATHAN WATERS
harare
urban evolution a photographic history
contents
harare before settlement
foreword .......................................................................................................................................................... 1 a note from the author ................................................................................................................................ 2 key dates in the history of harare ............................................................................................................. 5 five points of reference ............................................................................................................................... 6 the rivers ........................................................................................................................................................18 harare before settlement ..........................................................................................................................22 the arrival in 1890 ......................................................................................................................................30 the cradle years (1891–1907) .................................................................................................................36 the first boom (1908–1914) ....................................................................................................................62 between the world wars (1915–1949)..................................................................................................82 the federation building building (1950–1963) ................................................................................ 110 post federation (1964–1979)................................................................................................................ 146 post independence (1980–1987) ....................................................................................................... 166 the unity accord esap period (1988–1997). ...................................................................................... 182 the reserve bank of zimbabwe ............................................................................................................. 218 after 1997 .................................................................................................................................................. 226 harare from above .................................................................................................................................... 238 the kopje view over time ......................................................................................................................... 252 first street through the years ................................................................................................................ 258 africa unity square over the years ....................................................................................................... 302 the evolution of the parliament building ........................................................................................... 312 three stages of charter house ................................................................................................................ 316 the age of air travel .................................................................................................................................. 322 town hall ..................................................................................................................................................... 326 cecil house—a restoration story ........................................................................................................... 334 what was there before ............................................................................................................................ 340 what did not happen ............................................................................................................................... 352 five architects that transformed the skyline ..................................................................................... 356 industry ........................................................................................................................................................ 364 the suburbs ................................................................................................................................................ 368 the city of flowering trees ...................................................................................................................... 388 places of worship ..................................................................................................................................... 398 hotels ........................................................................................................................................................... 418 schools ........................................................................................................................................................ 434 the future ................................................................................................................................................... 444 biblography and photo credits .............................................................................................................. 448 The dome of the former Bank of Rhodesia & Nyasaland was designed by the architects Stenson & Hope
harare — urban evolutions
5
new/old street names Now
Was
Samora Machel Avenue
Jameson Avenue
Julius Nyerere Way
Kingsway/King’s Crescent
Kenneth Kaunda Avenue
Railway Avenue
Robert Mugabe Road
Manica Road
Kaguvi Street
Pioneer Street
Harare Street
Salisbury Street
Mbuya Nehanda Street
Victoria Street
Chinhoyi Street
Sinoia Street
Herbert Chitepo Avenue
Rhodes Avenue
Josiah Tongogara Avenue
North Avenue
Josiah Chinamano Avenue
Montagu Avenue
Mazowe Street
Mazoe Street
Jason Moyo Avenue
Stanley Avenue
George Silundika Avenue
Gordon Avenue
Robson Manyika Avenue
Forbes Avenue
Leopold Takawira Street
Moffat Street/Milton Avenue
Nelson Mandela Avenue
Baker Avenue
Seke Road
Hatfield Road
Chirimba Road
Queensway
Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo Road
Airport Road
Sam Nujoma Street
Second Street
Kwame Nkrumah Avenue
Union Avenue
Simon Muzenda Street
Fourth Street
Samora Machel Avenue at 6:32am on April 28, 2015
key dates in the history of harare c. 1100 Centralised village settlement –1400 known as the ‘Harare Tradition’
1896
First Chimurenga; FSAD building completed on RBZ site
c. 1580 Portuguese gold traders base –1693 themselves in Mashonaland
1897
Municipality created with Ernest Fairbridge elected as first Mayor
1898
Telephone exchange established with 28 subscribers paying 15 guineas to be connected
c. 1840 Harare area visited by hunters and –1889 Portuguese adventurers 1890
1891
1892
1893
1894 1895
Pioneer Column leaves Fort Tuli (July 1) with the aim of reaching Mt Hampden; Decision made to site Fort Salisbury (September 12); Flag hoisted (September 13)
1899
Sanitary Board established; the Herald is established (June 27); Rhodes arrives for his first visit (October 16); Decision made not to move the township (November 20); First horse race in September and first race day meeting on Boxing Day
1902
Telegraph line arrives (February 12); First hotel (Mashonaland), bank (Standard) and school (Convent) Salisbury Club opens (May 20); Work starts on Market Hall; Invasion of Matabeleland Salisbury Chamber of Commerce established Work starts on Cecil Hotel, which is converted in 1898 into the Legislative Assembly; Jameson Raid
First golf club established on the banks of Mukuvisi; First Legislative Assembly meets; Train arrives from Umtali; Boer War breaks out Bulawayo–Salisbury railway line opens; BSA Company switches mining policy to royalty system
1947
Royal Tour starts (April 7); Field Marshall Lord Montgomery (shown below) visits later in the year
1964
Anglican Cathedral completed
1965
1953
Federation of Rhodesia & Nyasaland comes into being (October 23)
UDI declared; Radio Ltd only building constructed in the year
1967
1954
First session of Federal Parliament (February 2); Official recognition of Salisbury as capital of the Federation (March 9)
Work starts on Southampton House, first project after postFederation slump
1974
Monomotapa Hotel opens
1980
Independence
1983
Meikles becomes first hotel to gain five stars
1985
Sheraton opens
1987
Karigamombe Centre completed; Unity Accord signed
1991
ESAP Programme announced; Work begins on RBZ
1996
RBZ, tallest building in Harare, is officially opened (May 31)
1997
Zimbabwe dollar (November 14)
2000
Referendum defeats proposed Constitution; Farm invasions begin
2001
New Harare International Terminal opened; Hyperinflation period starts
2003
Zimbabwe withdraws from the Commonwealth
1955
Lady Chancellor opens; Royal Charter for the establishment of the University College of Rhodesia & Nyasaland; Kariba Dam gets go ahead
1911
First suburban shop (Avondale)
1913
First municipal water and power supply
1956
New international airport officially opened to civilian traffic
1915
Meikles Hotel opens (November 15)
1960
First transmission of television
1963
1920
First aeroplane lands on racetrack (June 20)
Final sitting of Federal Parliament (December 9)
1923
Southern Rhodesia becomes self-governing colony with Salisbury as capital Cathedral
crashes
1925
Roman Catholic consecrated
1930
NEM Building completed
1935
Salisbury declared a city; First State Lottery Draw
2009
1940
Empire Air Training School established in Salisbury; Bulawayo becomes city
Dollarisation or multicurrencies era begins
2010
Joina City completed
2015
Zimbabwe dollar demonetarised
five points of reference The rapid transformation of Harare in the 1950s during the Federation era made the city almost unrecognisable when compared with photographs from early days. To provide a bridge between then and now photographs, here are five landmarks that will allow the reader to approximate the position of many of the new buildings.
the kopje This banded ironstone ridge was for many years the primary landmark for the town and will remain as such for posterity
the presbyterian church Seen in front of Charter House during construction, work on the church started in 1909, with the tower being added in 1951
the washingtonias Donated by H. E. V. Pickstone in November 1920, these palms are native to Mexico and are five years short of a century
An aerial shot of Harare in 1957, which contains all five points of reference. This was at the height of the Federation era when 27 buildings were under construction, including Charter House, Michael, Linquenda, Central and the Jameson Hotel. Note the old racetrack at the end of Samora Machel Avenue
nem house Completed in 1930, NEM House at the corner of Nelson Mandela Avenue and First Street was the first five storey building in the city
the dutch reformed church With its distinctive slate roof, this compact church is also seen in the background of many old pictures of Harare
Looking along Pioneer Street in 1893 with the Kopje on the right The Kopje trading area in 1895
There has been much recent myth-making as to how the Pioneer Column got “lost” on the way to Mt Hampden. However all contemporary accounts dealing with the period show that the site for the capital was deliberately chosen. Having crossed the well watered Mukuvisi a day earlier, the setters found the supply of water lacking in the Gwebi river, which was near the target site for the third and final fort to be constructed (as per a contract with Cecil Rhodes). Consulting with the other officers, Lt Col Edward Pennefather decided to call a halt to the expedition in close proximity to the banded ironstone ridge with the Mukuvusi in close proximity.
the kopje From the first month of occupation the Kopje, known to the Mashonas as Harare, has appeared in background shots and provided a useful elevation to allow photographers to capture the progression of the city over the past 125 years. The Toposcope at the summit was developed in 1953 to mark the centennial of the birth of Rhodes. Plaques indicating suburbs and towns throughout the country were embedded in the circular viewing platform. However, these were removed in 2007 as there were plans to site the new parliament building on the Kopje. In recent years, government has—in an ironic twist—suggested that a new parliament will be constructed at Mt Hampden.
harare — urban evolution
five points of reference
This shot was taken in 1910 from the top of the Salisbury Executor’s Building, then the tallest structure in town
9
The church in 1952. Note the roundabout and the Washingtonias to the left
The foundation stone for the Presbyterian Church was laid by Lady Milton in May 1909 and the first service was held four months later. The chairman of the Board of Management at the time was Dr Andrew Fleming, after whom Parirenyatwa Hospital had been named before independence. In 1928 the church was enlarged when the north and south transept were
added. The Memorial Tower was built in 1951 to remember those who died in World War II. Congregants at the time included the Northern Irish Protestant H. M. Barbour and John Wallace Downie, a member of the Legislative Assembly after whom the road in Belgravia is named. As Jameson Avenue, now Samora Machel, had become the most prestigious
address in Salisbury, an insurance company in March 1969 offered the congregation £500 000 for the site, more than three times its rateable value at the time. Included in the offer was the provision of an alternative site for the church in Fife Avenue, but the congregation turned down the offer. In February 1980, a bomb went off in the early hours of the morning, causing
extensive damage to the church although many of the stained glass windows survived. So powerful was the blast—the work of Rhodesian security operatives although at the time it was blamed on the nationalist forces—that windows shattered across the way at the Monomotapa Hotel.
harare — urban evolution
five points of reference
the presbyterian church
11
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the rivers No rivers flow to the east from Harare because the elevation rises (as seen on the map on the left) with Marondera (at 1 660 metres) being acknowledged as the highest town in Zimbabwe versus Harare at 1 480m (and Bulawayo at 1 350m). The streams throughout Harare collect into three major rivers—the Mbvunze (Umwinsi) flowing north east, the Mukuvisi (Makavusi/Makabusi) which broadly heads west, and the Marimba (southerly). Residents will be amazed as to how many times they cross over them!
This picture was taken looking north east near the intersection of what is Julius Nyerere Way and Nelson Mandela Avenue. Government buildings on the Causeway can be seen on the right of the photo. Early settlers had called the unnamed stream “Finucan’s Drain”, as Tim Finucan had built a drift in the vicinity of the NRZ railyard—clearly the name did not stick
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Lt Col Edward Pennefather and his diary entry for the selected site shown left mpy
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the arrival in 1890 The original destination of the settlers was Mt Hampden, named by Frederick Courtney Selous, the guide of the occupying forces, after John Hampden (1595–1643), the English parliamentarian who challenged the excesses of Charles I that were to lead to the English Civil War. There has been much myth making in recent years about how “the whites got lost” as they approached the final destination, but a conscious selection of the site was made by Lt Col Edward Pennefather. The reconnoitring scouts had found that the Gwebi (which refers to the sparsely covered surrounding plain as it means
“hairless” as a skin blanket or kaross that had been worn out) had very little water in it. Pennefather writes in his diary: “We then rode down the Gwibi Valley for about five miles towards Mount Hampden, then turned north-east, and rode along the eastern edge of the plateau where the streams running into the Mazoe and
Inyangwe rise. Finding that the water supply in the Gwibi valley and at the edge of the plateau was not sufficient for what might eventually be the seat of government, with a considerable population, I returned to the valley of the Makobisi and selected the site where the camp now is... Captain Ted Burnett returned to the
column at daybreak on the 12th to guide it to the spot selected.” Burnett had been hunting in the area in 1888, so he almost certainly knew where he was. Skipper Hoste, the leader of ‘B’ Troop, writes in Gold Fever: “At the first streak of dawn on September 12th, we broke up our laager on the Six Mile Spruit and
The flag staff was erected within a few metres of the original site where the Union Jack was first hoisted on a msasa pole
plain and coming to a halt where Africa Unity Square is today. Hoste describes the mood at the end of their five month march: “We were all jubilant; we had arrived in the land of Ophir, our fortunes were made. We were all millionaires in embryo. I remember that the popular idea was that we would all make our fortunes in a couple of years and go to the Philadelphia Exhibition in 1892. I believe, in fact, that only one member of the expedition did actually get to Philadelphia, but the only way he could manage
it was by marrying a wealthy woman and using her fortune to get him there.” Orders were issued that evening laying out the ceremony for the next morning at Africa Unity Square. Hoste was selected to preside over the ceremony because the leader of the Pioneer Corps, Major Frank Johnson, had already left for the Hartley area to peg mining claims. The Administrator Archie Colquhoun and Leander Starr Jameson had, with Frederick Courtney Selous, left the column at Fort Charter to sign a concession with Chief Mutasa in the
east. The only other senior leader present was an American, Maurice Heany, the head of ‘A’ Troop. “Fort Salisbury” was named after Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, the Third Marquess of Salisbury, and Prime Minister of Britain in 1890. The BSA Company flag, which reads Justice, Freedom, Commerce (and can be seen on the front of Charter House), was not ready when the column had set off five months previously and so at 10am on Saturday September 13, a Union Jack was hoisted. This flag is still in
the arrival in 1890
started on the last lap. The column wound slowly over the veldt and presently, as we surmounted the ridge that bounds the valley of the Hunyani, the small hill now called the Salisbury Kopje came into view. As we got nearer we saw that the shallow valley below the Kopje was a mass of yellow flowers. They were something like candy tufts in shape and, as we discovered later, they gave off a very pleasant scent in the night.” The column of settlers then advanced along the edge of the kopje, turning east onto what was a featureless
harare — urban evolution
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FARRELLS
To MAZOE
HATFIELD HILL BARE HILL To TOOLES FARM
EAST HILL
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From HARTLEY HILLS KOCH
POLICE RESERVE
THE RANCHE HILL AND MOORE
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BLACK’S FARM THE ENVIRONS W
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THE EARLIEST MAP OF SALISBURY, DRAWN WITHIN SIX MONTHS OF THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
the National Archives and was given back to the country on the 50th Anniversary of the flag raising by South Africa Premier General Jan Smuts. The “Fort” was dropped in 1892 and in 1982, the name was officially changed to Harare. William Harvey Brown, who represented the Smithsonian Institute on the trek and became Mayor of Salisbury in 1910 said: “I know not what the other Pioneers may have thought or felt on this occasion, but I must confess that in my mind it made a profound impression. For the first time in my
life I felt that I was helping to make history. It needed no professional prophet to predict the farms, the mines, the towns and cities, the factories and the railways which a few years’ time would be almost certain to bring. There is a fine feeling of exhilaration in being present at the founding of a new state, and in five minutes after Fort Salisbury was established, I had made up my mind to stay with the enterprise, at least long enough to see the curtain fall at the end of the first act.”
There are still five other Salisburys in the world of civic size—one each in England and Canada and three in the USA. There are also Salisbury islands in Canada, one in the bay at Durban, and Lake Bisina in Uganda is sometimes still referred to as Lake Salisbury
the arrival in 1890
The fort being constructed shortly after the arrival and a sketch of the completed earth wall fort below
harare — urban evolution
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the cradle years (1891–1907) The town grid was laid out in 1891 by an American Thomas A. Ross, a nephew of the first Administrator of Mashonaland, Archibald Colquhoun, whose name is recorded in the road that leads down to the US Embassy. Colquhoun quickly recognised that having settlers squatting in huts haphazardly erected all over the place would lead to problems later on. Ross designed the original town, comprising 2 458 stands, around the central gardens between what was Jameson and Rhodes avenues. The avenues ran west-east, and streets north-south. Early Salisbury was split into two areas: the administrative side on the ‘Causeway’, where BSA Company officials were housed, and ‘the Kopje’ where the traders lived. The reason Ross left such large areas “unsuitable” (as shown on the map) was because of the extraordinary rainfall in the first year of arrival. 1890 was recognised as one of the wettest on record, with later projections by Father Edmund Goetz estimating the first season’s downpour at between 53 and 63 inches (1 600 millimetres), double the annual average. In addition to fifteen gold mining claims, the settlers were entitled to a 3 000 acre
farm, and many of the suburbs today such as Avondale, Borrowdale and Mt Pleasant carry their original names. Cecil Rhodes visited the town for the first time in October 1891 and found a hostile settler population who were upset as there were reportedly still plans to move the settlement and no one had been given title. In November 1891, the Administrator Leander Starr Jameson published a notice in the Herald declaring the town would not be relocated. As the issue of granting title was only resolved towards the end of 1891 after Rhodes acquired the Lippert Concession, many settlers had already sold their Certificates of Occupation and left the country. The population decreased further when a large number of people signed up to take part in the invasion of Matabeleland in 1893, but property values did rise the following year when speculative money flowed into the town on the back of the 1894 stock market boom in Johannesburg.
In the early years, the Sanitary Board carted hundreds of tonnes of stone to firm up the vlei and gradually it was converted into what is today Harare Gardens
The activity was short lived. Rinderpest, the Jameson Raid in late 1895 followed by the First Chimurenga in June 1896 weighed heavily on morale and the township’s development. After hostilities were brought to an end in 1897, the BSA Company tried to encourage agriculture through the provision of seed and cattle. Mining had not been the success the settlers hoped for as labour was in short supply and machinery was difficult to bring in before the railway arrived in Salisbury in 1899. Within weeks of the arrival of the first train, the town took another knock with the outbreak of the Boer War and it was only some years after its end in 1902 that things started to look up. East Coast Fever followed the war and decimated the cattle population again, although this also had the effect of encouraging a switch to cropping. Mining started to pick up as the BSA Company switched to a royalties system and many small operations opened.
After a shaky start and sluggish growth up to 1908, the town was on the cusp of its first boom. As was the case in the USA, Ross wanted to give all the streets and avenues numbers, and it was Dr Frank Rand, the BSA Police doctor, who suggested they be named after explorers and early hunters. Certainly a generation back, folk could have told you something about Stanley, Speke, Gordon and Baker, but even they would have struggled to tell you anything about Verney Lovett Cameron. Dispatched by the Royal Geographical Society in 1873 to assist David Livingstone, Cameron came across the party already carrying the explorer’s body to the coast. Usefully he went to Ujiji in Tanzania where Livingstone had met Stanley before he set out on his last adventure. He collected Livingstone’s papers and had them sent back to England and then headed west, becoming the first European to cross equatorial Africa from east to west.
racetrack The first horse race was in 1891 and took place along what was Manica Road. It was won by a horse called “Recondite”.
The old racetrack, which was used from 1892 until the move to Borrowdale in 1958
the cradle years (1891–1907)
Patrons walk to Ranche House on the Kopje after a race meeting
The second was on the track where Rainbow Towers, the library and museum stand today. To pass an otherwise very boring time, many events were held for amusement, and what was recognised as the first competition involved diving for a bottle of whisky in a pool on the Mukuvisi River on St Patricks Day in 1891. William Harvey Brown won the “menagerie race” in October 1892 for which all creatures great and small were eligible. Against a field of three chameleons, two dogs, a monkey, a cat, a goose and two frogs, one of which was Harvey Brown’s, “Mark Twain” won the race handsomely and earned his owner £5. Harvey Brown went onto acquire a farm he named Arlington, which today is the site of Harare International Airport.
harare — urban evolution
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The train’s progress towards the capital was recorded at various landmark moments along the way, such as the point at which the Odzi River was crossed
arrival of the railway
The first train arrived on May 23, 1899
The first train station was a tin shed seen here with the Kopje in the distance
harare — urban evolution
the cradle years (1891–1907)
Given the rivalry between the Causeway and Kopje, Rhodes ordered that the railway station be built midway between the two to placate both factions. For many years the station was a corrugated shed. Construction of what is Harare Station today started in 1925.
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the cradle years (1891–1907)
This picture shows the old railway station at the end of what was Second Street. The old Bates & Marshall building is seen on the right and is covered in more detail in the chapter on Africa Unity Square (see Page 311)
harare — urban evolution
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Two unorthodox ideas at the turn of the century to solve issues over labour and transport saw Somalis brought in to work on the mines while camels were imported to carry goods after East Coast Fever killed off much of the livestock. as transport stock was doubtful, especially during wet conditions. The Transport Camp for camels was located where the squash courts are at Allan Wilson School, near the corner of Herbert Chitepo and Rekayi Tangwena avenues. The camels were used extensively on the track between what was Fort Victoria and Selukwe as it was very sandy. All but one perished a few years later when they drank from a cyanide dam. The surviving camel lived out its final days at Chisawasha Mission.
the cradle years (1891–1907)
An attempt had already been made with mules imported from Egypt, but all the animals died. The Somalis arrived in 1900, but given the harsh working conditions in the mines, quickly deserted and were reportedly absorbed into the indigenous population. The camels were a suggestion by Col Jack Flint, who went to India and returned with 34 animals although he had less success in encouraging Sikh riders to accompany them. Not only did the camels scare other domestic animals (as they were said to smell like lions), but their success
harare — urban evolution
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the first boom (1908–1914) The arrival of the railway line in 1899 and the placing of the station to the south of Manica Road started a drift from what was Pioneer Street as the merchants wanted to be nearer to the railway yard.
Almost all the fine buildings on Robert Mugabe Road were erected between 1910 and 1911 and most of them were designed by James Cope-Christie and Thomas Sladdin. The Store Brothers (Cope-Christie) and W. H. Adams (Sladdin) buildings were constructed at the height of the boom in 1911, which was unsurpassed in value for another 30 years. With their distinctive gabled elevation, the buildings appear very much as they did a century back. The iron columns and balcony on the Store Bros building were imported from Glasgow. The architect Peter Jackson said the fine staircases and art nouveau detailing of the shop fronts makes this pair of buildings “especially important”
Better shops and offices were being built as supplies of cement, iron, verandah posts, and imported windows and doors became available and gradually Manica Road became the fashionable shopping area. Several of these buildings are still with us today. There were two other factors that drove the development of the town at this time. The first was the abandoning in 1907 of a provision to give the BSA Company equity in mining projects (it had been 50% up to 1904) in favour of a royalty system on a sliding scale. The second was the development of the tobacco industry, with production rising from 63 500 kilogrammes in 1910 to 1.133 million kilogrammes by 1914. The provision of power and piped water in 1913 further drove progress. Ahead of the visit in 1910 of Prince George, the Prince of Wales, it was suggested that Broadway, which ran along either side of the unnamed stream which separated the Kopje from the Causeway, be rechristened Kingsway in his honour. It was further suggested that government
buy all the plots around the junction of Jameson Avenue and Broadway and build a big square around which all the new government buildings, including the parliament, would be sited Then suddenly there was confusion as King Edward VII died and George became King. The British court decided a Royal Tour should still go ahead and Prince Arthur, the Duke of
Connaught, the Duchess Louise of Prussia and their daughter Princess Patricia, would travel to southern Africa instead. Processional arches were erected along the route from the railway station to the newly built Government House, now State House. The unnamed stream was canalised in 1911. In the years that followed, it was covered over in sections, the first being
One of the procession arches which the 1910 Royal party passed through
The Dutch gabled State House, formerly known as Government House, was constructed ahead of the Royal Visit in November 1910. Cubitt & Co, who had erected the Mount Nelson in Cape Town, were appointed contractors, invoking local fury. At £56 000, it cost three times more than the initial estimate. A Billiard Room was added in 1928, a guest wing in 1938, the main office wing in 1943, and the President’s suite in 1952 for the Queen Mother’s visit in 1953
in 1891, was renamed Josiah Chinamano Avenue after the late Zapu nationalist, who died in 1984. Sir Ernest Montagu was a BSA Company clerk and for many years was a very active chairman of the Tree Planting Committee. In 1923 it was deemed appropriate that his name be given to the two kilometre stretch of jacarandas, the longest in the city.
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The plaque has since disappeared along with oldest jacaranda
from Manica Road to Stanley Avenue. The stream is now a storm water drain that comes out where Julius Nyerere Way meets Charter Road near the Enbee sign. Having been renamed Julius Nyerere Way in December 1980, Kingsway is one of two streets in Harare which have had their names changed three times. Montagu Avenue, which was designated the title of Cape Avenue when the city was laid out
Josiah Chinamano Avenue during the height of hyperinflation
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To the east of Store Bros on Robert Mugabe Road is Union Building, also constructed in 1910 and once again, designed by James Cope-Christie. The original building comprised a banking hall for the African Banking Corporation and has seen its building use change many times over the years. Cope-Christie’s signature construction date and building name appear in the parapet. The corner portico has a Cape Dutch baroque pediment supported by Tuscan columns. On the pediment is the monogram ‘V & C” in a scrolled floreate shield representing the names of the original owners, Panaghi Vassilalos and Gerassime Cambitzi
the first boom (1908–1914)
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Slightly to the west of Store Bros is Arnold Building, which was completed a year earlier in 1910. The dominant feature is once again the ornate double storey balcony verandah with art nouveau patterned ironwork. The twin cast iron columns made by Wade & Dorman of Durban support the projecting balcony and canopy. The side and centre windows of the first floor have stucco surrounds and are emphasised by the three gables that arise from the balustrade above. Nathaniel Arnold was an auctioneer and had put up the building as a sale room. His German wife proudly flew the Reich flag in the early stages of World War I from the balcony
Probably most famous when it housed the Bamboo Inn, Old Yorkshire House was a joint effort between Cope-Christie and Sladdin, and was built by Milton Cleveland, who went on to become mayor. The rather modern German baroque parapets had complemented that of the Central Tea Rooms, which was hurriedly knocked down by a Chinese developer in October 2014. There has been much hand washing by the relevant authorities who claim that the building was not under a protection order. However, it is clear from this photo that the year of construction was 1910
the first boom (1908–1914)
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One block up is the Salisbury Executor’s Building, completed in 1913. The architect Francis Masey would have designed the Anglican Cathedral had he not died of blackwater fever. It was the first building to have a well in which a lift might have been fitted. The heraldic colours of Edward Coxwell, a former mayor of the city, can still be seen on the corner, comprising six cockerels. The motto “Dum Vivo Vireo” can no longer be seen clearly. According to Brendan Tiernan, the former headmaster of St George’s, the verb ‘vireo’, i.e. ‘to be green’ or to ‘flourish’, means in this context ‘While I Live, I Flourish’
Taken from the top of the Executor’s building in the 1920s, this picture shows the line of the historical buildings. What was the Central Tea Rooms and Cuthberts during the 1980s, was demolished in October 2014
the first boom (1908–1914)
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between the world wars (1915–1949) Both wars impacted heavily on the country through the loss of manpower. The first spurt of real growth leading up to World War I was brought to a very quick end and a decade later the white population of Salisbury at the time of Responsible Government had only increased by 120. Building plans by the end of the war were a mere £8 000, the lowest they had been since 1905 and did not get back to pre-World War I levels until the end of the 1930s. The coming of self-government injected new life into the economy and tobacco production started to pick up again. The effects of the Great Depression took some time to be felt, but when
The Cenotaph was erected in 1922 in honour of all those who lost their lives in The Great War. Plaques were added to commemorate all soldiers who perished in World War II. The plaques were removed by the city council in 1984
they did, the country was hard hit again. However, it was not for long this time. The change in tobacco fortunes, and consequently Salisbury’s development, was very quick. Britain’s abandoning of the gold standard in 1931 saw the country go from possibly the worst tobacco season in the country’s history the year before, to two auction floors five years later.
bradlows building
The State Lottery, which sees 25% of funds go to charity, started in December 1935 following a referendum on the issue. Draws were initially held at Bechuana House, now Pelhams House, but in 1938 the new State Lottery Hall was opened and also has a rather art deco feel to it. The first prize was £10 000, but this was lifted to £50 000 in December 1961 as sales were brisk in South Africa (five times as much as Rhodesia), where gambling was banned. In February 1964, South Africa outlawed the sale of tickets in the republic and the winning prize was dropped to £15 000. The top prize was raised to $50 000 in 1970 and doubled the following year to $100 000.
The architect Peter Jackson said the Bradlows Building was the first building to truly adhere to the ‘modern’ style movement when buildings were stripped of decoration and appeared in their raw state of concrete and glass. Designed by Lynn Driver Jowitt in 1938 while he was working for MacGillivray & Pallett, there is some art deco styling on the concrete posts.
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state lottery
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Buildings covered in buntings for the Royal Tour included the Palace and Milton Building below, and the railway station, Town Hall and OK Bazaars on the opposite page
the railway station
James Cope-Christie’s original design for the station
The station seen here during the Royal Visit in 1947
The logo of the National Railways of Zimbabwe
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The station platform in April 2015
As the entry point for many first time visitors, a building befitting of the capital had been in the offing for many years after the arrival of the railway in 1899. The foundation stone was laid on November 17, 1925.
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royal harare Due to mosquitoes and the distance from town, the course was moved to the area between the Drill Hall and the Jameson Hotel. With construction underway on the Drill Hall, the club committee was informed in 1901 they would have to move to the area behind the cricket ground stretching to Hartmann Hill, the site they still occupy. The club was granted its first lease on the 75 hectares of land in 1918. The course is very much the same as the one laid out at the beginning, except for a few holes on the other side of what was Second Street, which had to be abandoned when the road extension went through to meet up with Golden Stairs Road. Up to 1927 the present 17th green was the first hole and the 16th was the 18th.
The first clubhouse was built in 1913 where the green keeper’s cottage now stands. The Prince of Wales honoured the club with his presence in 1925 and the Royal title was added in 1929. Having acquired the old Polo Grounds (2.5 hectares in extent) from Royal Harare in November 1982, government made it known the following December that it wanted to acquire both Harare Sports Club and Royal Harare along with St George’s College as part of a “clean up”. There were many rumours at the time, Royal Harare, which has a lease until 2100, would have been entitled to $6 million in compensation if the City of Harare had cancelled the leases, while St Georges stood in line to get $30 million.
An aerial view in the 1940s of the course. Royal Harare has no water features, but is well wooded and bunkered. The course is 6 467 metres in length, slightly shorter than Chapman (6 514 metres). Warren Hills has the longest course in the city at 6 666 metres
The Royal Harare clubhouse, the third in the establishment’s history, was constructed in 1968
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Royal Harare celebrated its centenary in 1998, but the forerunner to the present course had been laid out by George Fleming along the banks of the Mukuvisi river.
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the coronation pond
This shot shows the pond in the early 1960s after the building boom chronicled in the next chapter, and how it looked in April 2015. Note the Rebellion Memorial in the background
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The pond was built in 1937 when the Superintendent of Parks G. W. McGuffog commemorated the coronation of King George VI. When the Royal Family visited in 1953, they had tea on the eastern side of the garden and were said to be “delighted” with the pond. McGuffog was also responsible for creating the replica of Victoria Falls on the northern side of the gardens.
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swimming bath The first swimming bath was a big concrete tank erected in 1901 opposite the Langham Hotel, which was on the corner of what was Manica Road and Moffat Street. The complex was named Les Brown in 1961 to commemorate the passing of Rhodesia’s former swimming champion from the 1920s. Brown’s father had been superintendent of the baths. The pool was ‘metricated’ in 1970, being shortened to 50 metres from 55 yards. When the 2.5 cent ‘tickey’ coin was withdrawn in 1979, the price of entry was cut to 2 cents.
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When the Monomotapa Hotel was completed in 1974, there was a ludicrous claim that divers were affected by wind off the building
The first public swimming baths were opened in 1915 next to what had been the site of the first power station. When funds were made available under the State Lottery scheme for swimming baths in the 1930s, the Olympic size pool was built on the site of the old municipal power station and the original pool was deepened for diving.
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the federation building boom (1950–1963) In the short space of six years the face of the central area of the town changed completely and Salisbury became a modern city. The Federation created a common market of which Salisbury was the centre. Financial confidence stimulated expansion and Salisbury revelled in the benefits which it brought — Tony Tanser, historian
Jameson Avenue seen in 1949 before its transformation in the 1950s. The same view of Samora Machel Avenue in April 2015 is shown on the left
Three factors spurred on the city’s greatest construction boom—a surge in post war emigration from Europe, the formation of the Federation of Rhodesia & Nyasaland with Salisbury as the capital, and the choice of Kariba over Kafue for the establishment of a hydroelectric scheme. The inflow of immigrants necessitated additional schools, rationing of water and load shedding, which irritated the “locals”, although they benefited from an upsurge in property values and rentals. Parking
also became a problem and the metered solution also had the longer term settlers grumbling about the good old days. Electricity demand rose 31% in 1951 and while a hydroelectric scheme was in the offing, a third thermal power plant was developed to compliment the other two opened in 1931 and 1947. When it was fired up in 1957, coal production was 4 million tonnes (output was 2.77 million tonnes in 2014). To deal with water issues, Lake McIlwaine, now Chivero, was built on
the Manyame river and was the biggest earthwall dam in southern Africa when it was completed in 1952. A year after a 10 000 majority vote in favour of forming the Federation, Salisbury was officially recognised as the capital in March 1954. Banks, building societies offering mortgage finance to immigrants, insurance companies and mining houses brought their headquarters to the city and industrialists sought land for factories. The University College was established
The crest of the Bank of Rhodesia & Nyasaland
The bas relief on the top left hand corner of the Old Reserve Bank building is the work of Willem de Sanderes Hendrikz (1910–1959) and depicts a foundryman “forging” the links of the Federation countries as seen in the Bank’s crest. Hendrikz was considered to be the first Afrikaans sculptor to follow modern trends and was renowned for the embellishment of buildings. He did many bas relief panels for banks and building societies and a much admired zodiac (left) on the side of the SABC Building in Cape Town. He committed suicide and his sculptures today are worth thousands of dollars
Philippe Berry’s Balancing Elephant outside the Old Reserve Bank Building was commissioned by the French Embassy, who still have their diplomatic mission in the building. It was cast in bronze by David Mutasa
The Old Reserve Bank Building opened as the headquarters of the Bank of Rhodesia & Nyasaland on June 6, 1957 and at 47 metres was the highest building in the city when completed. The site was bought in 1951 and Stenson & Hope won a competition for the design, which was assessed by Prof Leonard Thornton-White, the first professor of Architecture at the University of Cape Town. In 1947, “TW”
designed the current layout for Nairobi and he advised on the layout of the Cape Town Foreshore, (which was strongly criticised by Francis Lorne, the architect of, among others, Charter House and Pearl House). Work started in December 1954 and many of the features remain insitu, such as the wide sweep of the steps leading up to the entrance with the flute marble columns supporting the portico roof. The paterae
or medallions on the silver bronze doors are based on old Greek coins. With the unnamed stream in close proximity, the water table was discovered at just under two metres and so the basement is tanked in asphalt. The first three floors are clad in white limestone from Alaska mine near Chinhoyi. Balconies along the front “serve to relieve the otherwise austere lines of the main elevation”.
The mosaic by Leonora Barta depicted various aspects of the Federation’s activities such as agriculture, commerce, wildlife, industry and mining. Notably mining is represented by the headgear shown in the centre. The three horizontal bands at the bottom represent coal, gold and copper
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Far left: The building shortly after its completion in 1957. Simple in treatment, the 15 metre dome in the banking hall is designed throughout in aluminium. Clerestorey lighting as well as a full circle of artificial lights below the base of the dome sharpen the effect of the aluminium ribbing of the structure
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Housed in the permanent selection is “UDI Plotters” by Marshall Baron (1934–1977), whose work has been widely collected Reclining figure—Henry Moore
The Shade from the Gates of Hell—Rodin
The Three Crosses —Rembrandt
The Portrait of Don Juan Carillo de Gamiz —Bartolome Murillo
national gallery of zimbabwe It was said to have been the largest collection of art to ever cross the equator. Works were loaned by France, Britain, Italy, Holland and Belgium and five aircraft—two planeloads from London and three from Paris—were required to bring the exhibits to the Federation’s capital. The curator of the gallery, Frank McEwen, was convinced a similar exhibition would never be seen again in Africa. McEwen is credited with bringing Shona sculpture to prominence and helped launch the careers of Thomas Mukarobgwa and Bernard Takawira. Frustrated with the deteriorating political situation, McEwen resigned his post in 1973 to live on his boat in the Bahamas.
Montgomerie & Oldfield’s design relies heavily on natural light and was chosen from competition Prof Norman Hanson, who went on to become the Professor and Director of the Architecture School, Manchester University, and John Fassler, Professor of Architecture at the University of the Witwatersrand
The mural out the front of the gallery is by Leonora Barta, who had two other major works in the city and did the mural at La Rochelle near Mutare. Literature at the time claimed “Leonora Barta” came from a famous family of muralists in Venice, when in fact she was Frank McEwen’s wife, Cecilia
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Burger of Calais —Rodin
What was the Rhodes Gallery, was opened by the Queen Mother on July 16, 1957. The inaugural exhibition was entitled “From Rembrandt to Picasso” and comprised 500 exhibits from galleries across Europe.
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“The character of this building is well expressed in this picture of the top corner of Pearl Assurance House, which brings out in detail the reconstructed stonework and window alignment. The 4.6 metre deep parapet is, as shown here, completely in proportion in relation to the rest of the building” —Rhodesian Property & Finance, 1959
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With 2 000W of light, the “Pearl” could reputedly be seen more than 150kms away
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throgmorton house
Throgmorton House was built on the site of the old art deco Broadway garage, which was designed by Cathcart and Fothergill
Kenneth de Courcy’s Overseas Land Purchasing Trust bought the site of the Broadway Service Station in August 1957 for £95 000. The architects Rinaldi, Macdonald & Harvey designed the 11 storey face brick building so that all offices avoid the hot western sun. It was the first building with lifts that contained a “magic eye” to keep the doors open should anyone be entering. The project was named Throgmorton from the start, and most probably relates to one of the streets in the City of London near the Bank of England, named after
Nicholas Throckmorton, chief banker of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Completed in June 1959 at the height of the property bubble, Throgmorton was one of the schemes that led to the downfall of De Courcy, who as the Daily Telegraph said in his obituary, “led a life as rich in vicissitude as in the fantasies which sustained him”. He was unable to return £1 million put up by investors in his property schemes and resorted to fraud and forgery. De Courcy bought a flat in the Empire State Building and had his Rolls-Royce waterproofed
for underwater driving. In 1963, he was sentenced to seven years’ jail. While the economic situation was dire in 1963, there was opportunity. A clothing industrialist, Henry Wells, resident of Winchendon House, Borrowdale, bought the building in October 1963 for £115 000 and sold it less than two years later to the Local Authority Pension Fund for £170 000. Another building scheme that collapsed around the same time was Mercury House, which was liquidated in 1962 after the debenture holders could not repay the funds raised.
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Throgmorton in April 2015 from the top of Charter House and after its completion (above)
Philips used to have a digital clock on top of the building
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One oft repeated myth is that Livingstone House was designed by a woman. Marion Chatterton was in fact responsible for all the structural work and was at the time the only woman in the world who was a full member of the Institute of Structural Engineers Livingstone House in April 2015 with Megawatt House on the left
livingstone house When it was completed at the end of 1960, Livingstone House was the tallest building in the city, a record it held until the completion of Earl Grey (now Mukwati) in 1975. was also regarded as “unique” at the time. When RST, renamed Roan Selection Trust, moved back to Zambia in 1964, suites were offered at hugely discounted rentals.
The brisé soliel (sunscreen wall units) were designed to provide a permanent robust and lightweight solution to counter the harsh African sun. The equilateral triangular vertical sections were manufactured by Turnall from quarter inch thick semi-compressed asbestos-cement pressure pipe material. These were secured together and delivered to the site, ready for fixing
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When the 70 metre Livingstone House was completed in 1960, it was the second tallest building in Africa. At 93 metres, the Sanlam building in Cape Town was the tallest. When Livingstone House was handed over by Costains to its owners in November 1960, the architect partnership of Ross Mackenzie, van Heerden & Hartford announced plans to construct a £1.2 million building on the site where the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe now stands. At 107 metres, it would have been the tallest building in Africa (see the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe section on Page 225), but 13 metres lower than the RBZ
Livingstone House was the headquarters of the Rhodesian Selection Trust (RST), which had extensive interests in the Copperbelt, and had moved to Salisbury along with other companies that wanted to be close to the Federation’s centre of power. The building was named after David Livingstone (1813–1873), the explorer and missionary. The architects, Cathcart & Son + Creasy & Fothergill of Salisbury and Dennis Lennon of London had been inspired by the Pirelli Building in Milan. Lennon and D’Arcy Cathcart travelled to Milan in 1958 and met Gio Ponti, designer of Europe’s tallest building at the time at 124 metres. Initially projected to cost £700 000, the final figure for Livingstone House was never revealed, but it was speculated that the owners London County Properties had spent £1 million. The high speed lifts, which could get to the 20th Floor in 32 seconds, were the first of their kind in the Federation and had electronic buttons that could action a request at the “lightest touch”. The above ground parking on the 1st and 2nd floors
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the museum & the sculptor The new museum was opened in April 1964 at a total cost of £150 000. A striking feature of this modern flesh-coloured reconstructed stone building is the terrazzo sculptures individually set against copper green panels in front of a pool.
the civic centre site As commercial activity declined, the government started to spend on buildings on the new civic centre site, created after the racecourse was relocated to Borrowdale in 1958. Jameson Avenue widened in 1959 and extended westwards to join the new Bulawayo road, with the view that the boulevard would go the whole way out to the new Federal Parliament, now the site of Heroes Acre. The first building on the Civic Centre site was the Harare City Library (Montgomery & Oldfield), opened in 1962 as the Queen Victoria Memorial Library. The Civic Auditorium was to be sited in front of it. Built at a cost of £54 000, the library in
two colours of terrabloc reconstructed stone was refurbished by the Swedish Embassy in 2014. Just to the south of the museum is the College of Music by N. D. N. Fairbairn, built almost entirely on a grant from Sir Stephen Courtauld.
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The terrazzo statues are the work of David Chudy (1916–1967), a quintessential Renaissance man, having in his short life been a successful entrepreneur, artist and a self taught scientist. Not much is known about his early life except that his family had made their way from Eastern Europe to Northern Rhodesia during the 1930s. Chudy broke new ground with his self funded scientific research into bats’ echolocation and developed sonar blind aids and prototype sonic burglar alarms. At the time of his death he was being drawn to researching dolphin speech in Florida. The museum was designed by Cathcart & Son + Creasy & Fothergill
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post federation (1964–1979) At the height of the building boom there had been over 200 registered architects in the Federation, but numbers had dropped to a quarter by 1964 and in what was now the Federation’s former capital, there was a mere £800 000 of anticipated contracts in the year ahead. North of the border, Lusaka was undergoing a building boom as mining companies relocated back to Zambia, and banks that had set up headquarters in Salisbury were now required to replicate the same in the newly independent Zambia. In 1965, building plans in Zambia soared 225% to reach their 1957 record once again. South of the Zambezi, the gain was 29%, but off a very low base. In the unsettling period just after UDI, development was very much in the suburbs. Building plans in the CBD totalled £1.627 million in 1966 while Highlands on its own achieved £1 million two years later. But by 1967 confidence was returning when immigration was once again positive and at its highest level since 1959. The Southampton Life and Parkade projects—both million dollar ventures—got the go ahead, followed by a new headquarters for what was the Netherlands Bank. After several years of sluggish growth, GDP grew 15.5% in 1969 and mostly The Parkade completed in August 1970
managed double figures up to 1974 when the economy expanded by 16.3%. When the stock market peaked in 1974, the year fuel rationing was introduced, so too did the construction boom. Following the amalgamation in 1971 of the suburbs and city into what was Greater Salisbury, building plans were lumped together, and nationally they hit a peak of $111 million in 1972. For the capital, 1974 was the record post-Federation at $51.86 million. By 1975, it was once more in decline at $40.7 million and did not recover until after independence. The closure of the border with Mozambique in February 1976 and escalation of the war were major factors to weigh on the national psyche. By 1976, emigration once again exceeded immigration and various political initiatives failed to achieve peace. Property prices were down 20%–30% on 1973 levels and new residential plans for high income earners were down 72% in 1977. A major blow to confidence was the announcement by Meikles that it was to defer the completion of its new South
Wing. However, in 1979 even before the Lancaster House Agreement and the elections that followed, optimism started to return. Meikles announced in June that it would now complete work on the South Tower. In November 1979, the stock market surpassed the record set in 1974 and after elections the following February, Zimbabwe was granted independence on April 18, 1980. The period is dominated by the use of concrete and steel—the “minimalist” look, although this was due more to shortages of foreign currency (and often building materials) than a wish to use “maintenance free materials” in light of the fierce African sun. However, the collapse of the Federation hit Southern Rhodesia hardest as with the loss of the copper exports, the nation was once again in a trade deficit position. There was no more Italian mosaic and lavish interiors as seen in the Federation and finishes such as American Walnut had to be substituted for whatever was available locally.
cabs centre The CABS Centre (Roy Densem & Partners) had been on the cards since 1960, and a decade later, the building society announced that a 15 storey structure would be erected on two stands owned by Kingstons (known as Kingstons Corner) and three stands owned by CABS, on the site of the old Haddon & Sly. A pre-requisite was that Kingstons be provided with continued trading facilities out of the old Haddon & Sly building. Demolition work started in 1973 up to what was Radio City and the $4.5 million building was completed in February 1976, opening a day before Earl Grey I.
Looking east on what was Stanley Street in the 1950s. Pocket’s Tearoom, the Haddon & Sly Building and old Herald House can be seen on the left, or northern side of the road
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Drilling the foundation of the CABS Centre. Note the Greatermans building behind
A model of the CABS Centre
When the Herald moved into its new building next door in 1963, the Rhodesian Printing and Publishing Co. sold its building on the corner of what was Second Street and Stanley Avenue to Kingstons for £168 000
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The success of the Parkade spurred the development of a second parking garage. Several sites were considered, including the Market Hall, which was earmarked for demolition, along with the “Charge Office” site outside Harare Central, which the council had acquired in February 1972. The council decided to build on the block between Julius Nyerere Way and Rezende Street, but foreign currency constraints delayed the start. When first announced in early 1973, a nine storey block to accommodate 700 cars had been designed by City Architect Arthur Price with the Rezende Street bus terminus
underneath. This was modified in the late 1970s leaving the bus terminus uncovered and removing open parking planned in the space between the terminus and Julius Nyerere Way. The Parkade would be built flush with Julius Nyerere Way with a “skyway” linking the Parkade and new central Post Office extension. Work finally started on the $1.415 million structure in 1978, delaying its opening until after independence. When the Parkade was commissioned in October 1980, it was found the entry ramps were too steep, which resulted in further remedial work being undertaken in 1981.
General paralysis set in after 1976. Buildings completed in the final years of the war were already in progress when the downturn started towards the end of 1974. The tapered Legal & General building (Clinton & Evans), constructed on the site of the old Halsteds outlet at the corner of Jameson Avenue and Second Street, was the last major privately funded building to be completed in the city in the 1970s. The insurance group had planned a prestigious $4 million complex, but scaled it back as a result of foreign currency constraints. The tapering to reduce each successive floor level of the eight storey building means that the top floor is reduced to 301m² compared with 421m² on the first floor
Demand for flats in the Avenues was robust and the most prestigious of all developments—Northwold (above)—was completed in 1970 at a cost of $1 million. Stirling Heights followed (1972) as did Oakwood (1975), which was the Chinese Embassy for many years after independence
Equally uninspiring, and at the corner of Speke and Angwa, Sapphire House was completed in 1974
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The unremarkable Koblenz House (Geoffrey Doctors) on Speke Avenue saw Pollack House, built in 1952, extended by 3 floors in 1973
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post independence (1980–1987) After 5 years in the doldrums, the prospect of a political settlement saw the start in mid-1979 of a bull run on the stock exchange that was to last through to early 1981. By November 1979, the Industrials index surpassed its record high achieved in 1974, having doubled from the level a year
previous, while the capitalisation of the stocks on the Minings board had more than tripled. In the first year after independence,
a host of new projects were announced and an influx of foreigners and embassies saw residential house prices firm.
Karigamombe Centre in April 2015 on the left and shortly after completion. The project name was changed a few months before it was inaugurated from Piccadilly Centre to Karigamombe (“overthrower of the bull”). Robert Mugabe, then the Prime Minister, remarked at the official opening on November 6, 1987 that ‘Karigamombe’ was also his great-grandfather’s name
the unity accord—esap period (1988–1997) The Unity Accord between Zanu PF and Zapu was struck on December 22, 1987 and while the economic climate had been cautiously positive since the mid-1980s, this deal between the two adversaries of the liberation struggle set aside any political uncertainty there may have been. The next decade was to see a transformation of the city that had not been seen since the Federation, with development mainly taking place on Harare’s two most prestigious streets—Samora Machel Avenue and Kwame Nkrumah Avenue—and spreading back in the direction of the Kopje. While the effects of Black Friday on Wall Street in October 1987 continued to be felt in markets around the world, the ZSE rose and in 1988 was the only stock market to reach a new record high that year. Property prices were also on the rise and building was once again taking place in the suburbs. In 1989 only three houses changed hands for a million Zimbabwe dollars (around US$400 000), but as the exchange rate continued to depreciate, “million dollar” deals became commonplace in the 1990s. Many street names were changed in 1990, including Stanley to Jason Moyo, Moffat to Leopold Takawira, and North to Josiah Tongogara. However, years of price control (the residential rent freeze was lifted in July 1989) and persistent foreign currency shortages had created many structural
deficiencies in the economy. While there were pockets of strong activity, growth was sluggish and the IMF sought to put this right with its reforms to liberalise the economy under the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme announced in August 1991. This brought the five year bull run on the ZSE to a screaming halt as interest rates went up sharply and the stock market and property prices plummeted in the year that followed. The environment was compounded by another crippling drought, poor mortgage availability and uncertainty over land designation. Inflation shot up and the cost of building materials rose sharply in 1992 (the price of steel doubled) as a result of the devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar and as price controls were removed under ESAP. Shortages of building materials saw every building project run behind schedule and cost escalations saw project values double making Zimbabwe dollar figures increasingly meaningless. Inflation hit 46.3% at the end of 1992, but the reforms started to work and it had dropped to 18.6% by the end of 1993.
As the stock market remained in the doldrums, cash rich pension funds continued to pour money into building projects. Further economic reforms announced during the course of 1993 saw the relaxation of exchange controls, which allowed foreigners to invest and reignited the stock market. Property prices too began to rise and a “record” $16.5 million was paid by the National Railways of Zimbabwe for
Sunnyside Mansions, which is next to the Presbyterian Church on Samora Machel Avenue. This equated to Z$8 726/m² or the equivalent of around US$1 300/m² in today’s money, well down on prices during the Federation. After another three year drought, agriculture started to recover and interest rates began to fall. The exchange rates were “unified” in July 1994 and the parallel
The Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference resulted in a general makeover of the city ahead of the meeting of dignitaries in October 1991
market was wiped out for the first time in nearly three decades. The availability of building materials had improved markedly, even though it was estimated prices were still rising by 6% a month. Given the cost of projects, pension funds started to syndicate developments. The coming of majority rule south of the Limpopo in 1994 saw an influx of South African chains and the focus of new projects started to shift away from the city towards the new office parks and malls in the northern suburbs.
Nevertheless, a shift to decentralise was now underway and Old Mutual’s flagship Westgate mall was opened to many accolades in March 1997. Planning had started on the Northgate mall at The Grange in Harare’s northwest, but Zimbabwe’s participation in the escalating war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, unresolved issues over land reform and unbudgeted gratuities for war veterans brought about a crash in the Zimbabwe dollar in November 1997. Given the uncertainty that followed and issues over escalating building costs, many projects that were on the drawing board were shelved.
Between 1993 and 1995, more than a third of the 300 000m² of lettable space created since independence came on stream. The coming of cellphones also saw that another major impediment—telephone lines when it came to moving into a building—would be a thing of the past. “Local materials” were key at the time and concrete on such award winning buildings as Finsure House and Eastgate was used to innovative effect. Heat reflecting glass was employed on most buildings, and is especially apparent
Through its Merchandising division, PG supplied most of the “flush” glazed, heat reflecting silver/blue glass used in 1990s, seen on such buildings as the RBZ, NSSA, Corner House, PTC Causeway, Finsure, Southampton Life, Three Anchors, Fidelity Life, and Noczim
35 000 people visited Westgate on its opening weekend at the end of March 1997
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Shown here in the 1950s with a fun fair on the site, Angwa City was sold for the equivalent of US$2.3 million in 1996
on the most prominent creation of the period, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, which was completed in April 1996. By the end of 1996, inflation had fallen to 13.9%, its lowest level since 1989, and the industrials Index had risen 113.6% in the year. The IMF had agreed to fund adjustthe second phase of the structural adjust ment programme—going into 1997, it seemed nothing could go wrong. But while figures continued to look impressive in Zimbabwe dollars, they continued to drop in real terms. August 1996 saw the Mining Industry Pension Fund pay Z$23 million for the Angwa City property. This worked out at Z$6 400/m² or about US$650/m² in today’s terms.
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zimre house
construction house
Quasi-government institutions unleashed a host of projects at the end of the 1980s. Opposite Dolphin House, which was built at the start of the decade that transformed the town into a city during the 1950s, Zimre embarked in July 1987 on the construction of a ten storey building on the less desirable side of Union Avenue, on the corner
of Moffat Street. The $13 million building, designed by Graham Mills, was to comprise two sections, a shop block and an office tower rising to 41.5 metres. The building was completed in 1990.
Zimre Centre was the first major building to include a standby 200KVA generator in the event of power failure
Further along what is now Leopold Takawira Street, the ten-storey Construction House (Harvey Bufe Mwamuka Partnership) was being built between Nelson Mandela and Jason Moyo avenues.
With funds from the industry pension fund, the $43 million project was completed over a year behind schedule in 1993. Adam Madebe’s “Construction Workers” stands on plinth in front of the building.
hurudza house
Ploughman (1993) by Adam Madebe sits on a five metre brick plinth outside Hurudza House, offering “a distinctive signature in an otherwise not very rural area”. Madebe’s works have been collected by the British Museum
The 16 storey building is 66 metres high and was named Hurudza (“Master Farmer”) House when completed in July 1992. The signature brickwork and greenery of the architect Mick Pearce is particularly apparent as is the use of local materials. The bricks were from Bulawayo, the marble came from Nyamapanda, and the pink granite above the entrances was mined at Beatrice. Price escalations saw the final cost coming out at $40.5 million. The mural inside by Howard Minnie is entitled “The Land is our Heritage”.
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In January 1988, the Agricultural Finance Corporation announced that the collaboration between Cathcart Fothergill & Pearce and Jackson Moore had won the competition for its new $32 million headquarters further down Leopold Takawira Street on the corner with Jason Moyo Avenue.
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zb life towers
From the outset, there was a desire to give tenants views of Africa Unity Square, hence the L shape design “The first floor is treated as a garden, a symbolic extension of Africa Unity Square”— Vernon Mwamuka
It was reported that a 14 storey building would go up on the site, but this was later changed to 19 storeys and it claimed the mantle of Harare’s tallest building, albeit briefly, before the completion of the RBZ. The sod turning took place in May 1990 and construction on the development—known as the Southampton Life Centre—was based on a design by the Bufe Mwamuka Partnership, which was dissolved before completion of the building at the end of March 1993. The initial forecast was that it would take three and a half years to build, but it was only completed in 1995 and when it was opened in August that year by the RBZ governor Leonard Tsumba, the price had tripled to $300 million. The architect Vernon Mwamuka said: “The final design for the centre represents the culmination of a design process which is partly a search for the forms that will integrate otherwise on conflicting needs.
It is primarily a commercial workplace designed to make the conduct of the activities it contains more efficient and comfortable. Yet it is also a model for rebuilding a city where highrise living is inevitable. It answers Harare’s need for a reconciliation of public and private, old and new, providing a meeting place, a kind of cultural mixing pot, taking down the barriers and creating an open house. It is a welcoming place, a fusion and a city within a city.” Finished in white and grey terrazzo, with solar reflective glazing, each floor has demountable office partitions. Every level is broken down into four air conditioning zones and clients were also offered a huge range of options when it came down to carpets, colours, blinds, and curtains. “Not since independence have office occupiers been able to choose some of the materials with which to plan their office,” the developers said at the time.
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At the end of 1989, it was reported that a consortium of pension funds would spend close to $100 million on a development on the site of the old Meikles Hotel, which had been a car park for the past 15 years.
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finsure house stockpiled to ensure the bush hammered exposed aggregate finishes remained constant. Of the building, which took much of its symmetry from both the Anglican Cathedral and the Parkade across the road, the architect Julian Conrad said: “The pyramids are staggered across the corner of Union Avenue and Second Street and enclose the entrance vestibules to the retail spaces at ground level. The pyramid motif recurs throughout the building in various detail and finishes.” Conrad won an award of merit for the design at the Excellence in Architecture awards ceremony in March 1995.
“The horizontal bands of concrete and tinted glass on the outside of Finsure House mimic the language of the Parkade across Second Street. The play of the vertical elements higher up the building against the horizontal bands is intended to create dynamism and tension. The staggered nature of the top floors adds to the interest of the aesthetic and provides balconies accessible from the executive floors”—Julian Conrad “The powerful pyramid form takes their cue from the roofs of the Anglican Cathedral, designed by Sir Herbert Baker, arguably southern Africa’s greatest architect”—Julian Conrad
Finsure was built on the site of the “La Pinta” building, which for many years housed the Nu Way drycleaners
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Completed in June 1994 at cost of $45 million, work on the award winning Finsure House started in September 1991. The brief given to the architect Julian Conrad was to create “a building that is innovative in shape, without compromising its function, environmentally attractive, financially feasible and with sufficient prestige to attract quality tenants.” It was the first building in the city touted to have electronic access with swipe cards. During construction, the biggest issue faced by the contractors was the shortage of cement as they could not source from other producers because of the colour variations. The off shutter and precast concrete aggregates were selected, washed and
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three anchors house Completed in June 1995, work began on Three Anchors House in February 1992. Moyo Avenue frontage. “To achieve this, the curved shape of the main tower structure appearing to embrace the front of the building gives it a striking dominance when viewed from across the street”. Eerily visionary of the future, Three Anchors contained a borehole “in the event of a breakdown of municipal water supply” and a standby generator “as a precaution against unexpected power failures”.
Three Anchors House was built on the site of the old Store Brothers complex
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Old Mutual said at the conclusion of the $70 million project that it was satisfied that the development met their specification of a “presitige office building, with its own identity, an unmistakable prime business address that will stand the test of time and retain marketability during its entire economic life”. Old Mutual’s brief to its architects Fleet Utria was that the building’s “strong retail position” take full advantage of the Jason
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eastgate Without labouring the absolute specifics, Eastgate maximises the use of the falling evening temperatures to cool down the building during the course of the night through a series of concrete ducts and hollow floors in the nine storey building. The 48 brick chimneys along the top help pull the exhaust air out of the two blocks. The process is reversed during the day and the air is sucked out of the bowels of the building which has been cooled to the core. Eastgate’s facade is also designed to lessen city noise and ensure it is not heated up by the sun as quickly as conventional structures. The diurnal range (the difference between the daytime high and night time low) in September is around 10°C and the building at this time manages 4.5°C of natural cooling with its passive ventilation. In other words, if the temperature on the street outside was 30°C, the temperature
inside the building would be a very comfortable 25.5°C with minimal use of electricity. In October when the diurnal swing is 5°C, only 2°C of cooling is achieved. Measured against six other buildings with air conditioning, Eastgate uses 35% less energy. The 26 000m² project was announced January 1992 and was to be the largest commercial building in the country. It was projected to cost $300 million and would be constructed almost entirely of local materials. The head of Old Mutual Properties, David Frost said: “Because we were building on such a large site, we were able to apply economies of scale in the project and spread our wings. This has been achieved by designing two low rise office blocks set 16 metres apart. If such a building had been designed in a traditional manner, the result could have been a 35-storey office tower with all the costly
“In the new order, massive protruding stone elements not only protect the small windows from the sun, but increase the external area of the building to improve heat loss at night. The horizontal protruding ledges are interrupted by columns of steel rings supporting green vines to bring nature back into the city”—Architect Mick Pearce
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After a decade of building, Old Mutual started on what was to be its greatest achievement on many fronts —Eastgate—a multi award winning building due to its “green” passive ventilation features.
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the reserve bank of zimbabwe The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the tallest building in the city at 120 metres, was opened on Friday May 31, 1996 by President Robert Mugabe. Derek Wood, who was the RBZ’s representative on the project said: “In many rural areas grain harvests are stored and dried in structures that are built off the ground on legs in a circular or square type of basket container which most animals cannot reach. Traditionally having food was a sign of wealth and contentment, so the architects were given this idea for the building. They did this very successfully”
The murals along the front of the buiding depict agricultural and mining practices
While planning on the building had been initiated in 1979, it was only in 1983 that the project gained momentum. On instruction from the RBZ Governor Kombo Moyana, the architects were told that the design should borrow heavily from agriculture. He had shown the architects Clinton & Evans a hozi—a grain storage facility set on support stilts—and the building certainly reflects this traditional profile. The skyscraper has 23 floors and three basements. The tower block is raised above the level of the podium roof and the etched frieze on the ground floor depicts
various economic activities, such as crop growing, harvesting, storage and depositing of surplus grain, all in a pictorial progression towards the main door. “The concept of the building is intended to create an impression of strength and solidity while depicting a traditional Zimbabwean theme by judicious harnessing of aesthetic forms and artwork,” Moyana said at the ceremony held on May 24, 1990 when the late Finance and Economic Planning Minister Bernard Chidzero turned the first sod.
after 1997 The hyperinflation era saw the creation of a record number of zeros to appear on a bank note—$100 000 000 000 000 Few major building projects were announced after November 1997 and those that were underway struggled as costs escalated exponentially and developers had to deal with the age old issue of foreign exchange shortages. Cranes disappeared from the skyline and by 2007 the only one that remained was over Joina City. Inflation topped 100% in November 2001 and the hyperinflation period to follow lasted longer than World War II, officially ending with the onset in February
The events at the end of 1997, combined with the political turmoil and farm invasions that followed the referendum on the new constitution in February 2000, sent the economy on a downward spiral. 2009 of the “multicurrency system”, which legitimised transactions in US dollars. Certainly when it came to private property sales, US dollar deals became standard practice from about 2004 when quasi-dollarisation started to take place with the use of fuel coupons. US dollars are still in use today and in June 2015, the Zimbabwe dollar was officially demonetarised. In the 15 years since the turn of century, development has been on residential housing. New suburbs have been
The Last Construction—the sole crane in the CBD in 2007 stands over the Joina Centre
created as money has flowed back from the diaspora, while renovations of existing homes have been a major area of spending. Sam Levy’s Village in Borrowdale has also had an active five years of development. While no major construction projects have been undertaken in the city for the past decade, it is noteworthy that cement sales in 2013 came close to surpassing the 1.1 million tonnes achieved in 1999. There were seven major developments underway in November 1997 and
bravely the National Railways of Zimbabwe Pension Fund announced as late as July 1999 it would build Trust Towers on the Sunnyside Mansions site at 54 Samora Machel Avenue. This was the stand that had commanded a “record” price at the end of 1993, but which was still far below what had been achieved in the late 1950s. In 2015, prices for properties in the streets adjoining First Street were around $275/m², a quarter of top prices two decades before.
harare from above The notation at the bottom of the aerial photo shown left states “Circa 1930” but it is possible to date the photo to the arrival of the first plane in 1920. This is because work on the James Cope-Christie building at 90 Montagu Avenue at the corner of Second Street only started in 1923. Aside from the distinct bush track that goes through the property, there is no development on the site at 90 Montagu at all The first plane to land in Salisbury, an Avro 504K, touched down on the old racetrack, the block where the Zanu PF headquarters and Rainbow Towers now stand, on June 11, 1920. The plane was owned by the South African Aerial Transport Company and the pilots C. R. Thompson and Earle Rutherford toured the country over four months giving residents in towns along the way their first ride in an aircraft. The Herald reported on its arrival in the capital enroute from Gatooma: “Large crowds assembled at the race course to view the aircraft, which was expected at 11:00 but was late. Suddenly the hooter at the brewery sent its voice abroad in
The hospital, through the tree lined avenue, which appears in the top left hand corner of the aerial photo opposite short spasms and the aeroplane came into sight. It flew over the town first and then approached the race course. Cheers were raised by the assembled spectators as it came to a halt opposite the grandstand.” Rutherford and his two passengers, Messrs Ulyett and Thornton of Gatooma, were met by the Mayor George Elcombe, who “expressed the hope that the day was not far off when aeroplanes would be in daily use”. Thompson, who had travelled ahead to check the landing ground, then took the mayor for a spin. Children from Avondale School, the first primary school in Mashonaland, scampered up the ridge to
catch a glimpse of the first flying machine to be seen over the town. Over the next 10 days, Rutherford and Thompson took up dozens of residents, including the late Bob Laidlaw, who took this picture. The Herald published this photograph (without the notations) on October 9, 1968, noting it was “probably the first aerial photograph” over the city. The jacarandas are very much in their infancy and consider the blob just up from the junction of what was Second Street and North Avenue. This is the msasa that stood in the middle of the road before it was knocked over by a truck in December 2011 (see page 391).
c. 1905
2015
the kopje view over time
brewery
The brewery with the same perspective in 1931 and 1958 shortly before the move to Southerton
The original plans for the brewery were approved by the German College of Brewers and the owners were Tom Meikle along with the hoteliers Adolph Rosenthall (Commercial Hotel) and Louis Susman (Masonic Hotel). Construction on the facility started in 1898, a year before the railway line reached Salisbury, with all the equipment being transported by oxen from Umtali. Wells were sunk in Market Square and the water was found to be of good quality. A master brewer, Herr Stanislaus Strauss, was brought out from Germany and production commenced in April 1899. The brewery was opened by the first mayor of the town, Ernest Fairbridge, who had been sent up in 1891 to start the Herald. Daily production amounted to 20 barrels, or 374 cases a day. On May 1, lager beer was placed on sale in stores, selling at five shillings a gallon (about £25 in today’s money, which would make the price around £5,50 a Louis and Alice Susman
litre), or 7d for a small bottle. Figures in January 1900 showed 4 056 gallons had been sold in the month and this increased to 6 600 by June. In the six months to June, the brewery reported a profit of £4 084 on turnover of £10 162! SABMiller acquired the company in 1910 and expanded the brewery by erecting a new six storey building, which was opened on December 18, 1911 by the Marquis of Winchester. With the onset of the Federation, an expansion of the brewery was considered, but with demand increasing exponentially, the group decided to build a new facility in Southerton that could produce 150 000 bottles a day. Gradually production was shifted to the new site in Southerton and in 1971 the remaining fermentation and storage tanks were shut down. A year later, the brewery site, comprising 21 stands in total, was sold to the Olympic Finance and Trading Company for $875 000. The site underwent a $400 000 redevelopment in 1974 with the core building being turned into the OK supermarket.
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the kopje view over time
The brewery on Cameron Street at the corner of Charter Road was one of the city’s landmark features until it was partially demolished and redeveloped into an OK supermarket.
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1955
first street
through the years
first street through the years
2015
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first street through the years From the 1920s, First Street was the city’s premier shopping district and in the 1950s commanded prices for land that have never been seen again. Surrounded by offices, the introduction of lunch hour trading in April 1957 further added to the value of the area. The intersection of First Street and what was Stanley Avenue in 1958 following the rebuild of Barbours
The top price paid for a site was £475 000 in March 1960 for the Radio Ltd complex on the corner of First Street and Union Avenue. It was equivalent to £17 and 10 shillings a square foot, or about $5 900/m² in today’s money, below the top price paid per square foot of £25 (around $8 500/m²) for what
A postcard of First Street looking north before World War I. Note there is only bush at the top of the street where the Reserve Bank buildings now stand
was the Founders plot at the corner of First/ Gordon, but close to £17 and 5 shillings paid for Woolworths corner. In terms of gross value, the nearest previous deal was the sale of Stanley House for £318 000 to a subsidiary of the BSA Company in 1958. As the building industry recovered in the wake of
UDI, the construction of what was Southampton House started in October 1967 on the Radio Ltd site. It was followed shortly afterwards by the demolition of the Grand Hotel and subsequent construction of the headquarters of Netherlands Bank, now ZB Financial Holdings.
Southampton House, now Chiedza House, the first major construction after UDI. Roy Densem also designed the headquarters of what was the Netherlands Bank, now ZB
the grand hotel The Commercial Hotel, a wood and iron structure, is believed to be the first building on First Street. and Thomas Sladdin, the Grand Hotel was built at a cost of £11 000 and opened August 1914. When sold by J. W. Nash in 1963, it was apparently the last privately owned stand in the CBD, but this is debatable as the Puzey Building at the end of the street was sold by Leah Gelman in July 1967 for £90 000.
first street through the years
E. E. Homan was the first proprietor and sold it to a consortium with Harry Sanderson becoming the sole owner in 1902. The original building (shown) with rustic pilasters and Greek urns—a favourite of the architect Servaas le Roux—was demolished in 1911 after the death of Sanderson. Based on a design by James Cope-Christie
The Commercial Hotel seen in 1905 (top) and its successor, the Grand Hotel after its rebuild (left) and above in 1930
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first street’s oldest buildings The two oldest buildings remaining on the street are at the junction of Robert Mugabe Road. The Puzey Building on the western side of the street which is now a Spar, says “Est 1897”, but was built after World War I The site at the end of First Street later occupied by the Standard Bank
first street through the years
The McCullough & Whitehead building (James Cope-Christie) on the eastern side was constructed in 1908. It is now a Food Express, having throughout time been an outlet for the wool merchant L. B. Norris and CT Stores during the 1980s and 90s.
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africa unity square over the years Renamed Africa Unity Square in 1988 on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Organisation of African Unity, Cecil Square was firstly not named after Rhodes and secondly is not a square. As had been the case when the city was christened, the name comes from Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, the Third Marquess of Salisbury, who was Prime Minister of Britain when the country was occupied by the British South Africa Company in 1890, but who had another stint in office when the ‘square’ was named on May 2, 1898. The six acre park is rectangular and appears from above in the shape of a Union Jack, the crossed paths represent
those of St Andrew and St George, when this design was implemented just under 100 years ago. The ‘square’ was surveyed by Tom Ross and reserved as a police parade ground. The first cricket match in the city was played on the site a year to the day of the arrival of the settlers in 1891, and it largely remained in an unkempt state in the years to follow. In 1893 it became the site of the first public execution in the country when Louis Andries was hung from a six metre gallow for murdering a fellow
Lord Salisbury. The peerage began with Robert Cecil, Secretary of State to Elizabeth I. He was created Viscount Cranborne in 1604 and Earl of Salisbury in 1605 by which time James I had come to the throne
Looking north east through the park in April 2015. The Harare Publicity Office on the left had been a substation until it was remodelled in 1969
The flag raising and parade on the square on September 13, 1890
traveller. The execution took place at 8am on April 17, 1893 and women were not allowed to view the event. The Salisbury Club opened the following month on the same place the Harare Club is today. Construction of the Cecil Hotel, which was remodelled over the years into what is still Parliament, started in 1895. From 1905, ceremonies to commemorate the 1890 arrival started to take place, and for many years, September 12 was accepted as the anniversary of the
the evolution of the parliament building Parliament is still using the same building that housed the first meeting of the Legislative Assembly on May 15, 1899.
The original double pitched roofs of the Cecil Hotel can be seen protruding from the behind the new facade, enclosed in 1938 to a design by W. J. Roberts, the Director of Works
The Cecil Hotel shortly after its completion in 1898
What was originally constructed to be the Cecil Hotel has had a near unbroken run as the seat of government. The only time Parliament sat elsewhere was in the Prince’s Hall after the attainment of self-government in 1923. This was because there was simply not enough room in the debating chamber. Robert Snodgrass and David Mitchell, two transport riders who had met in the Argentine, had arrived in July 1891 with a cargo of whisky. They had established the Hatfield Hotel on Pioneer Street, which boasted the first billiards table in the town. In 1895, they decided there was a need for a hotel on the ‘Causeway’ side of town where most of the civil servants lived. Building on the structure was disrupted by the outbreak of the First Chimurenga. In a semi-finished state, the hotel was bought by the BSA Company in 1898. The dining room was converted into the chamber of the Legislative Assembly, which had its inaugural sitting a mere eight days before the first train arrived in town.
three stages of charter house At the opening of Charter House, as we know it today, in May 1958, the British South Africa Company President Ellis Robins noted that the Chartered Company only had a commercial presence in the capital from the time the first purpose built ‘Charter House’ was constructed in 1926, the ‘Queen Anne’ looking Prime Minister’s Offices on Third Street.
Two views of building as it appeared shortly after its construction in 1899. The assay office is to the left. As it appears today with the 1926 extensions. It was named Chaplin Building in 1954 and after independence it was changed to honour Mashonganyika, one of the leaders of the First Chimurenga. It is now the seat of the Constitutional Court The third Charter House on Samora Machel Avenue
Up to that point, the BSA Company had administrative offices initially in the Cecil Hotel, which they bought in 1898 and turned into the Legislative Assembly. In February 1912, the BSA Company acquired what is now Mashonganyika Building from the Standard Bank ahead of the arrival of the new Administrator, Sir Drummond Chaplin. After Chaplin’s term ended in 1923 with the coming of Responsible Government, the building was extended and turned into the Lands Department. Standard Bank had acquired the site on which the building stands in July 1892 after the arrival of the bank’s first employees. The story goes that Lewis Mitchell, the general manager of the Standard Bank had called on Cecil Rhodes at Groote Schuur in February 1892 to be informed that the telegraph line had just reached Salisbury. The two drove into the centre of Cape Town where the line had been cleared so that Mitchell could talk directly to Leander
Starr Jameson in Salisbury. The result was the dispatching of John Boyne and Wilfred Honey by coach four months later with £3 600. On July 20, 1892, in two rooms of the BSA Company’s premises, the first bank was opened. The urban legend at the time had it that Honey slept at the bank, using a Gladstone bag full of cash as a pillow. There are conflicting reports as to just when the original structure and the assay office next door were completed, but the architect Peter Jackson puts the date of the construction at 1899, although other sources say the previous structure was only demolished in 1901. The new building, designed by Servaas le Roux, was perfectly square and cost £6 500. Le Roux’s signature triangular and louvred ventilator pendiments above the sash windows can still be seen on the building today. An extension to the building was undertaken in 1926 based on a design by William D’Arcy Cathcart.
the age of air travel The history of air travel in Zimbabwe is still less than a century old, and Harare was not the first place a “flying machine” landed.
The old airport at Belvedere in 1951
The runway from south west before the terminal was constructed The new airport terminal seen in the early 1960s
The capital missed out in the attempt by Pierre van Ryneveld and Quintin Brand to be the first men to fly the London to Cape Town route. Flying from Livingstone, the Silver Queen, a converted Vickers Vimy bomber, landed in Bulawayo on March 5, 1920, more than three months before the first plane touched down in Salisbury (see Harare From Above on Page 238). In the absence of an airfield in the early days, planes landed on the old racetrack when it lay between Rotten Row and the showgrounds. Government opted to lease 200 acres of land in Belvedere from the city council for an airfield that came into use in 1930. The establishment of the Empire Air Training Scheme saw a fast expansion of airfields around the city—there were three in the vicinity—Belvedere, Cranborne and Mt Hampden—but it was to be airplane technology in the years that followed World War II that dictated the development of the airports. The acquisition of Viking aircraft by Central African Airways in 1946 forced the construction of a longer runway with better structural support at Belvedere.
At the same time, government was conducting a survey over where to site a new airport given that the Comet passenger aircraft would require a longer runway. The report in 1950 came up with two potential sites on the farms Highfield and Kentucky. Having constructed a second runway at Kentucky, the air force moved from Cranborne to the site named New Sarum in September 1951 and it was decided that the new airport could be shared with civilian aircraft. The main runway measuring 2.7 kilometres (8 612 feet) was ready in September 1952 and a passenger terminal was planned on the northern side of the runaway. The new terminal costing nearly £500 000 was opened on July 1, 1956 in what was then the Federation’s capital. Taxi tracks were arranged for aircraft parking so that exhaust gases are not directed at the building. The viewing deck and restaurants became a venue for many millions of hellos and goodbyes over the next 45 years. Airplane technology continued to improve with the arrival of the first pure jet turbo VC10 on July 21, 1964, which took the flying time to London down to 13 hours.
town hall The building seen today is the second Town Hall, on which construction started in April 1931.
The “Arms” of the original crest contain a green field and sheaves of corn, which are indicative of agricultural development, a bar of gold for the mining industry and the three blue rondels with fleur-de-lys are from the arms of the Cape Colony
The original Town Hall seen shortly after its construction in 1902 stood in front of the current building. The two Town Halls stood side by side for over a year before Servaas Le Roux’s structure was demolished
cecil house—a restoration story
Cecil House in the early 1900s when it was the headquarters of the BSA Police It is often claimed Cecil House was
had two other owners before it was
materialised and by 1903, De Beers had
De Beers sold the building in September
occupied by Rhodes, but the building was completed after his last visit to the country in August 1900. The site was first used as a laundry by Thomas Constable, who bought the stand in 1892 and had it titled the following year. Stand 1008
eventually acquired by De Beers for their headquarters in January 1901 following the discovery of diamonds in Somabhula, near Gweru. Despite having pegged more than 400 claims, the expected diamond boom never
leased the building to the BSA Company. It was jointly used as offices for Sir Marshall Clarke, the Resident Commissioner of the Imperial Government and the headquarters of the BSA Police, under Commandant Col William Bodle.
1920 to T. A. Heaton for £700 and it was used as a boarding house. Over the next few decades, the building changed hands several times, becoming ever more rundown. After the city council refused to allow R. J. Benatar, president of the
harare — urban evolution
cecil house — a restoration story
Cecil House remains the best example of Victorian architecture in the city. The single storey Palladian structure built by De Beers in 1901 from a design by architects Gibson & Cator mixes both the Victorian and Dutch colonial styles of the time, with a gable supported with scrolls and adorned by pointed pediments.
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The Queen Victoria Memorial Library, designed by James Cope-Christie and George Turner, was built with funds raised through a public subscription. It opened on February 28, 1903 and critics slammed the Italian renaissance style as “a Victorian monstrosity”. Too small to cater for the needs of the city during the 1950s, there had been plans to construct a majestic hotel on the site. It was demolished in 1962 at cost of £845 and the Girls High School hall was built on the site
The Anglo African Trading Company on the corner of Cameron Street and what was Manica Road was demolished in 1957. The “ornate balustrade and vulgar gables gave it flamboyant character” the sketch artist, Anthony Wylson said at the time
lost treasures
The Masonic Hotel, built in 1892 on what was Pioneer Street was owned by Louis Susman, who was one of the main shareholders in the first brewery. The hotel was demolished in 1972
harare — urban evolution
what was there before
St Swithins, named after the BSA Company’s first London address, was built next to Market Hall in 1899 and pulled down in 1963
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industry The first industry was a steam sawmill and for many years the brewery was the most significant manufacturing operation on the city side of the Kopje. While World War I brought with it a depression, it also saw the start of industry as the settlers were forced into the local manufacture such products as soap and ink. Southerton is the oldest industrial area, being created in the 1920s as the city expanded. O’Neill’s Bacon Factory on the site where Colcom stands today was probably the first manufacturing facility
The thermal power stations were refurbished in recent years to bridge the power deficit
in the area, next to the thermal power station, which started generating electricity in 1931. The Express Nut & Oil Co., the forerunner to Lever Brothers, and the Lion Match Company were some of the first
The Colcom factory at the corner of Rotton Row and Coventry Road
SALISBURY
B. S. A. Co.
BORROWDALE
RESERVE
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COMMONAGE AND SURROUNDING FARMS
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Mukuvusi rive
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Mukuvusi river
Commonage MABVUKU
ARDBENNIE PROSPECT
HATFIELD
EPWORTH A map showing the 13 original farms in the metropolitan area
the suburbs The original settlers were promised 15 mining claims and farms measuring 3 000 acres for participating in the occupation.
Dr Tom Müller, for many years the curator of the Botanical Gardens and head of the herbarium, points out geographical flora zones on a map board in 1979
Most opted to go prospecting, but after many went hungry in the first year as excessive rains resulted in supply lines being cut, a few decided to go farming. The issue of title was only resolved towards the end of 1891, so many sold the “right” to the land before Title Deeds were granted. The authorities established a buffer zone between the farms and the developing town known as the Commonage, 20 000 acres of land which was initially for the provision of pasture for horses, oxen, and dairy cattle. It was later reserved mostly for recreational and institutional use such as Royal Harare, the Agricultural Research Station, Botanical Gardens, the Police Grounds as well as several schools. As the farms were subdivided, “villages” started to form around the main town —Avondale being the first. Later developments became Town Management Boards with the authority to operate their own civic centres. As the boards formed, they took parts of the original farms into their boundaries. Highlands, for example, is not purely The Nursery and contains parts
of Greendale and Rietfontein, Frederick Courtney Selous’ original farm. Discussions took place in 1954 to merge Highlands and Greendale, but broke down over board representation, with Highlands demanding six seats while offering Greendale three. Greendale had insisted on equality. While a regional authority for Greater Salisbury had been mooted back in 1964, the “Partridge plan” named after the local government minister only emerged in February 1967 and received stiff opposition from the more affluent Town Management Boards, such as Highlands and Greendale. Partridge, a Greendale resident, told the House of Assembly on August 11, 1970 that despite opposition, the unification would take place on July 1, 1971. By the time all the TMBs were amalgamated into Greater Salisbury, there were eight boards, Marlborough was the last formed in 1967. Suburban and shopping centre development was particularly strong in the period after UDI. In 1970, Wrex Tarr claimed to have built 1 000 swimming pools in the city.
avondale
Edward O’Connell Farrell
Declaration of Avondale as a “Village”
Countess Billie
In 1901, a railway line was built out to the Ayrshire Mine at Chinhoyi with a stop at Avondale. The railway line ran along the Enterprise Road, through Gun Hill, along the top of the university, and then Broadlands Road. The legacy to the Avondale station, which was pulled down in the 1950s, is “Halt Way”, which connects Lomagundi Road to Broadlands, where the electricity poles are all made out of old track
He named it after the estate belonging to the Irish nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell in County Wicklow, on the banks of the Avon, the virtues of which were extolled in the poem by Thomas Moore, “Meeting of the Waters”. Farrell had been manager on the estate, as well as a cowboy in the US ahead of his arrival in Africa in 1884. Over 40 years old when he signed up, Farrell was nicknamed “Daddy” by his fellow troops (the Commanding Officer Frank Johnson was only 24). After the arrival in September 1890, Farrell moved to what is now Avondale with the troop horses. With not much to do, he would have explored the ridge and have taken to the area, which was still inhabited by wild animals. Farrell summoned fellow settlers to the area within a few weeks of arrival after a lion killed three horses. Jackals and vultures were picking at the carcasses when the hunting party arrived to track down the lion, somewhere close to the Rukadora, the Shona name for the Avondale stream, which rises in the university grounds. Frank Johnson managed to shoot the beast, which measured 3.2 metres from nose to tail when skinned.
Farrell was appointed by Johnson, Heany & Borrow as the manager of their proposed coach service to Beira. In October 1891, Farrell disposed of his rights to Avondale to Augustine Stewart for £100. Farrell went on to take part in the battle of Macquece when the Portuguese attempted to assert their rights over Mashonaland. He also participated in the Jameson Raid. After the trial in Johannesburg, he was repatriated to Ireland, but returned some years later to Bulawayo where he died of heart disease in 1910, aged 64. Avondale was giventhe land Title 419 on April 29, 1893, and sold by Stewart to James Kennedy in October 1893 for £250. Kennedy, the BSA Company accountant, let the farm to the Count Edmond de la Panouse, who with his wife Fanny supplied the growing town with milk and butter. Fanny Pearson had snuck into the country dressed as a boy called “Billy” when European women were banned from entering the territory. The couple lost all their milking cows to the rinderpest forcing the Count into trading. When the First Chimurenga broke out, Countess Billy was alone at the farm.
harare — urban evolutions
the suburbs
Avondale, Harare’s oldest suburb, was settled by Edward O’Connell Farrell, the veterinary surgeon attached to the occupation forces.
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Some historical houses in the suburbs: The architect William D’Arcy Cathcart’s “Pink House” seen on top of Dombozuka ridge was named Chinanga, the name of a headman who had once lived on the hill. Frank Johnson had Cathcart build this house (below) for him on Orange Grove Drive when he returned to the country in the 1920s After independence, the French Embassy took over the house (above) built for the former mayor, Harry Pichanick, which is now Innscor’s head office. The house below on Wavell Lane is considered to be the original Greendale farmhouse occupied by George Haupt
Nazareth House was completed in 1940. Most of the churches on Enterprise Road were built during the Federation days. The Highlands Presbyterian designed by N. J. Harris was dedicated in January 1961. It was specially designed, in consultation with U. H. Klop of Cape Town, to absorb noise. Klop had also done acoustic work on the Girls High School hall and bandstand in Harare Gardens at the same time Regarded by old money as “The Suburb” to live in, the precursor to Highlands was The Nursery and its first settler inhabitant was Edmund O’Toole, a Victoria Cross winner from the Battle of Ulundi. He carried potatoes on the way up and planted them where the Presbyterian Church is located today. Capt Graham’s map (on Page 34) shows a road going to “Tooles” farm, and also shows what is known as Pocket’s Hill today by its previous name, Hatfield, the ancestral home of the Marquis of Salisbury, the British Prime Minister at the time. Confusion over the name of the hill and suburb saw it being renamed after Arthur Pocket in 1913. O’Toole was evicted in 1892 to make way for The Nursery where the BSA Company
wanted to grow trees. At the end of the 19th Century, the administration had taken to allocating plots to civil servants brought into the country and Robert Mcllwaine, he of Lake Chivero fame, was one of the first. A keen naturalist, McIlwaine chose the plot on the western end of Pocket’s Hill, which he named ‘Orange Grove’ in November 1899. McIlwaine set about converting it into a fruit-bearing orchard, and was engaged in a healthy rivalry with Gerhardt van der Byl on Welmoed Farm next to him, which was to form the core of Highlands. McIlwaine crafted the Water Bill in 1913, which is still in use, and in partnership with George Simpson, he started the first citrus plantation at Mazowe. He sold the Orange Grove
plot to Frank Johnson, who had returned to the country after a 30-year absence, and moved to a new house on Enterprise Road. On retirement from the High Court, McIlwaine was appointed chairman of the Natural Resources Board. He died in 1943. Another civil servant to take up a plot was Colin Duff, an enthusiastic sportsman who did much to develop cricket and rugby, having played for Western Province before heading north. In 1923, the remainder of The Nursery was put on the market, and Duff, who was now Secretary for Agriculture, suggested the area be called Newlands, which reminded him of his former sporting glory. Loyalty to Britain following the defeat of the vote in 1922 for amalgamation with South Africa, saw the streets being named after two queens and four royal dukes. Van der Byl retired back to the Cape in 1927 when he sold Welmoed, now about 2 000 acres, to the Salisbury Real Estate Company, a property vehicle owned largely by Scotsmen, who decided on the name Highlands, partly because it is one of the highest pieces of ground in Harare, but largely because they wanted to have a Scottish flavour about the project. The first road to be cut was called Argyle Drive.
The Highlands Town Board was formed in December 1942, and a portion of Rietfontein opted to amalgamate in 1953 after water was secured from what was Lake McIlwaine. By 1956, property values in Highlands exceeded that of Fort Victoria, Que Que and Gatooma combined and by the time the suburb was amalgamated into Greater Salisbury in 1971, Highlands contained a portion of Rietfontein, the western part of Greendale, a portion of Borrowdale, and a section of the area for BSA Company grazing. The suburb is famous for another watershed moment in the city’s history: On Tuesday November 15, 1960 the first television broadcast went out from Pocket’s Hill, which is 36 metres higher than the Kopje, 16 years before it happened in South Africa. In 1956, the first section of the shopping centre at Newlands was built. Murandy Square gets its name from the three daughters of the sponsor of the project: Muriel, Deanna and Wendy. The Newlands Post Office section was opened in 1961. Work started on the Sanlam side of the shopping centre in October 1972 and was completed before the end of 1973.
harare — urban evolution
the suburbs
highlands
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the city of flowering trees In 1961, the publicity authorities started to use the term “City of Flowering Trees” to describe the exceptional foresight on the part of the settlers, in particularly Ernest Montagu and Charlie Wells. While many of the trees in the Avenues are in their twilight years, the burst of colour in spring never goes unnoticed. The jacarandas in late September are followed by the flamboyants, which flower through to late November. Preceding this, the flush of the msasas in the last week of August is best seen in the hills and valleys of Harare’s north east while the spathodias (African tulip) flower in late summer along many of the city’s roads, particularly Mazowe and Sam Nujoma streets.
The tunnel of jacarandas on Leopold Takawira Avenue
the josiah tongogara msasa
The msasa in its last jacaranda season before its felling Known to many as the “Hanging Tree” as Mbuya Nehanda was allegedly executed from this tree, this myth was popularised by a stamp in the late 1990s. But as Lyn Mullin says in Historic Trees of Zimbabwe, “there is not a shred of evidence that it was ever put to such use”. Nehanda was hanged in the gaol on Victoria Street, the road which now carries her name. The Jesuit Father Richardz, who visited the condemned prisoners at the gaol, said in his 1899 account in the Zambezi Mission Record: “I left Neanda (sic) and went to Kakubi (sic) who received me in good disposition. Whilst I was conversing with him, Neanda was taken out to the
scaffold. Her cries and resistance when she was taken up the ladder, the screaming and yelling on the scaffold disturbed my conversation with Kakubi very much, till the noisy opening of the trap door upon which she stood, followed by the heavy thud of her body as it fell, made an end to the interruption.” Of the msasa, Mullin said: “A more plausible anecdote that relates to its function is that of the old timer who lived nearby and would drive to Meikles Hotel, in his donkey cart, for his daily sundowner. Frequently somewhat hors de combat by the end of the evening, his friends would accompany him to his cart, load him aboard, and slap the donkey on its rump. Off the donkey would trot to this familiar tree, where the gentleman’s servant waited to see him safely home!” Rhodesia Calls claimed the hunter Frederick Courtley Selous used the tree for target practice, but other settlers of the time have doubted this. Since its felling, another tale has emerged from Patricia Broderick: “We knew the Johnson family
who lived opposite the tree. They were descendants of Colonel Frank Johnson, who led the Pioneer Column. When North Avenue was being tarred, we were told that when the road builders threatened to chop the tree down, one of the female members of the family, climbed it and declared that if the road men chopped the tree, they would have to chop her down as well! Obligingly, they made the road around the tree.” In 1968, police made a request to council to remove the tree as they considered it a traffic hazard, particularly at night. The Herald report gave more credence to the last theory, which appears to have owed its survival more to activism than anything else: “The famous hunter Selous used it for target practice when he visited an Irish friend, Mr James Kennedy, who lived in a house nearby. Mr Kennedy, later the Master of the High Court, is said to have taken three days leave and to have slept under the tree with a rifle across his knees when it was last threatened by the woodman. In May 1975, there was another attempt to have the tree cut down and it
narrowly survived as councillors voted 14-12 against its removal. Given what we know about the growth of msasas, it would be safe to assume that since it missed both the settler and the Mashona axe, the tree must have been of an inconsequential size in 1890 when the Pioneer Column arrived on a largely treeless plain. This is pure conjecture, but given there was strong demand for building materials after the arrival of the settlers, it had to have been small enough not to have been included in a pole and dagga hut or cut down for firewood. The msasa’s end was less auspicious than its history of myth and survival as it was brought down by a careless driver reversing his lorry while the road was being re-tarred on December 7, 2011. Despite there being no evidence for the tree ever having being used for executions, the usual misinformed pronouncements about it having been used to hang Mbuya Nehanda appeared in the media and resulted in National Monuments and Museums spiriting the fallen tree off to Heroes Acre.
harare — urban evolution
the city of flowering trees
Sometimes fanciful macabre myth overrides fact. Such is the case of the msasa tree, which until December 2011 stood a short distance to the east of the Josiah Tongogara/Sam Nujoma Street junction (formerly North Avenue/Second Street).
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places of worship The Dutch Reformed Church on Jameson Avenue in 1946 (see Page 17)
The Presbyterian Church in 1969 with the municipal car park behind (see Page 11)
Bell ringers in the Anglican tower in 1966 The Rose Window above the main entrance was designed by Francis Skeat (1909–2000), an English glass painter who created over 400 stained glass windows in churches and cathedrals. Skeat had completed a similar rose window in 1957 for his first major commission being the south transept of St George’s Cathedral, Cape Town, which was the largest window in the southern hemisphere at the time. Skeat’s work employs crisply drawn figures on a largely clear glazed background, which was a popular formula in post-war stained glass. Skeat felt that a non-figurative form would give the best and most pleasing, balanced and proportioned colour sequence. The Rose Window consists of shields of the Twelve Apostles surrounded by that of the XP and the Alpha and Omega
anglican cathedral The Cathedral of Saint Marys and All Saints on the edge of Africa Unity Square took over half a century to complete and is to the south of the original church that was dedicated in January 1893. As the congregation grew, Francis Masey was engaged to design the cathedral, but died of black waterfever in 1912. His task was completed by his former colleague, Herbert Baker, who designed the Union Buildings in Pretoria and much of Rhodes University. Baker favoured a Romanesque style and work started on the cathedral in April 23, 1913. The first Eucharistic service was held in August 1914.
places of worship
The first Anglican Church in the city was a pole and dagga hut on the west side of Harare Street, between Albion and Speke Avenue
Canon Balfour, who had come up with the settlers, was succeeded by Archdeacon Upcher, who was instrumental in arranging funds for the construction of the new church on the Causeway side of town. He was assisted by the arrival the following year of the energetic Bishop William Gaul, who described himself as the “smallest Bishop with the largest Diocese in Christiandom”.
The first church on its current site was later extended as the congregation grew
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welcome.
A VERY SPECIAL COUNTRY
hotels Hotel grading was introduced in 1968 and the first results announced in 1969. No hotels received 4-stars—the Ambasssador, Meikles, Jameson and Park Lane Hotel (now the GMB headquarters), received 3 stars each. The Montclair had 4 stars before the Meikles. The Ambassador, patronised in the 1970s by the white middle class, was in liquidation by November 1983.
In March 1965, the Herald’s “Cabbages and Kings” column reported the “sculptor” of the lions was a chap called Joe Wilson. He was a plasterer who had been a former army officer in the Boer War. “Those lions have been considered excellent sculptures and it is remarkable that they are the work of journeyman plasterer, not a sculptor at all,” the columnist opined. Copies of the lions were remounted in 1993 on a replica cupola in the north east corner of the hotel with a time capsule underneath
The East Wing, renamed the North Wing, was designed to carry another five storeys, which were added at a cost of $160 million in 1992, to provide architectural balance with the 54 metre high South Wing. This took the total number of bedrooms to 535
with a shortage of basic food products was “a daily battle” general manager Kai Hansen told the Financial Gazette at the time. While the Sheraton was planned to be a five star hotel, it was still in construction when Meikles was awarded its fifth star in August 1983—the first hotel in the country to achieve the honour. The demise of the Meikles group started with a messy shareholder wrangle following
a merger with Kingdom Financial Holdings in 2007. Hyperinflation and price control compounded the operating environment and by the point of dollarisation in 2009, the hotel was ripe for redecoration. The redevelopment by Cape-based designers saw Meikles lose its oldie-worldly colonial flavour and gave the hotel a distinctly neo-African theme that guests from West Africa would certainly be at home with.
Work underway on the extension of the North Wing and the new Southampton Towers
Meikles from Africa Unity Square following the extension of the North Wing
harare — urban evolution
hotels
The State Banquet on the eve of Independence was held here on April 17, 1980
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schools The Convent was the first school in the city, opening on October 18, 1892. An extensive rebuild was undertaken in 1950 of the original school designed by Father Le Boeuf, the French-Canadian priest who was a self-taught architect. This saw the addition of a new chapel designed by Ayers & Wilson of Bulawayo. The kindergarten on the western boundary was added in 1953 and the hostel in 1958.
The Convent as it appeared before its rebuild
The original schoolhouse in the grounds of Queen Elizabeth School is the library today
Both Prince Edward and Queen Elizabeth schools trace their lineage back to the Salisbury Undenominational Public School, which opened on November 14, 1898 under the headmastership of John Kerr. It remained a co-ed institution until April 1909 and Prince Edward moved to its current site in 1926. The school was
named after the Prince of Wales, who had visited the new institution during the Royal Tour of 1925 and planted a tree opposite the Beit Hall. The school motto Tot Facienda Parum Factum means ‘So Much To Do, So Little Done’ and were reputedly Rhodes’ last words.
The public school in 1904 showing the Queen Victoria Memorial Library on the right
Beit Hall at Prince Edward was Major W. J. Roberts’ first major commission when he arrived in the country. His style is very much replicated in the Plumtree chapel, government buildings and Harare Central Prison
schools
Sir Godfrey Huggins laid the foundation stone of the Prince Edward Chapel in 1951 and it was dedicated on May 22, 1953. Fashioned in the “style of Wren”, its interior panelling is in mukwa
The swimming pool at Prince Edward in 1936 shortly after it was opened
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alfred beit The statue of the philanthropist Alfred Beit (1853–1906) by John Tweed was moved four times before it ended up at the National Archives. but ahead of putting in the central fountain in 1950, he was moved to the middle of what was a roundabout at the junction of Samora Machel Avenue and Leopold Takawira.
Beit seen here outside the Salisbury Public School
The statue seen in what was Cecil Square in 1943
schools
Initially it was sited between the public school and Queen Victoria Memorial Library, which had stood on the site of the Girls High School Hall. Beit’s second home was in the centre of what was Cecil Square,
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