Short description
One of the charms of this unusual travelogue is its mix of fine drawing and whimsical anecdote. The reader travels around South Africa seeing the world through the eyes of a distinguished architect who shares his delight in beautiful and unusual buildings - structures as different as a simple grass hut, an ornate Victorian facade, an elegant Cape Dutch gable and a grand Randlord mansion.
Long description
One of the charms of this unusual travelogue is its mix of fine drawing and whimsical anecdote. The reader travels around South Africa seeing the world through the eyes of a distinguished architect who shares his delight in beautiful and unusual buildings - structures as different as a simple grass hut, an ornate Victorian facade, an elegant Cape Dutch gable and a grand Randlord mansion. Stories and legends, bits of architectural lore and pertinent facts of design accompany the drawings. There are few countries in the world that have as diverse an architectural heritage as South Africa does. The extraordinary wide range of styles and influences characterizing South African architecture has instilled a lifelong passion in Hannes Meiring and he has recorded this wealth in a career of nearly fifty years in both art and architecture. His artwork is represented in a number of public collections. In this book, he wants the reader not only to take pleasure in the beautiful structures but to also recognize the fragility of our architectural heritage and call for their preservation.;It is an unconventional look at South African architecture and a book that can be enjoyed equally by those interested in historical buildings, the art enthusiast, and the student of architecture. It is both a personal sketchbook and, if the history of a country can be told through its buildings, an interesting portrayal of human settlement and migration in South Africa.