Joburg’s heroic heritage foundation
JOBURG - Known for their tours of historical sites, the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation does much more than organise a few tours a month.
Foundation spokesperson Flo Bird spoke to City Buzz and shed some light on the origins and mission of what began as the Parktown and Westcliff Heritage Trust.
“[The trust] grew out of a joint subcommittee which developed tours of Parktown and Westcliff when we were desperately fighting an enormous motorway,” she said.
“We realised that unless people had a chance to know the houses, they would not fight to save them. So in 1982 we provided tours, and after three years the subcommittee had outgrown the original founding organisations.”
Bird said the foundation began to train its own tour guides, publish information on houses, architects and personalities, and offered tours for schools that trained student teachers.
However, the problems facing Parktown’s heritage remained, so the then-trust invited a government minister to tour the suburb.
“He gave us the new legislation at that time which added listings of buildings, conservation areas, and the protection of anything over 50 years old,” said Bird.
“We pushed for various declarations in Parktown to protect the old buildings, and we also got the first conservation (now heritage) area. We hit hard at the motorways with petitions, public meetings, and co-operated across the political and racial divides to stop the [proposed] M3 and M6 [motorways].”
Bird said the then-trust’s reach expanded beyond Parktown partly because of the relationships built during the motorway fight, and partly because the Johannesburg Historical Foundation would not take action in some areas, such as the Langlaagte Deep Village.
But it hasn’t only been a case of fighting tooth and nail for the foundation.
In the past year, the foundation has been involved with an archival drawing project with Museum Africa, restoration work, and the installation of blue heritage plaques at places of interest – the next of which will be placed at Soweto’s Regina Mundi church.
The foundation also ran 10 tours for 599 pupils of non-fee-paying schools, and four tours for fee-paying schools.
“One of the triumphs has been that the foundation gets consulted about heritage in other parts of the city on a serious basis,” said Bird.
“So we are fighting to save Joburg’s heritage by making it known on the web, in town planning etcetera.”
Details: 011 482 3349; www.joburgheritage.co.za
