Lost Johannesburg by Arnold Benjamin | First Edition 1979

Lost Johannesburg

By Arnold Benjamin

First Edition 1979

Kathy Munro Review excerpt:

The introductory essay by Benjamin, makes a good many observations about buildings and fighting for their preservation. These arguments are still valid today. Here is one of many comments worth remembering, "the architecture of an earlier age - quite as much as its paintings, its books, its clothing styles or household objects - tells us about its people: how they lived and thought and designed and diverted themselves. Old buildings, more than any museum exhibit, can still be used as part of a living city environment."

The introduction opens with the marvellous quotation from that astute, off the wall, observer of the Johannesburg scene, Herman Charles Bosman, and ends, "Because I know Johannesburg. There is no other city in the world that is so anxious to shake off the memories of its early origins". This book was about ensuring that there were at least memories, old photographs and some commentary of early Johannesburg preserved within the covers of a book, if not as bricks, mortar and facades. The value of a book is that it enables one to open the covers and be transported instantly to a bygone age, but we should also be aware of romanticizing the past.

This book is a treasured archive of so many buildings which were demolished nearly half a century ago. "Lost Johannesburg" is a ghostly world of churches, theatre, cinemas, hotels, clubs, shopping precincts, grand mansions, banking halls, and beer halls… they exist now only in memories and old postcards. The many wonderful black and white photographs are so utterly period and apt for capturing what was and is no more.