Newtown
Newtown is a vibrant area with a unique and extraordinary character based on existing cultural facilities, new commercial and residential developments, and a rich historical past.It’s an ideal inner city location with a distinctly European feel with its early post Victorian industrial buildings, period or modern feel, large open spaces, historic houses, pavement restaurants, colorful markets, period buildings and facades. Johannesburg’s cultural precinct is set in the heart of the ‘old city’, with safe and easy access from either the Nelson Mandela Bridge or the MI and Carr Street interchange.
Newtown has been in existence since the turn of the century and contains a remarkable mix of old and new. There is the outer casing of the original Victorian park station seemingly abandoned on an open piece of land right next to a new award-winning low cost housing development known as ‘Brickfields’.
Some location highlights include: Mary Fitzgerald Square: This is a vast open square, probably Joburg’s largest public space. Museum Africa: 1919 the City’s original fresh produce market was built. Providing a space 200 meters high, the building is unique in Africa in that it has a series of steel arched supports running across a vaulted roof, with no vertical supports.
Market Theatre: The Market Theatre houses three theatres and a gallery, and the complex still retains the ambience and spirit of a marketplace.
Workers’Museum: This was an original municipal workers compound. Sci-Bono Discovery Centre: 1n 1906 a power station was built in President Street. This became the Electric Workshop, and is now the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre.
Turbine Hall: The first section of the Jeppe Street Power Station came into operation. The physical development included the Turbine Hall. The Turbine Hall and South Boiler House are superb industrial buildings. A new structure to accommodate the international head quarters of AngloGold Ashanti was built in 2005 after the North Boiler House was demolished.
Old Park Station: The metal and glass shell of the original old Park Station sits on a heavy concrete platform overlooking vacant land that was erected in 1897.
Kippies: Situated next to the Market Theatre, was an international jazz venue of note. Its original old section has attractive small arched windows, and a small domed roof. It was modeled on the classic architecture of the Edwardian public convenience, which can still be seen through the shrubbery in the Market Theatre parking lot.
Newtown Park: This outdoor venue is grassed and surrounded by numerous buildings all with an industrial feel including Sci-Bono Discovery Centre, Moving into Dance, The Dance Factory and Bassline. A beautiful bronze statue of Brenda Fassie, South African pop icon, is situated outside the Bassline overlooking the park. Author: Sandra Olivier
