Foreword: Professor PG Raman

CONTRIBUTORS:

PG Raman
Ivan Kadey
Ronald Lewcock
Revel Fox
Ian and Lynn Bader
Lars Lerup
Wilhelm Hahn
Julian Cooke
Mira Fassler Kamstra
Luis Bernardo Honwana
Herbert Prins
Peter Rich
Joao de Pina-Cabral
Julian Beinart
Jose Forjaz
Luis Ferreira da Silva
Cedric Green
Malangatana Ngwenya Valente
Lewis Levin
Tim Ostler
Udo Kultermann
Jo Noero
Fredo Guedes
Pedro Guedes
Ora Joubert
Marilyn Martin
Karl-Heinz Schmitz
Heather Dodd
Manfred Schiendhelm
& Karen Axelrad

Published by

TOTAL CAD ACADEMY

76 Clark Road - Glenwood

Durban - South Africa 4001
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ISBN 0-620-31592-X

s an architect, artist, educator and

patron Pancho Guedes is a highly
significant and at times controversial
figure. Had he been an architect in the
west instead of Africa, the media would
have made lot more of him than they have
done now. But then, that is what we have
come to expect from our Euro-centric
critics and writers. His work and teaching
has been impressive in terms of scope
and importance, and as the contributions
of his admirers in this book reveal, he
has exercised significant influence in the
field architecture, art and education.
Not having been Panchos student or a
colleague and knowing him only from
published works and reputation, ones
first emotion is one of envy. How can one
not be envious, of someone with such a
high calibre of buildings to his credit? How
can one not be jealous of someone who
paints, sculpts, teaches design, history and
anything else you care to think of, mentors
not just the prodigiously talented but
also the uncertain who we all know
are the majority, provides patronage,
mercilessly pokes fun of the self-righteous,
the bureaucratic and the undeservedly
successful, and gets away with it? There
are those who try to emulate Pancho. But
it is pointless because these characteristics
are organic and particular part of his
nature and nurture. Not very many could
survive the enmity he faced at Wits and
emerge triumphant. It is indeed a miracle
that the Dons at Wits agreed to give him
the Honorary Doctorate. Even now, one
meets intelligent academics at Wits who
disliked his irreverence and who say that
they did not support the proposal. This
makes the award all the more poignant
after all there is hope, humanity and
loftiness, even in the academic world.
Many thoughtful students of Pancho say
that he could not tolerate opposition. How
can this be in such a caring and concerned
person? Well, it may be because he
knew that petty-minded competition
dissipates energy and the group that
shows mutualism is the one that survives
and thrives. The young should know that
they have a lot to learn, take time to find
where they want to go rather than engage
in meaningless squabbles. Nevertheless, it
is often said that Pancho Guedes, himself
a rebel, cannot accept those who rebel
against him. Was this really true? The
sense one gets is that he wants to channel
rebellion into positive action and hence

his dictum you can do anything you

choose to do. on which Marilyn Martin
builds her paper. But Pancho went further.
If you do not use your dissenting voice
to practical effect you become unhappy
and if you are unhappy in your place of
work you must do something about it or
just leave. Quite a reasonable stance to
take, one would have thought. However,
this should not be an occasion to delve
into to the frailties of the great man,
real or imagined, nor should it be one of
justifying them. As Jose Forjas suggests,
it rather ought to be one of celebration
and through it establish new references
for our students, architects and artists.
What then are these new references? Like
Le Corbusier, Aalto, Pietila and Stephen
Holl, Pancho paints, sculpts, designs and
builds buildings. But there is a difference.
Le Corbusier brought a certain habit of
composition to architecture from his purist
paintings. For Aalto and Pietila painting
and sculpting were heuristic devices
and Stephen Holls watercolours are about
the simulation of intended architectural
qualities in his designs.
For all four, paintings and sculptures
are representations of their intuition. But
Pancho Guedes exemplifies Benedetto
Croces conception that intuition and
representation are interchangeable terms.
Pancho thus sculpts his architecture and
architects his sculpture a uniquely nonEuropean outlook.
How to eschew design impulses of
the fashionable and how to subvert
our students from doing so are the
preoccupations of every good architect,
every good teacher. Panchos recourse
here is to history. Along with many
philosophers of knowledge, Pancho would
probably suggest history is at least as
revealing as any rational thought process.
But it is fair to say Panchos emphasis is on
erudition and not on academic learning.
In addition there is his passion, his critical
eye, his empathy for his students and
colleagues who genuinely struggle. These
are some of the legacies of Pancho and
if we are serious about empowering the
previously disadvantaged, we need them
now, more than ever before.
Professor PG Raman is currently Head
of School of Architecture & Planning
at WITS University, Johannesburg,
South Africa.
1

Ivan Kadey

ays after I handed in my thesis (with

Pancho as my supervisor) I had
this numinous dream: I was walking
in the light of a moonlit night through
a suburban labyrinth on small hills like
those of Melville. Drawn to a warm honey
colored glow emanating from one of the
houses I found myself at a large, luminous
window, and beyond the window Pancho,
who coming to the door, greeted me
warmly in welcome and sharing the view
of the light, told me, Now you know my
window.
Pancho taught us to invent buildings
from dreams; to go beyond waking
consciousness into the realms of magicians
and sorcerers. He inspired us with the
buildings hed dreamt into reality. With his
plans, sections, elevations, axonometrics,
models, sculptures, paintings, furniture,
photographs, variations, styles,
genealogies and families - with his
unbounded energy and encouragement.
Later, in the eighties, I developed
and taught the first
year course at Wits,
where I thrived in the
freedom created by
Panchos leadership
as Head of the School
of Architecture. Never
judgmental, and always
guided by the quality
of light given off by
the work, Pancho
gave us unbounded
opportunity for
architectural invention
and production.
The years since I
left South Africa have served to amplify
my appreciation of Pancho and his
achievements. The indelible images I
hold of his sparkling buildings. From the
pyramidal fugues, to the sensual, animate
apartment blocks - all enriched with a
wealth of detail and invention.
Now, December 10th 2003, I join
in celebrating the University of the
Witwatersrand honoring Amancio
dAlpoim Guedes with the Doctorate
Degree. And dream again of standing at
Panchos window of numinous light.
Salute!
Ivan Kadey, Architect, Musician &
Acoustic Consultant is currently
practising in Santa Monica, USA.
2

Ronald Lewcock

ancho embarked on designing ironic

architecture at an exceptionally early
age and went on to achieve an oeuvre
surpassing the hopes of almost all other
architects. Technically and practically he
yields to no one and imaginatively and
humorously he is unsurpassed. With more
fondness for the solid and sculptural than
most modernists, he is nevertheless playful
with space, light and shade, and can be
as hard-nosed as anyone about scientific
sun control, adequate daylight and good
acoustics.
Pancho
Daring, fearless, informed,
adventurous
Ranging, laughing, crying, boisterous
Wide-awake.
A lion for love and work

Breton and Gide in expressivity

Freedom and independence in Dada:
Habitable women for Tristan Tzara
Thatched hospitals on the Costa Brava
Pregnant buildings for Duchamps
Bachelor apartments for questionable
romps
Round-eyed, swinging walls, in
bouncing,
Hysterical construction for Ionesco
Exuberant in trouncing
Roualt, Perret, Rousseau
Boxes of rolling waves, twisting
And turning into corners, catching
Concavities and crevices of Smiling Lions
Who hold out their paws, digits
extended
Always watching
Cavernous, curvaceous, fluid ceilings
For Malangatanas painted heedings.
Churches turn into crosses at entrances
And extremities - cubical compartments
With gondolas terraces roofing
Ironic, erotic architecture
Always architectonic.
Periscopes watching over seas of trees
In manner metronomic
Hide and seek games for old men in the
sun
Surrounded
By children wearing strange hats for fun
Consuming fascinations
With structural systems and geometrics
Axonometrics
And mathematical projections

Explosive motorcars, burning fuel

tanks,
Wild riding with cameras and
hydroplane
Rickshaws and taxi ranks
Dhows, punts and champagne.
Boudoirs and earth closets
Concrete and rough bricks
Flying paths and thatch ricks
Flying roof and stone whats-its
Taking licence for humour in creativity
Like Jarry in Ubu Roi, Eric Satie in
Three Pieces in the form of a Pear

Hard to emulate
Impossible to equal
Everywhere humour, love
Life lived to the full.
Ronald Lewcock, a graduate of UCT,
practiced and taught architecture
in Durban in the 50s & 60s. He has
taught at the Cambridge, AA and
MIT. He is currently professor in the
Doctoral Program in Architecture,
Georgia Institute of Technology, USA.

Revel Fox

mancio dAlpoim Miranda Guedes, or

Pancho, as he is affectionately called
by everyone, including his students, took
over the Department of Architecture at the
University of the Witwatersrand in 1975,
when circumstances in Mozambique made
it impossible for him to continue living
there, occupied the Chair with distinction
for fifteen eventful years, before returning
to Lisbon on his retirement.
Born in Portugal in 1925, he came to
the Portuguese territories in Africa as the
child of a doctor in government service,
and spent much of his life in Maputo, or
Loureno Marques, as it was then called.
It was there that he began his
architectural career in 1950, as intensive
building activity got under way at the end
of World War II. It was a boom which
established the demand, and provided the
opportunity for some of the most creative
and prolific of architectural careers the
world has seen. In the twenty-five years
in practice in Mozambique, Panchos
achievements were prodigious.
Working in comparative isolation, he
established a large private library and
subscribed to a formidable number of
periodicals, assimilating everything with
photographic precision and instant recall.
From the outset, Guedes career was
unique. In an outpouring of creative
energy, he accepted no boundaries
between painting, sculpture, and
architecture, and applied himself to all
three simultaneously. Inevitably, the fusion
between them became so seamless that
they could not be easily separated, and
this interaction characterised much of his
work.
But the artistic dynamism did not stop
there. Not only did he bring his influence
to bear on everything around him, he
also became patron, sponsor and mentor
to local artists, sculptors, poets and
musicians who were attracted to the
studio at 61 Rua de Nevala where Pancho
lived and worked.
And how Pancho worked! The days
were never long enough for him to
develop all the ideas and images that flow
from his inventive mind. Fortunately his
work and his life are so closely related that
they have always occurred at the same
place in the happy coincidence of house
and studio.
Those who were privileged to visit that
enchanting mnage will recall a lively
4

combination of home, workshop and office

under the capable control of his wife,
Dori. One would encounter three children
Pedro, Veronica and Fredo (Katarina
came later) a couple of apprentice
draughtsman, a visiting architectural
student, the artist Malangatana painting
huge canvasses, the wood carver Filipe
making a Chanfuta temple under close
direction, cleaners from the Smiling Lion
apartments embroidering cushions from
a Guedes maquette, and Luis Honwana
with one of his short stories for comment,
transcription and publication. On a good
day you might also encounter Doris
dressmaker Luiza, Fredos violin teacher
Mr de Blij, and a blacksmith discussing an
intricate metal screen to be wrought in
the unmistakeable Guedes manner the
Stiloguedes, as it has come to be called.

To paint and sculpt well is no small

achievement. To design and build enough
buildings to make up a good-sized city is
something quite different. In the period of
a short quarter-century in Mozambique,
Pancho did several remarkable things: He
invented not one, but several original
and individual architectural styles. He
applied his ingenuity and his pragmatism
to providing accommodation for houses,
schools and churches, using advanced
construction technology as well as the
traditional African techniques of grass
and mud. He employed the limited skills
and resources of an East African port to
build architectural masterpieces that are
internationally acclaimed.
Throughout his life he has been drawn
to whatever he has considered fine and

worthy of note, and he continues to

photograph, measure, record and collect
with an unmatched zeal.
The dedicated scholar is by nature a
good teacher. So great his enthusiasm,
and so witty and perceptive his delivery,
that he has entertained and delighted
wherever he has been, and he has been
everywhere! Inevitably, the subject most
popular with audiences is a catalogue of
the magical world of the work of Pancho
Guedes.
His departure from Mozambique
came at a time when the Department
of Architecture at the University of the
Witwatersrand was in urgent need of a
new Head, and Pancho accepted that post.
He was no stranger to Johannesburg,
having been to school here, and having
graduated from the department he was
now to direct. He came to Wits with little
academic experience, but as an acclaimed
architect with a considerable international
reputation, and he turned to teaching with
the same commitment and energy that he
applies to everything he does.
There can be no doubt that the Guedes
years at Wits will be remembered as an
exciting and notable epoch, and a high
point in the teaching of architecture
anywhere. Through him, students have
rediscovered the appreciation of great
architecture. His encyclopaedic knowledge
of buildings of all ages has opened their
eyes to wonders beyond the purview of
the glossy magazines.
Through his own virtuosity as artist and
draughtsman, he revived the lost craft of
fine drawing. Because he has lived and
practised the art of architecture with such
consummate devotion, he has set an
example his students will always wish to
emulate.
In 1990, Pancho retired from his post
at Wits and moved with Dori to Lisbon,
back to his place of birth. In doing so he
completed one circle, and started a new
series of adventures.
The Lisbon years have seen heavy
teaching commitments and a continuation
of the creative drive that has characterised
his career. As usual he organised himself
in a special way: a city base with home
and studio in an attractive old building
in the picturesque Alfama, and a country
home in Eugaria not far from the summer
palace at Sintra. The passage of time has
seen Dori and Pancho upgrading from
an attractive cottage near the main road
to a spectacular Guedes design on the

hill above, in which I believe they are

now fully installed. The problem of a
precipitous access from the road above
the house, which I was convinced was
insoluble, has been resolved by what
Pancho calls his Highway to Heaven, a
death-defying route which he negotiates
daily in his Citroen.
I am told that he is still teaching at
both the Universidade Lusofona and the
Universidade Tecnica de Lisboa, with
enthusiastic student response. And, as
if that were not enough, he has several
interesting architectural commissions in
progress. He is completing plans for the
extension of a 15th century old age home
in Mesao Frio, the place where Panchos
parents and their families lived, and where
some family members still reside. He is
also busy with plans for the Malangatana
Foundation, a museum and cultural centre
at Matalane, the family kraal of his old
friend and protg in Mocambique. A
recent project has been the design for a

circus school in Cape Town on the site of

an old reservoir. These are a few examples
of the many exciting projects which are a
part of Panchos current programme.
When I first knew Pancho, he had not
yet completed his studies in architecture,
although he already had a thriving practice
in Maputo. I have followed his scintillating
career for about fifty years since those
wonderful days, and I was delighted to
hear that the university at which Pancho
had both studied and taught with
distinction, was about to award him an
honorary degree: a well-deserved and
fitting tribute to a remarkable alumnus.
I join his family, friends and colleagues
in wishing him well on this very special
occasion.
Revel Fox is a renowned Architect
practicing in Cape Town and a long
time family friend of Pancho & Dori
Guedes.

Ian and Lynn Bader

s architectural students, Pancho burst

into our consciousness fully formed,
with an astounding portfolio of built work,
a legendary membership of Team X* and a
published reputation as a surrealist.
His aspiratory, accented English the
hs had disappeared confirmed his exotic
identity, declamatory, abridged, perpetually
summery and confident.
He taught primarily by example. Pancho
worked quickly and spontaneously.
Drawing with a staccato certainty,
his line was without pretension or
ambivalence, a strategic mapping of
possibility informed by an instantaneous,

unspoken dialog with experience.

Signatures abounded, a triumphant
confirmation of identity, amancio dalpoim
guedes lettered in lowercase. The letters
were precise and independent, individual
presences, deliberately placed like carriages
in a train on the move. So too were
the buildings many, each individually
independent yet associable into collections.
Saturated with personification, each was
part of a family of ideas, members of a
crowded tribal assembly.
The work was gregarious, rich in
antecedent. For it, the entire history of
architecture was an easy repository of
syntax and ideas. Jokes, puns and other
literary caprice abounded.
Pancho worked alone. His gestures,
personal and particular, were
unencumbered by ideology, the connection
between head and hand, immediate. The
designs were conjured up, imaginatively
conceived, the workmanlike mapping of an
alert inner world.
The buildings had a sure-footed, earthy
quality. They were mostly mathematically
conceived, but often voluptuously womblike. His celebration of substance made
space and light strikingly present.
He was populating the planet with his
production. If not buildings, then paintings,
or figurines that often came in multiples,
in a variety of materials, wood, glass, even
cast chocolate. Flat heads with target eyes,
forced smiles and unconcealed grimaces.
Gridded, bulging and protuberant, Pancho
was speaking a visual language he had
invented, unencumbered by hesitation.
Pancho was an innocent, or was his
unselfconsciousness based on an ethical
certainty? The world, in which Pancho
was building, simpler then and closer
to the vernacular, had already begun to
disappear. The dreams, which his ideas
provoke, continue to assert themselves
with urgency.
We hear that he is currently completing
a road up to the Eye House.
Ian and Lynn Bader graduated
from WITS University in the 1970s,
currently practicing Architecture in
New York, USA.
* Founded in 1959 as a successor to CIAM it included
Aldo van Eyck, Georges Candillis, Alison and Peter
Smithson as members and focused on integrating
architecture with social and environmental concerns.

Lars Lerup

ecundity is the word I am searching

for. Although fecondit exists in Italian
the word I prefer is abbondanza as in
ci sono pere in abbondanza but rather
than a plentitude of pears I am thinking
of a alphabet of names, a school of styles,
and a deluge of buildings. Names like
Adam, at the beginning, Amancio with its
peculiar Portuguese pedigree, DAlpoim
that like allpoems (surreptitiously slipping
into English via similarity) comes in one
foreshortened al-poim, (is this by any
stretch of the linguistic confine pear-in
Portuguese?) or at least pomme as in
French for the globe of an apple) now
elegantly adorned with an apostrophe,
and Pancho like the Mexican revolutionary
Pancho Villa thoroughly architectural by
the way as in Villa Adriana. Yes I am
glossing on no one other but you-knowwho: Guedes-the-guide for so many, if for
me only indirectly through our man Stan
(Saitowitz) yours and mine to share.
I met him once, that is the poet Al
Poi(e)m(e), but what I know of him is all
through Stan one of the many tributaries to
Guedes la rivire the river, the flood, the
serpentine, the deluge, the f-l-o-w and
I wondered how could all those names,
styles and buildings have sprung forth from
that impressive yes, but solitary dome? I
guess that is what we mean by global that
now like a beacon glows in its new-won
recognition.
What about the Stiloguedes and the
other cuts of Saipal (o po da Cidade)
smelling gloriously in the morning-air
of Lourenco Marques? And that huge
memory-palace of abodes mais ou
menos exilado from the masters view,
but clearly living in his mind and lived
in by a new generation of Mozambicans
(imagine caressing your loved one
somewhere in the voluptuous section of
Prometheus lucky them no aphrodisiacs
needed!) And among us the architects
reminding us over and over again that
we even if momentarily exiled from our
imagination are still free to do in what
ever manner, and that behind that hesitant
hand of ours are many un-evolved stilos
just waiting to spring forth. So thank you
Adam man of many names and minds
for both apple and snake. It is now up
to the next generation to do the Paradise.
Lars Lerup is Professor of Architecture
at Rice University, Houston, USA.

Wilhelm Hahn
Dear Pancho,
Im relieved that Wits has decided to
certify you as a doctor. You have been
practicing so long as a doctor, without
certification. When I met you in 1975 you
already had many years in Mozambique
and the bush behind you. At Wits I
could see for myself how you did your
rounds, how you examined, listened,
gave opinions and prescriptions, how you
attended to pregnancies, deliveries and
post-partum depressions, not to mention
christenings, where you proved yourself
an accurate name-giver and an expert
on lineage and parentage. Of course you
yourself had engendered so many healthy
families that your practical knowledge in
this field could not be disputed.
Often I myself would deliver a little idea
at tea time, only to have you turn it upside
down and, whacking it on its bottom,
pronounce it viable, or not!
But you did not neglect the later lives
of these creatures, either. You were ever
ready to suggest remedies for ailing
edifices or those facing a change of life.
You might recommend either surgical or
cosmetic interventions to extend the lives
of the elderly.
You were an enthusiastic dissector
of ruins and quite happy to re-assemble
discarded parts into exquisite corpses.
The processes and experiments you
conducted in your own workshop must of
necessity remain mysterious to outsiders,
but the results suggest alchemy or even
magic. You gave an inkling when you let
slip that much of the work is done while
you sleep.
In 1975, I heard you say in Cape Town
that being an architect is being lost in a
haunted house.
Hmmm...haunted...lost...
Why would I not then pack my bags
immediately and move to Johannesburg?
In you I had found a kindred spirit, a role
model, en example of tireless creativity
and a connoisseur of excellence in art and
life. I thank you for this, dear doctor.
I remain your friend and accomplice,
Wilhelm Hahn taught at WITS
University in the 1980s and was
Professor of Architecture at Houston
University, USA. He is currently
resident as an artist in Cape Town.

Julian Cooke
The earth is not round
According to you
This lump of ground
is square too.
Apples fall to earth
Smoke wisps up
Cats gave birth
To kittens, not pups,
Or so they say
But in your amphibious day
You see that elephants fly
and mountains cry
When eagles wings sigh
across the feathers of the sky.

And ventilating snouts.

You showed a gate
Like a leafy greeting
in a village street
whose cobbles played tunes
and a lamp like a dragonfly
prayer to the moon.
You scattered the grey land
with strange bones
and sparkled the sand
with precious stones.
Julian Cooke taught at the UCT
School of Architecture. He is
currently editor of Architecture SA.

They said clever was right

Until the sunlit night
you showed tis the fool
Hears the words in the ripples
Read the signs in the stipples
In the dark deep pool.
Youre a fool, youre a fool.
In a house said the wise
there windows and doors
and ceilings and floors
but you said: surprise
they have eyes, they have eyes
and nostrils, and bared fangs and lips
and skin stretched over their hips,
and real houses are ships
and temples, dragons and trees,
fruit and lovers and bees
nests, animals, flowers
sweet scented bowers
of stone and iron
for gods to lie on.
Look you said
See the Smiling Lion.
You showed a church with a pink
warm
Light, with a form
As serene as a queen
A glow with a sheen
With a gloss
With a jungle fruit cross
At the end of each arm
Of the Mother of calm.
You showed an office
With pyramid hats
And orifices
In slits and slats
And surfaces graded with light
And brilliantly shaded
And eyebrow spouts
To spurt the rushing rainwater out
7

Mira Fassler Kamstra

oureno Marques in the 50s and 60s

Portuguese Africa by the sea in those
days of stuffy South Africa - an impossibly
exotic place of palm tree (before they were
everywhere) lined boulevards, piri-piri
chicken, Delagoa Bay prawns, checked
plastic table-clothed tables in fluorescent lit
pavement cafes, dimly lit nightclubs where
we sambaed and rumbaed till cocks crow
and were moved by the haunting sadness
of the fado. A place where racial mixing,
completely verboten in the homeland, was
the norm, where the urbanity of apartment
buildings smacked more of Europe than
the suburbia we were used to a place to
which a visit became like some sort of rite
of passage.
Perhaps my first view of the Lion House
was from a high rise diving board it
probably wasnt, but its a marvellous way
to overlay the two heady/breathtaking
experiences of my first L.M. trip as
exhibition diver of the Wits team! Already
then we had heard of Pancho Guedes - this
magician who built sculptures in the name
of buildings under the African sun with
the aplomb of a master at a time when
everyone else was searching for the way
forward.
A while later the man himself, enfant
terrible and agent provocateur materialised
in the Dorothy Suskind at Wits to help
shake the Department of Architecture to its
foundations an exciting and compellingthough for me with my divided loyalties
a not altogether comfortable experience.
Visits to LM in the 60s were concerned
with family and pushing babies in prams
on extended walks near the Polana a
good way to see more Pancho houses
and apartments but I felt, not the best
way to visit a master. If I had only known
then of how approachable and generous

both Pancho and Dori were, I may have

got to know them sooner and may have
experienced the interior of the famous
home which I had so often passed.
Only much later while supervising the
building of the fountain in memory of my
father did I speak to Professor Guedes
the new head of the Department of
Architecture at the University of the
Witwatersrand who paused on his way
across campus and surprised me with
some encouraging words.
Teaching first year followed in the
late 70s when I was to experience at
first hand the effect of Pancho on the
Department the rigour, the depth of
knowledge underlying his passion for a
transcendent architecture where poetry,
fantasy and art were seamlessly brought
together, and whose making he shared
with us in the profoundest of parables. His
mischievousness, sense of humour and
generosity of spirit inspired students and
teachers alike.
Some balm to the void left after their
departure was given by special time
spent in Lisbon and Eugaria with Pancho
and Dori when I experienced Panchos
Portuguese roots and once again shared
their warmth and hospitality.
To assess Panchos influence tangibly on
me is impossible. Suffice to say that he has
reinforced my desire to honour history, to
value the human over the mechanical, to
underpin the sensual with the intellectual,
to never lose sight of joy. He has given
me courage to follow my intuition rather
than my colleagues. He has shored up my
determination to fight the fight for beauty
in the world but above all, he has shown
me what it is to be fully human.
Mira Fassler Kamstra taught at WITS
University and is currently practicing
as an architect in Johannesburg.

Luis Bernardo Honwana

t is ironic that Mozambiques advance to

independence should mark the end of the
most important phase of Pancho Miranda
Guedes oeuvre as an architect.
In effect, considering the sudden stoppage
of all activity in the building industry as
well as the disruption of the rest of the
economy, Pancho decided to leave the
country in this year of 1975, thus ending a
cycle of 25 years of intense and profoundly
innovating work manifested in nearly 500
architectural projects and in important
contributions to other undertakings.
For many of us, although Miranda
Guedes had never aligned himself to any
political group, everything he initiated,
supported or simply encouraged in the
difficult social and cultural environment of
colonial Mozambique always implied the
ideal of the liberty and equality that would
transform the country.
I met Pancho in 1962 when he was one
of the great stimulators of cultural activity
in the then Loureno Marques. A wellknown South African author was visiting
the country, and I, as a journalist, went
to interview him in Panchos house where
he was staying. In the succeeding years I
came to have almost exclusive access to
the illustrious visitors who were guests in
the house at Rua de Nevala, next to the
Smiling Lion a privilege earned through
the friendly relationship that rapidly
developed between Pancho and me. At
the time of the interview with the South
African author I had already been in that
house without the owner suspecting it.
On these clandestine visits I entered
surreptitiously through the service door
and made my way to the garage where
one of my colleagues from the painting
classes at the Nucleu de Arte was held
in a regime of semi-seclusion. By giving
him a space in which to work and a small
subsidy Pancho had got him to leave his
job as a servant at the Gremio Civil club,
give up going to the Nucleu de Arte and
stop mixing with other painters. This last
condition he faithfully complied with, at
least as far as I was concerned, though
once we actually swapped paintings,
Malangatana and I. The painting that I got
in exchange for one of mine that he liked
(I cant remember which now) was one of
the first versions of the famous Dentist. Of
course when his strict patron realised that
the painting was missing from the studio-

garage, Malangatana had to come secretly

to my house in Xipamanine and cancel our
deal.
Panchos decisive influence in the
launching of Malangatanas artistic career
illustrates his intense and passionate
understanding of Art which had the effect
of demolishing the barriers that hemmed
in the concepts of artistic expression in that
society. Indeed, Malangatanas first oneman show resulted in an earth-shaking
cultural shock to the white community
even the most lucid intellectuals could
not conceive that one of their African
contemporaries, and only a servant at
that, could traverse the zealously guarded
frontiers of great art.
Every new architectural project of
Pancho Miranda Guedes became the
object of intense debate in the city. The
echoes of these discussions reached all
segments of society, from which many
of us, far from the epicentre of these
intellectual confrontations, only got the
impression that the architects works
did not please an establishment that we
detested for many reasons. Later, when I
got to know the work of Miranda Guedes,
I began to recognise his buildings as
veritable sculptures placed in a rather
unimaginative urban setting. Every one of
Miranda Guedes buildings was a work of
art that shared the same creative impulse,
the same aesthetic rationale and the same
expressive language of his paintings and
sculptures.
Like many who visited Panchos house
and studio at Rua de Nevala, I also noticed
the way that some of Panchos projects
borrowed, here and there, the decorative
markings on local carvings, the surrealist
motives of painters he admired, and
the totem-like forms of his sculptures in
wood and the embroidered designs of his
own work. I remember particularly two

instances in which this characteristic was

revealed to me most clearly the project
of the renovation and decoration of the
Djambo Caf in down- town Loureno
Marques and the design of the Church of
the Sagrada Familia in Machava.
But Panchos professional involvement
was not limited to the purely urban
spaces of the city or to the concerns of
the white population. The then Lourenco
Marques was for him only one third of the
city. The rest greater in area and more
densely populated, totally deprived of
resources and services was the City of
Reeds, Cidade de Canio. Pancho urged
that it was necessary to take Loureno
Marques an integrated city. As long as the
municipal authorities were not capable of
rehabilitating the reed city by providing
sanitation, roads and other urban facilities
the city would remain dangerously ill.
But for Pancho the Cidade de Canio
was not merely a stage for the dramas and
problems of the economically debilitated
a euphemism used to designate the
African population and echoed by the
charitable institutions identified with the
official policy of the regime. According to
Miranda Guedes the Cidade de Canio had
as much cultural and human potential as
the Cement City and possessed reserves
of creativity that needed to be stimulated
hence his involvement in so many
undertakings and cultural projects in the
Cidade de Canio.
It was then not possible to cure the
disease of the city in the prevailing political
and economic climate. Unfortunately
1975 was not to bring about the so much
desired improvement of the distortions
apparent in the city. After independence,
what the Portuguese had not done for lack
of political will, the Mozambicans could
not do for lack of funds and administrative
ability aggravated by the armed conflict

which involved the country until the

collapse of the apartheid regime.
Today the city suffers from what another
architect termed with a certain irony the
process of ruralisation, where the essential
components of the so-called urban culture
progressively disappear.
The fluctuations between long periods of
drought and devastating floods, allied to
the lack of security in urban areas brought
about the collapse of agriculture with the
consequent migration of the population to
urban areas. Because of insufficient public
or private investment in building there
is a very low rate of increase in housing,
and in many cases the structures for the
maintenance of the urban concentrations
are totally inoperative.
This situation is common to the majority
of the cities in the Sub Sahara, and is the
visible evidence of the profound crisis
affecting the continent.
Nowadays, as I pass by any of Panchos

buildings in Maputo, I sometimes wonder

what the architect, with his enormous
provocative energy, would say about
the widespread deterioration of various
areas in spite of some signs of economic
recovery. And I also ask myself how
much time will have to elapse before the
Mozambicans, instead of occupying the
city, will take possession of its culture and
be moved to recuperate the notable pieces
of urban patrimony Panchos legacy to
the city.
Luis Bernardo Honwana is a
renowned author of short stories,
turned politician, and has now retired
from his post as Director of UNESCO
for Southern Africa.
Translated from the Portuguese by Dori Guedes.

Herbert Prins

uch has been said and written

about the art of Amancio d Alpoim
Miranda Guedes; his paintings, sculpture
and architecture. What Pancho, (the name
by which he is best known) has said and
written about and his lifes work provide
much food for thought, discussion and
admiration. Admiration for his brilliant
intellect, his scholarship and his genius.
Genius may be defined as an
extraordinary capacity for imaginative
creation, original thought, invention or
discovery.
Pancho may be said to be a genius
but I have chosen to write about Pancho
the guardian, teacher and academic and
to leave it to others, who may be better
qualified than I, to discuss his extraordinary
talents as an artist, architect and scholar,
except to say that for some architecture
is an amalgam of science, technology,
sociology, economics, politics, making
buildings etc. and, in parenthesis, art.
Pancho says that architecture IS ART and
that making buildings is less important
than making drawings. But Panchos
buildings are superbly detailed, technically
competent, functional AND sculptural.
Through his work he demonstrates the
importance of buildings as objects to be
experienced in space; that create and
enclose space and are spiritually uplifting.
This places architecture, as ART, at the
core but does not deny the importance of
technology and the human sciences.
It is not surprising therefore that Pancho,
during his time as head of the department

10

of Architecture at the University of

the Witwatersrand, placed the art of
architecture at the forefront. Students
were encouraged to seek in the history
of architecture and within themselves the
creative means with which to make ART
rather than mere structure.
This is the message propagated by
Panchos work and in his teaching. Not
everyone wished to/or could follow the
example set by the master but the many
who did were greatly enriched by the
experience and by another distinguishing
feature of Pancho: his humanity.
Pancho cares about people and is, to
many students and colleagues, a guardian,
father-figure. An extraordinary aspect
of Panchos guardianship is that it rarely
fosters dependency. It is as though he
empowers with confidence, those who
come to learn and seek help, comfort and
support. Pancho is able to discover and
uncover qualities and talents in people,
when nobody else has seen the potential.
In many instances students would not
have stayed on to complete the course but
for his empathy and the encouragement
and inspiration his nurturing afforded.
Today most of those who Pancho helped
are successful architects, doing their own
creative thing and none are pale reflections
of the master. Perhaps this is the greatest
tribute one can pay to an academic.
Pancho is a born academic. Scholarship,
in its most eclectic form, comes naturally
to him. Because he brings to academia a
well established architectural philosophy
he is able to provide superb intellectual
and creative leadership based on years of

practical experience and study but he has

an Achilles heel:
Pancho does not suffer the pomposity
and pretensions of academic life easily and
on occasions he felt compelled to deflate
the egos of distinguished members of the
University Senate, who did not appreciate
his sarcasm and, at times, barbed wit. The
reactions of the recipients of his humour
were not always appreciative or helpful.
Panchos years at Wits were memorable
ones. They were significant for those on
the staff of the department who worked
with him. They were also inspiring times
for the students, many of whom are today
his devoted friends.
As a mark of their affection Panchos
friends from South Africa and abroad will
be coming to Johannesburg to honour and
pay their respects to him. Such tributes are
in recognition of a great architect who, by
sharing his beliefs, knowledge, experience
and humanity, enriched the University he
served for many years.
But in honouring Pancho we also honour
Dori, his wife, companion and helpmate
who, though in the background, provided
support, a sounding board for ideas and
who is a willing editor of his written work.
Together they make an unbeatable team. I
salute them both!
Herbert Prins taught for many years
at WITS University, actively involved
in the profession and the Institute
of South African Architects and is
currently involved in the conservation
of South Africs building heritage.

Peter Rich

he drawing entitled the plan is in the

mind is a mythological representation
of the worldview of a highveld tribe,
viewed across time and space. Coming up
between the bulls horn and the distant
landscape of the veld, you, Pancho,
have yet another idea. The idea is being
symbolized as an egg emanating light, is
charged with the potency of the creative
act.

Jackson Hlungwani, the Shangaan

sculptor and fellow shaman, spoke to you
and I of the gift of having chosen your
creative passage in life. The gifts that you
gave those of us who chose this passage
were multifold. You taught us to believe in,
rather than to fear, our own intuition and
that the act of creation is in the doing. You
encouraged us to practice many different
art forms, painting, sculpture, drawing,
writing, design, preferably simultaneously,
allowing one art form to inform another.
Your example and presence enabled those
of us who engaged with our creativity
to fulfil and in some cases exceed our
potential.
You accord the same reverence to a
painting or design as you do to the birth
of a child, all being part of the creative act
of life. Diane and I cherish the brass angel
coat hangers that you gave us for each of
our four children.
On philosophy you share the view of
Friedrich Schroeder Sonnenberg, that the
best philosophy is the one that comes out
of the situation.
In your quest for the architect to have
all the same freedoms as the artist, you
draw our attention to the importance of
playfulness in design, and your lifelong

pursuit to explore the potential to achieve

in your work the innocence of perception
of the child. It is a blessing that your son
Pedro, through his drawings, can take us
all there.
Upon entering Architectural School
myself, I embarked on a pilgrimage to
visit you in the then Loureno Marques
(LM- now Maputo), accompanied by Diane
the young woman who was to become
my wife. The situation of our meeting with
you, Dori and your family, was fuelled with
fervour by the intoxication of Diane and
I being madly in love, spawning the gift
of a lifelong and life changing friendship.
The voluptuousness of the sculptures
proclaimed the space of rua de Nevala
915. Malangatanas dreamscapes evoked
reflection and introspection. Nave artists
were prodigiously producing and creating
art works in the yard and garage. Kitty,
who was 3 years old, accompanied a site
visit to the Red House under construction.
The contactor clicked his heels together
and bowed acknowledging the instruction
from you to demolish and recast the entire
reinforced concrete staircase whose bottom
riser was incorrectly out of alignment.
The exposure to your work, your family,
and your home gave me the added gift of
opening my eyes to Africa through art. This
is where my passion for the contemporary
art of living African cultures had its genesis.
Ndebele homesteads lined the roadside
through the Transvaal en route to LM Their
iconography in interpreting the changing
western fashions seen in neighbouring
towns and visits to cities, together with
the remarkable architectonic sensibility
displayed in the homesteads realisation,
prompted and provoked comment.
This discourse was to be extended yet
further in working as an assistant to Julian
Beinart on decoding and recording the
urban imagery portrayed on the walls
at WNT, awaking the penchant I was to
develop over the next 30 year period for
recording and documenting the rural and
urban settlements and spaces of African
cultures in transition. For this I am eternally
grateful to you both. The accompanying
drawing entitled the plan is in the mind
is a mythological tribute to that dialogue.

Joao de Pina-Cabral

met Pancho Guedes when I was a boy, at

my fathers house, and was immediately
caught by the sharpness of his wit and
the unconventionality of his creativeness.
The buildings he designed for my fathers
diocese were more than architectural
structures, there was theology and politics
written into them. Later, at the University
of the Witwatersrand, he welcomed me
and seduced me by challenging my newly
acquired intellectual fascinations. I found
out that he knew southern Africa like
few people did and he had an historians
understanding of his chosen land. The red
house he shared with Dori in Joburg was
a constant source of new discoveries and
new acquaintances. Later still, in Sintra
(Portugal), we came to be neighbours by
chance. I finally realised the vastness of
his creative genius he is an artist for
whom architecture is humour, is fiction,
is painting, is sculpture, is and that
for an anthropologist like me is specially
valuable, a deep engagement with the
human world. As I read back the essays he
wrote in the mid 60s about Mozambique,
I find his voice still shocking in its daring
and in its engagement. Panchos gesture
of intervention aims not at changing the
world but at gathering it for human use
his houses are both functional and great
fun. He does not try to totalise, to close
the world, to resolve it; he is as much an
anarchist as he is a humanist.
Joo de Pina-Cabral is a Senior
Research Fellow and Chair of the
Scientific Board of the Institute of
Social Sciences of the University of
Lisbon. He is currentlly President of
the European Association of Social
Anthropologists.

Peter Rich is an adjunct Professor

at WITS University, an authority on
Ndebele Architecture and runs a
practice in Johannesburg

11

Julian Beinart

o honor Pancho is to remember, with

love, a time some forty years ago
when one was young enough (and the
new Africa was as well) to be passionate
about possibilities with all the innocence
of discovery. Without the careful notations
of memory of John Ruskin, to recall now
is to abstract, perhaps even to invent, a
past that rotates around Pancho, his place
and his family, and to rejoice that one was
blessed to be close to it.
One of the themes to recollect from
those years is Panchos singular ability to
maintain the most intensive intellectual
connection with the international world
midst the isolation of colonial Africa.
Pancho knew everything that was
fundamental in art and architecture. So
he could see both sides of the coin at
the same time: the drawings of Klee as
well as the Potemkin Village reed-house
paintings on the road from the airport.

My writings of that time about the

painters Malangatana and Motjuoadi, the
recordings of African jazz, the rubbish-door
cover photographs for The Classic, stem
from his transforming evocation of the
popular. So did the five summer schools,
originating in Mocambique, held between
1961 and 1965 in five African countries
where the design curriculum tried to mesh
Bauhaus basic design with the spontaneity
of untutored Africans.
My work in Western Native Township
followed the trajectory set by Pancho. In
Italy I had experimented with the complete
12

documentation of the essential structure

of a small town. But in WNT the innate
power of the popular Pancho-inspired was what was on vivid display. These wall
drawings were on the covers of three US
and European architectural journals in the
same month, but WNT raised issues that
have remained ever since. Where does
the trajectory from the visual to the social
(Ruskin again) lead the designer? (At a
lecture at the ICA in London in 1965, I was
accused of documenting the decorations
on prison walls). Why were the individual
creations of WNT not rampant inventions
but conditioned by a communally
understood frame of reference?
Ever since those early days, Panchos
prodigious appetite for knowing and
feeling everything still remains the clear
inspiration. Without his endless energy,
we all struggle. But we constantly need
to remind ourselves that his model of
commitment was not only to ideas but
also to his own passions. For if Pancho

teaches us anything, it is that you stand up

for what you believe : he, above all, has
carried, no matter what, the acclaim and
burden of his own transcendant inventions.
I am honored to be part of this
symposium. But, above everything else, it
gives me a chance to tell the world just
how lucky I have been to know Pancho.
Julian Beinart taught at WITS in the
60s. He is well known for his research
into Western Native Township and is
currently Professor at MIT, USA.

Jose Forjaz
I was sixteen, in 1952, and Loureno
Marques was my second country, my
second culture and my first discovery of a
wider horizon.
All my life before I was passionate, and
encouraged, to manipulate forms, carvings,
drawings, models of a reality that I could
only control at a small scale.
Buildings, and the mystery of their
making, slowly penetrated a deeper layer
of my emotional and imaginary world. But
it was more the process than the results
that fascinated me.
I lived in a society profoundly marked by
conformity, dominated by an authoritarian
regime, practicing the opposite of its
professed ethical principles, we were all
rebels navigating between bohemia and
political extremism.
It was exactly at that stage that Pancho
came to be a presence in my need to find a
different, and rebellious, world.
To be different was necessary.
Pancho was different and, as such,
admirable.
In a small, provincial universe,
his buildings did not leave anybody
untouched. They were provocative,
unavoidable presences standing out of a
generally boring, or so we felt, collection
of concrete modernist boxes or revitalist
exercises vaguely suave Portuguese or
with a taste of South America, or plainly
attempts at a mediocre neo classicism
pass.
At seventeen, exactly fifty years ago, I
went to Pancho and asked to work for him
as a draughtsman. By then I had a few
months in the Public Works department
as a task draughtsman under a tough
master, Fernando Mesquita, an architect,
himself an admiring critic of Panchos
production. He taught me the virtues of
rigour, rationality in thinking, the necessity
of culture and the value of work.
It was a dry environment, only mitigated
by a pervasive sense of humour shared by
all around me.
With Pancho the experience widened to
another side of the spectrum.
The need for invention came first. Lack
of imagination was a mortal sin and the
manipulation of form was an obligatory
exercise, carrying forward the last
explorations published, and avidly studied,
in a copious literature that, for the first
time, I could access.
And then there were the building

sites. I was taken along, given doors

and window openings to measure, old
buildings to survey and, most of the times,
just to be along and to see and enjoy that
tremendously exciting atmosphere of a
building growing from nothing to become
a work of art.
The intensity of the place was never
less than vibrant. The work, the books,
the clients, the builders, even the break
for tea and Doris biscuits, it all revolved
around this obsession with architecture,
and painting and sculpture and the arts.
Malangatana, the painter, had started by
then, in the garage, the beginning of his
extraordinary production.
Others were coming and going.
Embroided fabrics and sculpted wood
flowed from that garage, around ideas
sometimes so childish that they could
almost fool you for a naivet arrived at, not
a departure point. By then I had left and
came back to and from the Fine Arts School
of Oporto where it all seemed stifling, out
of date and, perhaps, too sure of itself.
Pancho and Dori had started a business
of importing and selling decorative and
art objects and, for a while, I did search
and buy in Portugal, for them, some very
interesting pieces of popular art. This gave
me a deep contact, and a respectful insight
into the seriousness and the quality, and
the formal traditions of the non-erudite
artists.
Through Panchos office, and my life,
many good friends passed by for the glory
of architecture and the brotherhood of this
obsessed gang. They were the architects
and the artists. They were the others, the
cognoscenti and the intellectuals, even the
politicians. The major ingredient for those
friendships was always the commitment
to enjoy the products of creativity, of
expression, of freedom of thought.
There was, however, a dogma - to
be anti dogmatic. To live this way is not
that simple or that easy. We have, all of
us, learned the price of taking risks, of
breaking ground, of defying convention,
of inventing. We have, unwillingly,
created enemies, sycophants, intellectual
antagonists, envy and false disciples.
A lesson I learned from Pancho, and that
is still as alive and valid as it was then,
fifty years ago, is that the adventure of
architecture, of inventing the spaces where
man lives and loves, is so irresistible that
it pushes us, everyday, to one more step,
one more job, one more discovery, one
more effort, one more joy.

It is a lesson of attitude,
not of form. Form is as
personal as the shape of
your nose or the figures and
shapes in a zebra skin.
Even process is personal
and circumstantial, beyond
the discipline.
But attitude is to be
learned, emulated, understood.
In Panchos case the roots of success,
or, as the French say, of his grandeur et
misre, his greatness and his misery, are
that enormous capacity to fabricate and
keep alive an inflexible faith in himself, in
the truth of enjoying what he does and in
keeping doing it.
Many years passed. The world went
around, servants became masters and old
masters faded or were substituted by new
masters.
The seventies were years of great
options and choices.
We both, and so many others, changed
places and masters. Pancho became a
university man. I could not follow him.
We were separated by the geography of
two extreme regimes.
I suspect that he had a lot of fun. Pancho
has always been a communicative person.
And he has a lot to communicate. So much
so that the logic of his associations and
the ramifications of his cultural references
are not, always, easy to follow, albeit, to
accept.
He speaks a codified language of
images and metaphors that have to be
learned to be fully appreciated. His giggle
can be chilling if you grasp the depth of
its irony. But his enthusiasm is always
contagious. This, plus the capacity of
identifying instantaneously the virtues and
the weakness of a design, makes him a
formidable critic and master.
I could guess that the university
environment may have been for him, at
times, asphyxiating, boring, unnerving,
irritating and limiting. I feel the same after
20 years of suffering it. But I can also
guess that Pancho had a lot of fun pulling
the carpet from the bottom of so many
certitudes and established mores. He, I am
sure, found and stimulated the universal
potential of students creativity and
curiosity, passion and the joy of discovery.
In that he is an indisputable master.
He proposes, almost obsessively, an
attitude of defiance to the formality of the
establishment, of freedom of thought, of
informality of mental behaviour. But what

he given us, above all, is a body of work

of exceptional quality, the authority of
having designed and built many buildings,
painted many canvases, manipulated many
materials, reflected on many levels of the
business of looking, seeing, learning and
producing art form.
Pancho was never a politician, a
speculator, or a socialite. The work came
to him from a society that recognised his
value, his efficiency, the novelty of his
poetical impulse and the strength of his
faith in the redeeming value of art.
I have a deep sorrow and little
understanding for the lack of demand
for his work from the two other societies
where Pancho has established himself, and
proceeded with his creative work. But this
is not the moment nor place to be sad or
less than excited.
The most famous of the Portuguese
poets, Cames, spoke about those that,
through their valuable works, liberate
themselves from the law of death...
meaning that they will be present forever
in the memory of the peoples of this
world.
My point in this eulogy is that we
should not only recognise the value of
Panchos work, and celebrate it, but look
to that work as the result of an attitude
and a lifetime of dedication and love for
what we also love. This is why, through
this celebration, we are establishing new
references for our students and for our
professionals and artists. This is why we
thank Pancho and congratulate him for this
recognition.
It would be unfair to finish without
giving Dori her dues. Her faith in him
and her support were essential to his
achievements. Thank you Pancho, Doctor
Pancho, thank you Dori. I am glad I had
this opportunity to say this in public.
Jose Forjaz has a long standing
relationship with Pancho and is
currently a practicing architect and
Head of the School of Architecture,
Eduardo Mondlane University,
Maputo, Mozambique.
13

Luis Ferreira da Silva

oureno Marques in the 50s and 60s
was an exciting and social interactive
town, where the Polana, the Military Club
and the Gremio, with its transient society
of Army Officers, their families, and the
European influence of those arriving to
settle (together with the experience and
feed back of ones holiday abroad), made
up to a rich and cosmopolitan playground,
a caf society of sorts.
Inevitably, any news spread fast, and
would be glamorised to a golden status.
It was then that one day I heard at the

expected, his reputation preceded his very

presence, and the vignettes of Panchos
dealings with clients, builders, the
authorities and the establishment at large,
became legends larger then life, a giant
that I wondered if ever I would be given a
glimpse of.
It was therefore with trepidation that
I started frequenting the Military Club,
while taking fencing and tennis lessons,
and I used to walk past those high walls,
where the Guedes family lived behind,
and that just happened to be situated in
front of the Club. And then one day I had
a break through: During the school

had I gone to Wits, Panchos formidable

presence in a way, would have left me
paralysed and incapable.
As I struggled along in the junior
years with communication, identity and
inspiration, to my disbelief, Pancho started
contacting me, enquiring about my
progress, encouraging me, caring. Pancho
not only remembered me, but he actually
cared!! Well, I was not going to let him
down
It was since then, Pancho, and along all
these years, that I have tried to live up to
your energy and expectations, and I am

dinner table, my parents and friends talk

about this young genius, an architect
with an attitude intent on transforming
the populations sedate and predictable
lifestyle.
Not long after, one by one, these
amazing structures began to appear in the
more experimental, sophisticated suburbs,
and in my fired up imagination, they
appeared to smile, to walk and even talk
to me. Beautiful whimsical shapes, forms,
textures that changed the cityscape and my
head space forever.
By then the whole world was talking
about Pancho Guedes, and the elite felt
vindicated in their initial prediction. As

holidays, family friends arranged for my

best mate and I to go and help Chissano
and Malangatana producing their artwork
in Panchos backyard. The exhilarating
experience was dampened only by the fact
that even then I never actually met the
man himself, having to settle for looking
at the incredible collection of sketches,
drawings, models and sculptures in his
studio, that I could see through the back
window. But the memories remained and
the images even grew stronger
Many years later, when architecture
replaced horses in my every day
concentration, I found myself studying it
in Natal, relieved with the thought that

very aware of the way you so unselfishly

give encouragement and credit to me and
many many others, a true sign of the great
man you are.
As the great architect and academic,
the person, the raconteur, the family man,
I have always been one of your greatest
admirers, and thank you Pancho for having
been such an integral part of my life.

14

Luis Ferreira da Silva graduated from

the School of Architecture, Natal
University. He pacticed in Durban for
several years and currently has offices
in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Cedric Green
n the mid fifties a rumour circulated
among students in the School of
Architecture in Durban that there were
some extraordinary buildings appearing in
Loureno Marques. Those few of us who
perhaps should have gone to Art school
but found ourselves studying architecture,
were intrigued, and in my third year I went
to LM with Jos Cotta to see them. Jos,
who knew everyone, tried to arrange for
us to meet the architect, but he was not
available - on site somewhere interpreting

Lewcock. In 1960 I graduated, got married

and Margaret and I went to Laureno
Marques, met Jos there who took us on
a tour of Panchos latest creations. Again
we failed to meet him, but had a brief tour
of his studio and office, and got a glimpse
into his extraordinary creativity and way
of working. I went to work in Rhodesia,
inspired to try to emulate his integration
of sculpture and architecture in my own
way. I only succeeded in one building,
before deciding to emigrate to Britain. On
arriving in London, I found that Pancho
was there to give a talk at the Institute of

organised by Pedro Guedes. His effect on

a few of our students was as electrifying
as the effect of his work on me 20 years
before. Tim Ostler in particular, flew out
Johannesburg to research Panchos work
for a dissertation. A few years later Pancho
invited me to come and do a project with
Wits students - to build a solar tent,
and there I saw much more of his work,
and gained an insight in the personal
magnetism that enabled him to persuade
clients to accept his designs, to persuade
builders to construct them, and his success
as a teacher of architecture. Subsequently,

his puzzling drawings for a builder, or

setting out a design for a mural. The
legend grew, photographs were passed
from hand to hand; there was something
slightly wicked in an interest in buildings
with such sensuous curves, rich colours
and textures, suggestive art works on
the buildings and in his studio. At a
time when the Mies/Gropius glazed box
minimalist aesthetic was gaining ground,
being influenced by Pancho was a mild
form of student protest - I made copper
sculptures, painted murals in the studios,
and produced a few bizarre designs, but
was supported by Barrie Biermann and Ron

Contemporary Arts about his work. With

a group of expatriate Natal ex-students
Dennis Claude, Alan Amoils, Patrick
Holdcroft and others we went to hear
him, and see the man himself. His talk was
only partly about his own work, but also
about local Mozambique artists he had
discovered and encouraged by giving them
studio space and materials and buying
their work. It was not until the mid 70s
that I was in position to invite Pancho to
come to lecture my students at Sheffield
University, while he was in the UK for an
exhibition of his work at the Architectural
Association School of Architecture,

Margaret and I have been to Lisbon to stay

with Pancho and Dori several times and I
am always astonished at his irrepressible
energy and optimism, continuing creativity
and ability to overcome every kind of
obstacle. As my little tribute to Pancho I
have created a website which I hope can
grow into an internet archive of his work:
www.guedes.info. I would be very glad to
receive any material to add to the site.

Cedric Green, architect, is currently

based in London and has a web
site on Green Architure and Pancho
Guedes.
15

Malangatana Ngwenya
Valente

n 1951 I was employed to look after little

white boys. That was at 33 Couceiro
da Costa, at the Adao dos Santos family
home. My little charge was Antoninho and
my colleague Orlando Mulawu took care
of Carlitos. We were very good at handling
our two dear little boys who were lively
and restless like any other children. We
had to think up all sorts of games to keep
them amused, and Pancho the senhor
with the MG and hair flying in the wind,
didnt know that he was our favourite
entertainment.
As he sped along Couceiro da
Costa we all shouted MG, MG, MG,
mg...mg...mg...mg.. until his car
stopped quite nearby. He would jump out
quickly and disappear into the clutter of a
building under construction at the corner
of Pinheiro Chagas and Couceiro da Costa.
All four of us would wait until the white
man came out looking very
elegant, I must add. The fun and
games would be repeated when
he got into his car and pulled off
at great speed, accelerating like
a racing driver.
Well, later I met his brother,
Engineer Miranda Guedes, and
I didnt have the slightest idea
they were related, because I
really hadnt even spoken to
Pancho. My only meetings
with him were when he drove
into Couceira da Costa at
such a speed. His brother was
a member of the Loureno
Marques Club where I used to serve him
and his wife at the bar.
One day in about the mid fifties when
I was at the Nucleo Art Club with one of
the student members, Pancho appeared.
I didnt expect to be watched by that kind
of person while I was painting they were
my first attempts. He was accompanied by
his wife Dorothy and the Frank Mc Ewans,
friends of the Guedes. They spoke to each
other in English and began to look intently
at my nave pictures.
Pancho introduced himself to me and
asked if I was willing to sell him three
paintings a month. I didnt understand
why he wanted to do this , but all the
same I began to take my pictures to 915
Rua de Nevala where he lived and had his
architectural office.
16

I was still working at the Loureno

Marques Club. One day Julio Navarro told
me that architect Guedes wanted to get
me out of the club so I could come and
live in his house. I was wild with delight
but trembling with fear at the same time. I
hadnt ever lived on a familiar footing in a
white mans house before.
Indeed, Pancho did ask Otto Barbosa da
Silva, the president of the club, to release
me from my contract, to leave behind

my colleagues, my salary, and those

generals uniforms we had to put on as
servants of the bar. I didnt accept the
invitation immediately and asked architect
dAlpoim Miranda Guedes to give me
some time. We were then in 1959, I was
already married, and I wanted to talk it
over with my parents.
They lived in Mapuleni, a place very
near to Matalana. They were very happy,
but had some doubts. They told me to ask
that man to come to Matalana and explain
exactly what he wanted of me. My wife
was also curious to see this family who

wanted me to come and live in their home.

Pancho Guedes drove to Matalana in
his black Mercedes which got stuck in
the sand many times before he reached
our house. My father was a great cook
and prepared the food together with
my mother and his other wife. My uncle
spiced up the meal with music on the
concertina and dancing, which pleased the
Guedes family a lot.
In January 1960 I presented myself
at the Guedes family home after saying
good-bye to the people at the Lourenco
Marques Club. Pancho introduced me
to his family and showed me round the
house and the garage where I would
paint. But he said, Go back to where you
live and stay for 30 days away from your
family.
I went on a journey well into the interior
of the bush. He wanted me to absorb
scenes, expressions, visions, that I would
see, hear and feel, and relive my past/
present. He wanted me to be with my
ancestors to search out the unknown that
I knew without knowing. Those
stories told to me by the young
and old people in that remote area
led me into a cultural and spiritual
gold mine. He well knows how to
shape people. Pancho sculpted and
burnished my soul, anthropologised
me internally, made me dig into my
entrails to lay bare the mythologies
within.
The Guedes family had offered
me a stay of three months, but in
truth that bursary lasted for a whole
three years without stopping.
When I came back from my
session in the bush, he asked me
questions and helped me to give answers
that I didnt know I knew. He agreed that
I should go to the decorative painting
class at the Industrial School, but for
some time didnt want me to go back to
the Nucleo Art Club or to visit the better
known painters, to be sure I would avoid
pollution. He began to take me to see
his architectural work in construction, and
I became aware of his fantastic creative
imagination. His demands on the builders
were perhaps as great as those he made
on himself.
I often I saw him drawing line after line
which he assembled on the surface of the
paper. After being set up on the ground
and in space they became marvellously
sculptural buildings in his unique and
unmistakable style. No architect in

Mozambique had ever linked architecture

to indigenous culture. Only in his designs
do we see a geometry reflecting the
tattoo-like patterns so characteristic of
African mythology.
Pancho had a studio in which he
designed and another space where he
directed the work of his sculptors and
embroiderers. He knows (and who better
than I to affirm it) how to transmit his
thoughts to others. It is thanks to him
that I can now search for the ideas within
Man and in the depths of Culture. He is
capable of provoking a discussion without
concluding it, leaving his audience to draw
their own conclusions.
This contagious kindness is spread
around other peoples minds so strongly
that it takes root and perfumes the soul.
Pancho perforated my psyche, creating
lightness and multiple insights.
His house at 915 was not
only an education because
of his activities, but also
because of the people
who came there from all
over the world. This only
happened because Pancho
was like a honeycomb
whose sweetness never
dried up. In his house I
could taste the joys of
meeting people like the
musician Hendrik de Blij,
Tristan Tzara the surrealist
poet, the South African
architect Julian Beinart, the
South African poet Breyten
Breytenbach, the German
anthropologist Ulli Beier
and his artist wife Susan
Wenger.
A super happening, and
a very important one for
me, was when he brought
me together with Eduardo
Chivambo Mondlane and his wife Janet
Mondlane. Thanks to Pancho this night
transformed me. Eduardo Mondlane gave
a reading of my work which showed me
things I hadnt seen before. The long
discussion between Mondlane and Pancho
about Mozambique took place among my
humble paintings displayed around the
sitting-room. Unfortunately the sudden
departure of the Mondlane family to the
United States of America prevented him
from inaugurating my exhibition of 10
April 1961. It was my first exhibition,
showing fifty seven paintings in oil on

unitex.
Architect Miranda Guedes helped me
organise my exhibition, sponsored by
the Nucleo Art Club, which culminated in
speeches given by him, Joao Vasconcelos,
and Augusto Pereira Cabral. Later Pancho
took part of this exhibition to Cape Town
for a show called Imagination 61. He also
arranged for an exhibition in the Camden
Art Club in London, Musee de LHomme
in Paris, Mbari Club in Nigeria, and in
the USA. Black Orpheus is one of the
magazines in which, at his instigation, my
first poems were published.
But it is also important to say that in
the travelling that he did during the time I
was staying at his house, he saw to it that
my name was made known wherever he
went. For instance, when I first went to
Lagos and met up with the local artists,
I was surprised to be treated as a friend.

Wole Soyinka welcomed me warmly and

took me to his university and the Mbari
Club, the breeding ground of Nigerian
intellectuals. Pancho had this faculty of
creating a current linking together the
people he knew.
Pancho is also a witch-doctor without
bone throwing. His acute insight enables
him to discover talents and promote
creativity. For him a withered tree still has
life the special humus that only he can
apply gives the human plant a strength
and vitality that afterwards makes us
wonder. He always enables those who

have been in contact with him to qualify

and become self-sufficient for the future.
Pancho always granted requests for
help in building institutions, schools or
nursery schools - always with a thought
for the future. I well remember his work
in support of the Swiss Mission in the
then Loureno Marques, Xicumbane in
Xai-Xai, Antioka in Magude, Rikatlla in
Marracuene, and also in support of the
Sisters of Charity for their many projects of
social work.
For Pancho it was painful to see the
contrast between the dilapidated City
of Reeds , so lacking in hygiene and
the most basic facilities, and the City of
Cement, which were right next to one
another. In the sixties he wrote a long
article about this, with the intention of
drawing the attention of the colonial
government to the problems, and he was
victimised after its publication.
Even the Municipality reacted
against him. But he didnt mind.
He wanted to find a solution
that would at least bring some
measure of relief, however
small, to these people living
in such abject poverty. The
Portuguese bourgeoisie aligned
itself with the official attitude
and also disapproved, but the
populations of the depressed
areas greeted Panchos stand
with jubilation, remembered
even to this day. At this time
Panchos wife Dori often visited
the centre of the Associacao
dos Negros of Mozambique,
giving English lessons free of
charge to various secondary
school student members.
I would like to say that all the
experience I gained while with
this family was, and always will
remain, useful and valuable
to me. Today I discover in myself a man
that I never knew existed before. I will
do everything in my power to profit from
what I learned with the Guedes family.
Without the spellbinding hand of Architect
Miranda Guedes I would not have been
given the guiding lights that illuminate the
zigzag paths through life.
Malangatana is an internationally
renowned Mozambican artist, and
roving cultural ambassador.
Translated from the Portuguese by Dori Guedes

17

Lewis Levin

ancho was my first contact with the

world of Architecture. I remember being
an anxious first year student, sitting in the
Dorothy Susskind Auditorium. We were
being sternly lectured to by a threatening
and humourless Dean. Architecture is
serious work, he said, you only have
one chance to get your work in and to
pass. You must all aspire to become
professionals.
The Dean then strode out of the lecture
theatre. Pancho made sure the doors were
closed and then turned to the students,
Architecture must never be serious work;
only lawyers and doctors are serious. You
must all learn to play but take your play
very seriously. You will always have a
second chance, a third, and many more;
for the rest of your life. You need not aspire
to become a professional. Its far better to
remain an amateur.
Those were the first of many Pancho
voices that I still hear in my head when
I go about trying to invent and design
anything. Here is a collection of few others:

All Architects and Artists, past

and present, are a great fruit salad
of friends: Pancho invites us to dine at
the great smorgasbord of Architecture.
Nibbling here and there, we explore the
obsessions and adventures of others. We
eat, borrow, observe and sift through what
these friends have invented before us and
alongside us.
Feign madness and turn the
familiar on its head: Pancho teaches
us to dislocate the images in our world.
Anything can transform or fuse into
something else. The River can become a
train; the building a cake; the aqueduct a
snake. By disorientating ourselves with the
familiar, we unleash expanded possibilities
of invention.
Nothing is too big or too small: We
can attempt to design a city, a ship, or a
jewel. Nothing should frighten us. There
18

is great joy in both the colossal and in the

detail.
Find our own voice by digesting
others work: Buildings, Pancho tells us,
are like people they grow out of each
other. We learn by impersonating other
Architects and Artists; by performing in
their style. As we wander through the
port of Copyatica and enter the city of
Eclectica, we discover that the strange
voice we hear, has become our own.
Laughing at buidings: If we are not
laughing when we are designing, we are
doing something wrong. Our clients needs
are often quite absurd but indulging
them can be very entertaining.
Words can trigger the minds eye
to imagine great inventions: Often a
conversation with Pancho will leave our
mind brimming with ideas.
We will have visited fabulous places,
seen great wonders and glimpsed curious
objects. The sensation is like seeing an
amazing film that we cant quite recall. We
emerge in a furious panic, eager to distil
our experience into drawings.
Invent our own proportional
system: Why bother with the modulor
or the golden section? Make up our own.
Divide up our site, system or palette; its a
great way to start.
How fair art thou, square and circle:
Pancho invites us to revel in the simple
mysteries of elementary geometries. These
will never cease to delight and inspire.
The strangeness of the human
character is an infinite resource for
Architecture: Human biography, secrets
and gossip can be made into sculpture and
space. When speaking to Pancho about
other architects, he often tells us first about
the idiosyncrasies of their character; their
relationships, obsessions and losses. He
shows us that the personal has influenced
their experimentations. Designing
buildings, we understand from Pancho, is
not a pure and rational task. It comes from
an introspective voyage into desires and
fantasies. This was most liberating for us
as students; knowing that the source of our
invention could be our own experience.
Clumsy beginnings are fine: We all
grapple to get a foothold. Look at a few
early sketches of Le Corbusier and Wright.
Its a great boost to confidence.
The profile and the contour are a
secret magic trick: The profile reduces
the nature of buildings and objects to a
line, while preserving their essence. With
the outline, we can explore a whole range

of possibilities. We can compress the face,

or section the beast. Pancho shows us how
to collide, extrude, rotate and layer cutouts and contours to assemble anything
we wish.
Our unrealised work is our great
treasure: When the forces conspire
against realisation of our inventions, what
we do get is a marvellous collection of
drawings and models. That is more than
worth it.
Become obsessed: We all need a few
creative obsessions to produce anything.
Come back fighting: When we ask for
the moon and we face rejection, Pancho
urges us by example, to come back and
try again. We harness our disillusionment
and reinvent ourselves. The work invariably
gets better and we might just succeed.
An Artist is a collector: Pancho urges
us to take Picassos advice that we must
create artworks for ourselves that we
have not been able to find. If we desire
a great painting, we should make a copy
ourselves.
The Dreams the thing: The Dream
cannibalises all our images and obsessions.
It then delivers them back to us as a great
feast of material for our manipulation. All
we have to do is draw.
Rework the ideas forever: Its never
too late to rework our ideas. Pancho will
find an old drawing and produce multiple
variations and permutations. Ideas that we
had long ago might burst out, after a long
hibernation.
Personal hardships must be filtered
through Art and Architecture: By his
extraordinary personal example of exile,
dislocation, and loss, Pancho has taught
us that our one great companion through
lifes trials is the joy of invention. We can
harness our misfortunes and turn them into
poetry.
Hearing our own voice: The
wonderful thing about learning from
Pancho is that he invariably makes us listen
to our own voice. He makes us reach into
ourselves to recover and develop our full
potential.
Being around Pancho induces a kind
of manic euphoria. We wade with him
through a dense atmosphere of ideas
and emerge with multiple options and
possibilities for our work. Which one do
we choose, Pancho? Do them all! he
replies. How fortunate we have been!
Lewis Levin is a former student of
Pancho and is an architect, artist and
sculptor in Johannesburg.

Tim Ostler

first came across Pancho at a conference

in London in the Summer of 1976. In
a converted garage just off New Oxford
Street, an unknown architect from a (then
obscure) third-world country proceeded to
bombard an unsuspecting audience with
pictures of buildings like nothing wed ever
seen before.
I had trained at a provincial English
university where, over a period of
seven years, normal adolescents with a
reasonably healthy interest in life were
gradually transformed into members of a
professional tribe, alienated from the rest
of society. Already after three years I had
largely lost touch with my real feelings
about architecture. Panchos work was a
revelation, showing me that there was a
way of connecting architecure with real
human emotions.
One of the things it made me recall was
my childhood perception that every object
had an expression. It was not expression
in the artistic sense (although I suppose
it could be thought of in that way), it was
not even necessarily a human expression.
It was a literal, facial expression on its
own - only without a face. Perhaps it was
what Lewis Carroll was thinking of when
he talked about the grin of the Cheshire
cat.
What I had realised was that everything
has a character, there to be read by
anyone who chose to be receptive. And
it was to this part of me that Pancho
spoke when he talked about all those odd
buildings of his. He talked about his jobs
as adventures, his styles as stories or
families. This, too, from a man who,
in the light of his prolific output, could
evidently exist in the grown-up world. Yet
there he was, talking about his buildings
in terms such as a foolish round house
outside the world of money, my feathery
hairy building (Swazi Zimbabwe), or a
mommy house surrounded by children in
funny hats (Sagrada Famila da Machava).
Pancho seemed to be talking about
his buildings as if they were living
personalities. He saw architecture through

the eyes of an animist an animist, that

is, who had hitched a ride with African art
on its way to being discovered by Cubism,
Dada and Surrealism, then stopped off in
Vicenza to exhume and revive the body
of Andrea Palladio. Looking at buildings
as people is really a rather illuminating
way of looking at architecture. On one
level it is the logical extension of the
Renaissance practice of basing columns,
plans and elevations on the symmetry and
proportions of the human body. Why not
indeed extend the metaphor to a human
personality? The effect is to place less
emphasis on universalism and more on
individualism: on the limitless variety in
which the human personality can exist. As
Pancho put it:
How can buildings become what they
need to become, some pretty, some dark,

others ugly, some flat and clever real

like people?
Yet for all his poetic imagery, Pancho
also demonstrates how important it
is in practical terms for the architect
himself to have a personality. For without
his relentless drive and his power to
charm clients, builders and officialdom
wherever he works, how many of these
extraordinary buildings would ever have
been built?
Tim Ostler, a UK-based architect, has
carried out extensive research on
Pancho.

19

Udo Kultermann

he first and only time I met with

Pancho Guedes took place at the First
International Conference of African Culture
which was arranged in Harare, the former
Salisbury in then Southern Rhodesia,
in 1962 by Frank McEven and had a
lasting impact on my then rather limited
perception of what African architecture
was and could be. I was invited to give
a talk about the relationship between
traditional African architecture and the
contemporary situation, and there were
at that time no earlier investigations
available on which one could rely. And
much more important there were
up to that time, to my knowledge, no
visionary projections in which way the
contemporary activities could and should
be related to the great African past.
The lecture by Pancho Guedes at the
Congress in 1962 was unique, as it
created a brilliant amalgam of personal
visionary projections and at the same
time a fresh reinterpretation of the past,
which worked for me as an eye-opener.
In spite of the fact that several lectures
in the Congress were outstanding
academic presentations, among them
by Roland Penrose and William Fagg
from England and W. Bascom and Alfred
H. Barr from the USA , the crystallising
event was the lecture by Pancho Guedes
and his ability to open perspectives into
a future which was not yet there. It was
surprisingly in line with the presence of
another participant in Salisbury, the poet
Tristan Tzara, who not only had been
one of the pioneering initiators of what
later was called Dadaism, but also one of
the earliest to come to an understanding
of Africa and its culture in the context of
world culture. It was not by accident that
Panchos lecture found a great applause
from Tzara. In one of Panchos publications
he referred to Tzara by quoting him: Art
is an endless procession of difference.
And Tzara articulated the results of the
meeting in Salisbury when he later wrote
about Panchos buildings in Mozambique:
A whole architecture of the imagination,
which, of course, links Guedes with the
Dadaists and Surrealist schools, and I
am very happy to have met him here
and to be able to say in Paris that certain
realizations, which they cannot have seen
in the West, are coming to fruition in this
new world, which is in a state of ferment
Africa which is clearly going to be the
20

world of the future. This statement by

Tzara may have been too optimistic, but
it was the underlying perception of a few
creative writers and architects at the time
shortly after the gaining of independence
of several states in Africa, and it created
an atmosphere of a creative vision.
From then on, for me, the steadily
increasing enthusiasm towards a genuine
African culture experienced in the
conference in Salisbury and specifically the
lecture by Pancho Guedes had numerous
reverberations. Not only did I return to
different parts of Africa in order to learn
what still was then a terra incognita to
most scholars, I more and more also
saw the visions of Pancho transformed
into reality. Not only that there can be
no separation of disciplines such as
architecture, sculpture and painting,
literature and music, no division of
theory and practice in the earlier Western

tradition, but also that there has to be

an unending interpenetration of all the
aspects of life and work, of imagination
and practical understanding, of human
values and the all-encompassing
expression of joy, as it was visible in
much of the African past and in the new
attempts to continue this past in a creative
way. It was especially Pancho Guedes who
was able to attack the then dominating
rules of modern industrial architecture by
demanding a wider and more authentic
form of building the human environment
as he articulated it most brilliantly:
our hunger for buildings as symbols,
messages, memorials, chambers of ideas
and feelings is so strong that even if
their faded medicine has lost the original
potency of sign and idea, our need
constantly recharges them.

In the years after the Congress in

Salisbury I step by step learned about
the then already existing world of his
buildings in Loureno Marques (today
Maputo) in Mozambique, his housing
estates, churches, social institutions and
in each case uniquely determined by the
specific and unique site situation, and in
each case transforming the vocabulary of
the earlier architectural developments into
a new and unique manifestation. There
were none of the rules which existed for
most other architects in different countries,
no limitation of his exploding fantasy.
Pancho Guedes built over 25 years in
the remote country of Mozambique an
architectural world in which old and new,
European and African, fantasy and radical
requirements were no longer contrasting
each other, but were unified into a new
whole, a Gesamtkunstwerk in which all
the included values were enhanced and
elevated to a new level.
In the church of the Sagrada Familia
da Machava of 1962 1964 Pancho
for example created an ensemble of
spaces which were within the image of
a mother surrounded by small children.
Panchos own interpretation makes
this most evident: It is a mommy
house surrounded by children in funny
hats; a wedding hall with a roof like a
gondola. The ship of life guarded by
four broad two-way crosses, with a
side periscope watching over the sea
of trees and rolling walls turning into
corners, crevices and concavities; for
old men in the sun, for hide-and-seek
games, for lovers, for youthful gangs.
The body of work in Loureno
Marques not only existed in reality, it also
was given a theoretical context in which
their unique features became explained
in writings and drawings. Legitimate
forms of representation were invented
in which the totality of architectural
developments became references, such
as the terminology of Euclidian Palaces,
Buildings in the American Egyptian
Style, The arched and somewhat Roman
manner. Admired architects such as
Gaudi, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier
and Louis I. Kahn became important
for a different ambition. Although
Pancho admired their revolutionary
achievements, he made no attempt
to copy them. It was the genius of the
masters who inspired him to continue
their work, but adapt it to a very different
geographical and cultural environment.

The architectural historian Nnamdi Elleh

described Panchos capabilities in his
book African Architecture. Evolution
and Transformation: There are very
few architects, who can speak as many
languages and dialects of architecture
with comfort and professional fluency in
this age of specialisation. Yet, Guedes
speaks the language of classicism, the
Renaissance, and modernism and, in
each case, relies on his African roots for
inspiration. Each project bears a theme
and leaves unforgettable, mesmerising
images drawn from an inexhaustible
source of energy.
One of the most fascinating features of
the works of Pancho Guedes is his ability
to integrate his work as architect, sculptor
and painter into the process of shaping
the given environment. In 1977 he wrote:
I believe that the crippling European and
American amputations an artist has to go
through torture himself into only one are
a severe limitation. He reduces himself to
a mere part in his attempts to suppress
his contradictions, his confusions and his
conflicts. As for myself, I do not care - I am
more than one. I am often the opposite,
I am sometimes the other. The general
outlook of Panchos work is based on a
complex and independent philosophy
which penetrates all his different activities
and creates a new whole, which can find
manifestations in paintings, sculptures,
buildings, but also in lectures, writings
and scholarly publications, such as those
about the sculptures of Le Corbusier. As
buildings by Wright, Gaudi, Le Corbusier
and Kahn were referential features for his
own buildings so were works by painters
such as De Chirico, Dali, Magritte and
Miro. Their works are part of the arsenal
from which inspiration has taken him
without ever borrowing or transforming
already existing forms.
Forms in the complex adaptation
by Pancho are fluid and have an
organ-like quality which makes them
an ideal communication with human
forms and uses. They also relate, often
programmatically, to the local tradition
and have affinities with the given past of
the site. So it is not by accident that two
of Panchos most significant projects are
related to a widely unknown but inspiring
tradition. His Swazi Zimbabwe from the
late 1960s is a direct reference to the
tribal tradition of Swaziland, just across
the border from Mozambique. It consists
of a sequence of circular units arranged

in a constellation which was once

established in the ruins of Great Zimbabwe
hundreds of years ago, but transforming
the internal functions according to the
requirements of a contemporary family.
The central idea for Pancho in this project
was:My brand-new Zimbabwe is now
a big rounded house, almost habitable.
At first it was a square with rounded and
irregular corners; then the walls moved
to angular positions with soft joints. Later
whole walls curved and flowed into each
other. Afterwards the walls separated
into curved clip forms marking out round
spaces which connected with each other
through the gaps The idea of the roof
came early and remained much the same
throughout all the other changes and
searches. It was always a number of heavy
concrete bonnets with wide rainwater
spouts discharging into tapered chamfered
water troughs. The spouts reached it
further and further as the idea moves and
metamorphosed. The balustrades were
originally solid but later became nervous
and agitated pipe, bar, and mesh bands,
and trestles. The fireplace is a huge egg
hatching on a shelf, the chimneys are
personages, horned and fierce guardians
of the rounded house. With different
functions of living, dining and kitchen
as well as terraces and servants rooms
on the ground floor and bedrooms with
balconies on the first floor he ingeniously
reinterpreted the tradition of African
architecture into a new level.
The total fantasy is also visible in a
poem in which Pancho makes the attempt
to describe the unique feature of his Swazi
Zimbabwe:
A foolish round house outside the
world of money,
My feathery hairy building.
You, too, if you dream hard enough
You, too, can make half of your dream
come true.
When is the building most real?
When it is a bunch of ideas? A rough
scribble?
When it is many sheets of municipal
linen prints?
Is it when the bones are up?
When the plastering is done?
When the owners move in?
When it catches fire?
Or when the first owners move out?
Is it not real exploding?
Is it real riddled and shattered by
bullets?
Or faked new by a new owner?

Or with broken window panes,

haunted, in a wild and overgrown
garden a young gangs club house.
Panchos project for The Habitable
Woman is his most radical expression
of what he considers architecture to be.
Unfortunately it was never completed
beyond the basement. In his own
description it is: A vigorous, personal,
erotic, obscure, suprafunctional,
suburban citadelan anthropomorphic
wonder house. a round-eyed house of
cavernous passages built into the rock.
A house with a baby house inside her. A
pregnant building My most hysterical
construction.
Pancho Guedes is today considered
one of the most important architects in
the last decades shaping and determining
of a new architecture in Africa. There are
still enormous potentials not yet seen or
defined in the vast continent, but Panchos
work is a beginning and points into
directions toward which other architects
will be able to go. The kind of architects
that will take over and determine
the coming developments that were
defined by Pancho: We must become
technicians of the emotions, tear-jerkers,
exaggerators, spokesmen of dreams,
performers of miracles, messengers; and
invent raw, bold, vigorous and intense
buildings without taste, absurd and
chaotic an architecture plugged into
people, an architecture the size of life.
Our buildings will be artificial organisms,
mechanical dolls and monsters, purring
and puffing, blowing and whistling,
containing chambers with the muffled
roaring of sea shells, black rooms,
lascivious passages, halls of infinitesimal
multiplications, visceral houses turned
inside out.
He comes to a conclusion important
not only to Architecture in Africa, but for
all parts of the world: We must listen to
the voices that speak to all of us. From the
other side of dreams we must watch for
the sights and signs within ourselves so
that the archipelago of necessities, ideas,
dreams, desires, obsessions will reveal the
total function. Building shall yet belong to
the people, architecture shall yet become
real and alive, and beauty shall yet be
warm and convulsive.
Udo Kultermann is an architectural
historian, author and educator for 27
years before retiring to New York.
21

Jo Noero

ales of extraordinary work in

Mozambique memories of a lecture
as a third year student in 1975 at Natal
University with Pancho, Hans Hallen and
Danie Theron debating the influence
of Palladio on their own work. Pancho
was scintillating and he swept all before
him I was alternatively appalled and
exhilarated since his talk was all about
style and form at a time in history when
discussion of those kinds of issues was
taboo but he won the day because
his drawings were beautiful and the
architecture was great we were all
hooked.
I remember visits to Mozambique
and particularly Loureno Marques,
Vilanculous, Beira and Xai Xai visits in
those days were mixed up with
ideas of sedition, of the exotic
there was Long John Berks on
LM Radio, Playboy Magazine
was on sale on the streets
and one could find the most
salacious nite-clubs this side of
the Zambezi also there was a
racial ease about life there across
the border people seemed at
ease with each other unlike back
home in Durban where there was
a palpable sense of fear. In LM there was
Pancho, Dori and their home which was
filled with people who made things, who
talked with passion and with energy. To
visit Panchos buildings in those days was
a revelation they were unlike any thing
one had seen anywhere else and they
fitted despite their crazy shapes and forms
it was as if they had been invented for
that place and nowhere else on earth.
Then there was the shock in the late
1970s of learning that Pancho was
moving to South Africa to head up Wits
architectural school which was so different
from LM yet he fitted in effortlessly or so
it seemed.
I returned to Johannesburg in 1981
after studying in England and met the
ever gracious Herbert Prins who in turn
introduced me to Pancho who promptly
offered me a job at Wits his view was
that you needed to teach to practice well
I never figured out why he said this
since his most productive years were spent
in LM not teaching but simply making
architecture - but then Pancho was always
infuriatingly enigmatic.
I learnt a huge amount from him just
22

by being at Wits and being able to be

around him when he taught, spoke about
architecture and gave crits I attended,
simultaneously as a teacher and a student,
his early morning lectures to the fifth years
on the Renaissance about Borromini.
Brunoleschi, Guilio Romano, Palladio,
Bramante and Serlio and others which
were wonderful and have influenced the
way I think about architecture ever since
I cannot begin to imagine what this
must have meant to the students who
were taught by Pancho during this period.
He could also be infuriating he had his
favourites and if he didnt like you you
were in trouble.
He hated the pretences of the University
bureaucracy and treated it with the kind
of disdain that it deserved unfortunately
whilst this was supported by the school it

cast us in bad odour with the rest of the

University which meant ultimately that we
sometimes didnt get the support that we
deserved however in retrospect it was
worth the sacrifice by keeping above the
mess of the University we simply got on
and did what we did best to teach and
produce good architecture they were
incredibly productive years.
Because of this attitude, Pancho
gathered around him a host of people
who did not necessarily fit the University
prescription of worthy academics our
School was a home for dissidents they
were made welcome to come to teach and
write and draw. I remember particularly
people such as Jean Pierre Delport a
South African post-structuralist from the
East Rand who reinvented himself as a
Frenchman replete with fake accent this
pretence was carried for a number of years
he was spellbinding in his thick French
accent and carried the deception forward
with such uncanny conviction that after a
time no-one in the school doubted that he
was French. We were a family whenever
anyone got married or had a child there
was an official annointment at the Guedes

home in Melville I still have the photos

taken by Pancho of my eldest daughter
Sophie at the age of 6 weeks in the
garden at their home in Mellville When
we arrived in Joburg we knew no-one and
Pancho and Dori were like our parents
and Herbert Prins was the generous
uncle. No story about Pancho would be
complete without talking about Herbert
he often rescued Pancho at those times
when Panchos behaviour was so extreme
that even his legendary charm could not
rescue him from John Mullers anger or
the universitys approbation thank God
for Herbert he would always be there
to provide a timely bit of advice, a rescue
plan.
Despite all this or in spite of this
Pancho revelled in discord there
was a sense in him that real, authentic
creativity grew out of dissent
and discord. Following this lead
staff took sharp position vis-a vis
each others teaching programs
and architectural work rumours
bounded about what had been
said to whom in what class about
what staff member this led to
confrontations in the corridors as
well as sharp criticisms levelled at
the presentation of work by staff
members at the infamous Monday
morning school meetings - all of this,
however, happened in a spirit of total
commitment to Architecture.
I taught very briefly at the AA in the
early 1990s and it seemed from what I
heard there that this kind of atmosphere
was similar to that which prevailed under
the chairmanship of Alvin Boyarsky. During
this period he mentored a number of
people as either teachers or students
who today are eminent architects,
teachers and theorists Rem Koolhaas,
Zaha Hadid, Tom Heneghan, Peter Salter
and Bernhard Tschumi amongst others. I
have a sense that the same will emerge
from Panchos reign at Wits lets wait
and see.
Pancho was difficult, absolutely brilliant,
totally committed to his art, infuriatingly
partisan yet also generous, spellbindingly
erudite and supremely talented, a truly
great architect capable of turning his hand
to almost any architectural problem and
issue with an almost contemptuous ease.
Jo Noero is currently the Head of the
School of Architecture at University
of Cape Town.

Fredo Guedes

am not an architect... but the book is

also about memory here are some of
mine, Dad...
I remember how, at the beach, you
made us all laugh by walking behind
Karen imitating her walk...
The time you painted Rua Nevala red
upsetting the colonial authorities...
Always running out to the back yard of
your office to inspect Filipes progress
as he chopped away at the wooden
sculptures. The instructions drawn directly
on the wood.
And when you left they would giggle
at the sensual way you had fondled your
latest creation...
When everybody deserted Michael
Stern at Waterford during the attempted
coup you stood by him on principle even
though you sacrificed other friendships....
Saipal was the first pilgrimage site
because it was abandoned and had
remained true to the plans...
And later, you wanted me to
photograph all your deserted buildings
in newly named Maputo because you
preferred them as ruins
The installation of your own PA system
to compete with the continuous cackle
of announcements from the military base
opposite home...
The carbonized steaks on the way
to the Swiss Mission building sites in

Chicumbane and Antioka...

The urgent retrieval of your note book
every time you saw something that caught
your attention and the way you would
record an idea for later use...
The relative value of things...
When I was a student and wanted a
good meal you would say the cost of the
meal was worth so many books
And later when Eugaria became the
obsession that the price of the books
would buy so many bags of cement...
The time PIDE took you away for
interrogation and we did not know if you
were coming back...
Fondling Sol Kerzners stomach to
put him in his place during the mad
negotiations to get the Nossi-be project
off the ground...
Evergreen magazine. The anticipation
and thrill of the next update on Avant
Guard culture...
Going back to Rua Nevala and being

shocked at the destruction of our

home and the cooperantes who had torn
up the furniture left behind...
Your war with Machel through the
paintings of him eating your creations...
The time I got run over by a tank and
you decked a policeman to get to me
then fainted when you saw me covered in
blood...
The Bunuel movies and how you
inspired me to work in film
The builder who would give you a
childs toy every christmas...
Going through all the hidden drawings
of your projects with Andre and smuggling
them out on the train...
You were so excited to get them back
again...
How, after liberating all your things,
a customs officer seized the Evergreen
magazines and they appeared on the
banned list in South Africa...
The way you are always working on ten
different things....
Every time you visit someplace you take
pictures and more pictures...
Slides everywhere...
And your philosophy that you must
never take yourself too seriously and
always be prepared to laugh at yourself....
Fredo Guedes is the second son
of Pancho, has worked as a War
Correspondent in the Worlds
Political hotspots and is now settled
with his familly in the UK.

23

Pedro Guedes

n writing this I have erased recent

memories and would like to take you
back with me to a unique view of Panchos
practice at his Office at Home at Rua de
Nevala 915.
Everyday at lunchtime we went to the
beach. No more phone calls from clients
shamelessly pouncing on their architect
with last minute queries, instructions
and changes of mind. The family could
be together for an hour or so without
interruptions. This drastic exclusion of
architectural functions for a small part of
the day was a hard-won victory for Dori.
Even though, looking back, I enjoyed
playing by the sea, I still have an aversion
to sand between my toes and particularly
in sandwiches. Living in our Office at
Home brought many excitements and
adventures. My earliest memories are of
visiting building sites in the gold coloured
MG. The open-topped sports car was the
envy of all my school friends. Building was
so much fun: piles of sand, machines for
making cement blocks and friendly people.
All, except the clients, with very rough
hands.
Pancho was well liked by nearly
everyone on the building sites. He lingered
and discussed things with them often
at great length on his regular visits.
Sometimes the conversations evolved into
respectful banter, which endeared him
to the builders, craftsmen and labourers.
His nickname everywhere in the south
of Mozambique was mPandlane, which
means bald man.
Building was primitive, but painstakingly
accurate. I remember planks with nails
and strings above trenches in the deep-red
earth. Right angles were checked with big
carefully made wooden 3-4-5, triangles,
and dimensions discussed endlessly over
working drawings pasted to masonite
boards. Large nails would be hammered
into profiles, checked and then moved until
everything was perfectly right.
Pancho checked everything, and when
a building had reached the point where
walls were up, there would be sketches
made on the plaster to clarify the odd
detail that had escaped the meticulous
drawings. Colours would also be tried
out and if the clients opted for the less
favoured option, it was never without the
hard fought last stand. All his construction
sites had a sign in large letters proclaiming
that he was responsible for everything on
24

the job with the exception of the reinforced

concrete.
I never saw any cement or mud on
Panchos shoes. Whenever we went to a
building site together, I would return home
with some reminder on my clothes. He was
extremely dapper in his dress. Whenever
he had to inspect drains he would not
shrink from the task, but as he approached
the open manhole, he would have a clean
handkerchief bathed in eau de cologne
held elegantly to his nose. He avoided
formal occasions, but to those he had to
attend, he would wear suits of his own
design, always without collars. I remember
going to his tailors with him and being
astounded at how much thought and
endless adjustments could go into a simple
black suit.
I loved visiting the workshop of Feliciano
the welder and blacksmith who fabricated
all the steel screens and furniture on the
many projects. He was a likeable and
patient man with great skill at managing
with meagre resources. He made his own
acetylene with a carbide generator that
one day exploded and sent him badly
burnt to hospital.
I remember vividly a day when there
was a terrible commotion. Lots of shouting,
threats and Pancho trying to sooth and
calm down someone who was very irate.
I crept up, out of sight, to be closer to the
engaging action. It was an enraged builder
cursing the client who had not paid him,
vowing to kill him. It looked as if he meant
it, waving a loaded gun around the Office.
It took a long time to convince him to go
home instead.
The Office was full of surprises.
Eavesdropping on client meetings was
particularly entertaining. On one occasion,
a client who was dreaming enthusiastically
of his beach-house came with yet another
pile of magazines with examples of
confusing and contradictory desiderata.
The whole pile, including those he had
brought before were dumped theatrically
in the waste-paper bin and he was told
exactly how many square metres of
building the extravagant magazines had
already cost him. After the initial shock, he
had a good laugh and the job proceeded
without any major deviations.
The drawings were the mysterious
productions that controlled all the people
scattered on various building sites and
workshops throughout town. Every
drawing was done by Pancho. Even
the structural engineers drawings were

redrawn. He would work on them late

into the night long after Id gone to bed
and would be at his drawing board when
I woke up. He never employed more
than two draughtsmen. They worked
on tracings for drainage and electrical
layouts and drawings for the Municipality
recording the buildings as built. I was
allowed to ink in and later to trace the
hand drawn letters laboriously prepared for
every drawing. It was a long time before I
was allowed to draw on the drawing itself.
I would often spend hours doodling and
drawing on a table next to Pancho in the
office. When he was engaged in routine
drawing tasks and not working something
out in detail in deep focused thought, we
would chat or the radio would be playing.
Sometimes I would make suggestions
about projects he was working on and
would do my own drawings of them. I
was very proud when he used a drawing
I did of the Smiling Lion as the basis for a
painting of the building before it started
on site. On another occasion, when he
was designing the interior for a tearoom,
I made a sketch of lettering spelling its
name in spiky festive child-like letter-forms,
which he liked a lot and used for the main
sign and as a design for the cake-boxes.
Before we had our own dyeline printing
at Rua de Nevala, I remember going in the
MG to a reclusive lady who would lower a
basket from an upstairs balcony to pick up
the drawings that wed brought. When we
returned, the prints, smelling of ammonia
would be lowered. Eventually, Andr (who
worked in the Office until it closed) learnt
how to make excellent dyelines. He used
a special frame to stretch the drawings
over the dyeline paper under a transparent
plastic sheet. They were exposed to the
sun and then developed in our very own
smelly ammonia box. Every project had
drawings of a particular size and all the
paper was carefully cut from rolls. Finished
prints were neatly folded and bound in
handsome black bindings, for the clients,
the Municipality and the builders.
The Office moved about the house over
the years. I first remember it as a space
under the stairs. Dori became very anti
open-plan as a result, an aversion she
has held ever since. As a consequence
the houses they now inhabit in Portugal
have distinct rooms with doors to close
them off from the rest of the home. I think
the Office next moved to the garage of
one half of Rua de Nevala 915. When the
Smiling Lion was completed next door, the

Office occupied the first flat at the top of

the stairs. Its last move was to the ground
floor of the adjoining house at 915. The
identical staircases were linked at the half
landing, so the Office was again under the
same roof as our home. Panchos painting
studio with all his books on art was
upstairs next door to our grandparents and
the garage then became Malangatanas
Studio.
It was seldom dull at Rua de Nevala
915. Sometimes students from Wits would
arrive to spend a few weeks working in the
office. I would take them around town to
look at the buildings completed or under
construction. They had also come to savour
the atmosphere of L.M. the vibrant Latin

city. Occasionally there were memorable

events like the Summer School organised
by Julian Beinart which brought many
students from Wits and was held in the
nearby pyramidal nursery school still under
construction. I remember the labourers on
the site joining the students at the end of
the day to contribute their own drawings.
Eventually, the golden MG gave way
to a series of less glamorous but more
practical vehicles, which culminated in a
phoenix-like successor in the metallic silver
Jag with beige leather upholstery which
ironically met a fiery end, melting the road
under it on a remote site visit to the Swiss
Mission in the bush.
From my unique vantage point,

architecture was a wonderful world of

adventures, surrounded by subtropical
plants, sculptures and paintings. It was
an environment where nearly anything
could be made by the ingenious people
we knew. A city full of buildings I had
seen from the drawing board, through
their various states of construction and
then finally inhabited. I am grateful for a
wonderful childhood that made me feel
like a colleague from a very early age.
Pedro Guedes is the oldest son of
Pancho, taught at the AA, RCA and
is currently Senior Lecturer at the
University of Queensland, Brisbane,
Australia.
25

Ora Joubert

henever asked after my maturation

as an architect, I always
acknowledge the role the University of
the Witwatersrand played in this regard.
Specifically, I owe my entre into academia
to Pancho who offered this Tukkie a
teaching post soon after I graduated.
My time spent at Wits as a junior
lecturer from 1986 until 1990 was
undoubtedly one of the most invigorating
periods of my life; a period when the
staff, apart from Pancho, included Herbert
Prins, Peter Rich, Jo Noero, Brian Altshuler,
Lyndsay Bremner, Don Tindale, Marilyn
Martin, Dennis Radford and the Fitchett
couple all remarkable individuals who
made, and continue to make, valuable
contributions to architectural education and
to society at large.
I vividly recall the animated discussions
on all matters related to architecture,
inevitably instigated, and hugely enjoyed,
by Pancho. The final year design exam
was the annual highlight, with Pancho,
without fail, living up to his mischievous
reputation.
Apart from generously rewarding
students with one hundred percent, would
he sneak behind Dons back to alter the
consensus mark that was reached minutes
before and much to the annoyance (to put
it mildly) of the external examiners.
To me Panchos generosity remains
one of his most endearing qualities;
a generosity extended not only to his
students, but also to his teaching staff.
His enquiry after ones own creative
explorations was always much appreciated,
as was his surprisingly pragmatic advice.
A visit to his office was a treat as one
could marvel at ones hearts content at the
myriad of drawings, paintings, sculptures
and models (the latter meticulously built by
meneer de Wit).
Panchos creative energy was contagious
and therefore not surprisingly reverberates
in the work of all privileged to have been
closely associated with him. The joie de
vivre that Panchos oeuvre, as well as his
inimitable persona, brought to bear, is one
of the rarest gifts that any individual could
ever wish for.
Pancho, I salute you!
Ora Joubert is the Head of the School
of Architecture, University of the Free
State, Bloemfontein and taught at
WITS in the late 80s.

Marilyn Martin

still remember exactly where I stood

in Panchos office at Wits when he
uttered these words. He had been trying to
convince me that I should study acoustics.
I explained that I had neither the scientific
nor technological background, nor for
that matter any aptitude for such a field.
Registering my resistance the conversation
ended. Then, as I walked out, I heard: You
can do anything you choose to do.
I never became an expert in acoustics
but Panchos words stayed with me and
they still come to mind and to my rescue
when I face difficult tasks and daunting
opportunities. Such was his faith in his
colleagues and students. Such was the
nature of his leadership. What I learned
from Pancho about management would
not get me through a senior management

course, but I learned something much

more important that nothing can replace
inspired leadership and example.
In the face of reluctance, Pancho
succeeded in convincing Wits that I
should register for the degree of Master
of Architecture without an undergraduate
degree in the discipline. Opposition
followed when he wanted to appoint me
in the department. Wits was a scary place
at the time academics had to dress and
look a certain way. If one did not, and
if one were multi-skilled, versatile and
open to change, one was regarded with
stern suspicion. A colleague in another
department called me a dilettante.
But I was appointed and given the
opportunity, with Hugh Fitchett and Dennis
Radford, of developing a five-year History
of Art and Architecture course. Pancho had
a dream of training architects who would

also be visually and historically literate and

the three of us were entrusted with the
manifestation of that dream. They were
extraordinary days, rich and enriching in
every aspect of my life and my work the
freedom and privilege to create something
from nothing, engaging with colleagues
and students, learning and growing all the
time. Gaining confidence and wisdom and
the knowledge that one must at all times
speak ones truth, particularly in the face of
adversity.
Pancho was awe-inspiring in a crit.
While everyone was still looking he
had looked, analysed, scrutinised and
redesigned the scheme. Nothing was
taken at face value; everything remained
open to questioning, to a challenge, to
contestation. His subjectivity was located
in the context of the real, his imagination
in vast knowledge. He created space for
discourse and required participation from
us.
Panchos belief in the architect as artist,
poet, engineer and social agent resonated
with me, but unfortunately most students
simply wanted to get on with the job. The
notion of the universal creative individual
had been irretrievably lost somewhere in
the second half of the 20th century, Pancho
remaining one of few such architects.
At Wits and from Pancho I learned about
Africa, the significance of the aesthetic
production of our continent. Panchos
own work is a synthesis of modernism
and Africanism, of knowing and
understanding cutting-edge technologies
and ancient traditions. He introduced me
to Mozambique and to Malangatana long
before I had occasion to visit the country
and meet the artist. When we did meet
in Cape Town, I knew Malangatana well
enough to invite him to be a houseguest.
I treasure the drawings he gave me and
the 17th century Dutch trade beads that
he found while excavating for a building
in Maputo; some of them are now in
the Iziko: South African National Gallery
collection.
There is no Pancho without Dori and I
want to pay tribute to her a remarkable
woman, who opened her home to my
children and me. I remember Dori telling
us about the tribulations of her forefathers
and mothers, I remember her warmth
and hospitality, her delicious food. I
remember their home and their closeness.
Pancho and Dori were always interested
in and concerned about our happiness
and well being as individuals and families,

outside the workplace, without ever

intruding.
I want to conclude by dedicating a
poem, written by Brother Giovanni in
1513, to Pancho and Dori. It captures what
I have gained and learned as an individual
from knowing them and it contains a
sublime message for the road ahead:
There is nothing I can give you
which you have not
But there is much, very much while I
cannot give it
you can take
No heaven can come to us unless
our hearts find rest in today
Take heaven
No peace lies in the future
that is not hidden in this present
instant
Take peace
The gloom of the world is but a
shadow
behind it, yet within reach, is joy
There is a radiance and glory in the
darkness could we but see
and to see we have only to look
I beseech you to look
Life is so generous a giver, but we,
judging its gifts by their covering
cast them away as heavy or ugly or
hard
Remove the covering and you will find
beneath it a living splendour
woven of love by wisdom with power
Welcome it and grasp it and you
touch the angels hand that brings it
to you
Everything we call a trial a sorrow or
a duty
believe me, that angels hand is there
The gift is there and the wonder of an
overshadowing presence
Our joys too. Be not content with
them as joys
they too conceal diviner gifts
And so, at this time, I greet you
not quite as the world sends greetings
but with profound esteem
and with a prayer that for you now
and forever
the day breaks and the shadows flee
away
Marilyn Martin taught History of Art
and Architecture at WITS. She left to
take up position of Director, South
African National Gallery and is now
Director of Art Collections at Iziko
Museums, Cape Town.
27

Karl-Heinz Schmitz
Tuesday, 4 November 2003 Weimar
Dear Pancho
Congratulations! If anyone deserves an
additional title its you. But to be quite
honest, Dr. Pancho Guedes sounds just as
strange to my ears as Dr. Pablo Picasso.
Picasso is Picasso and Guedes is Guedes,
there is no room for a title.
Lonka asked me to write something
anything. What can I write about Pancho
Guedes that others have not already
written?
Perhaps my personal encounters.

I are to present projects. No one knows

who we are. The director of the National
Gallery in Cape Town introduces everyone
except us. We hear him saying. Who are
they? I dont know what to say about
them. Pancho jumps up and says that he
will introduce us. We hear him give us
extraordinary and fictitious titles. He makes
up as he goes along, Im too nervous to
hear them all just one Im the Madrid
Scholar. I feel that the audience believe
him; there is no laughter when we go on
stage: just awe and respect.
Neils title is Robben Island the New

1972 Cape Town.

3rd year at UCT. Students from WITS come
to Cape Town. One of them is Richard
Hepner who draws his projects like an
architect called Pancho Guedes. He knows
many interesting stories.

1975 Cape Town

Pancho Guedes is an external examiner
at UCT. I have to show him my work, an
unfinished project, endless roles of tracing
paper with sketches that are getting
nowhere. He doesnt sigh, he doesnt
look despondent, he doesnt give me the
impression that Im an idiot or a burden.
He looks at the sketches and says: youre
like a cat chasing its own tail. It doesnt
sound mean and somehow I have the
feeling that I will soon find a way out.
1978 Cape Town
Symposium at UCT called The State of the
Arts in South Africa. Neil Durbach and
28

1991 Eichsttt/Darmstadt
We invite Pancho to come to Eichsttt, a
Catholic bishopric in the heart of Bavaria.
Pancho gives a talk on the Madonna of
the Revolvers.
For some odd reason the bishop does
not fire me.
Pancho stays with us. My children, 8 and
4 dont understand English, Pancho cant
speak German. I think they understand
him. For years they speak about him.
Later we drive to Darmstadt where
Pancho gives a talk on his work. He starts
off by saying: Im an architect who does
not really know what he is doing.
I hear staff members grumbling. At
the end of the talk there is tumultuous
applause by the students.
1992 Eichsttt/Weimar
I apply for a teaching position at the
Bauhaus University in Weimar. Pancho
writes a letter of reference. This time I have
the feeling that he is telling the truth. I get
the job.

1973 Cape Town

I apply for work in the office of Pancho
Guedes. I receive no reply.
1974 Johannesburg
After having worked in the offices of Gawie
Fagan, Revel Fox and Bannie Britz, a friend
and I decide to drive to Mozambique to
look at buildings by Pancho Guedes.
Ignorant of South African news we dont
quite realise that there is a revolution.
We drive to Panchos Office in Maputo,
everything is empty and desolate, Pancho
has left. One of his collaborators shows us
buildings in and around Maputo.
I often show the slides of the buildings
that I had taken at the time, the last time
in October this year at the University of
Strathclydein, Glasgow.

Mr. Schmitz, is all this true?

Pancho is all this true?
No! But isnt it a good story?

Capital of South Africa, my part is the City

of Cape Town, Parliament Buildings the
New Political Prison of South Africa or
something like that.
For some odd reason we are not
arrested.
1979 Johannesburg
Pancho offers me a teaching position at
Wits just before I leave for short trip to
Europe.
1980 Dsseldorf
I write that I am not coming back; I have
just met my wife and I am planning to
settle in my homeland, Germany.
1981 Cologne
I apply for work in the office of Oswald
Mathias Ungers. At my first appointment
I say, Oh by the way, kind regards from
Pancho Guedes. I get the job.
1990 Eichsttt/Lisbon
Two years in the office of Karljosef
Schattner. We decide to take a trip to
Portugal. In Lisbon we meet Pancho, who
shows us various buildings. One of them is
the Jeronimos Monastery. Pancho explains
and explains, I translate into German. After
a while Schattner looks at me and asks.

3rd October 2003 Weimar

The phone rings.
Schmitz
Karl-Heinz Schmitz?
Yes
Do you speak English
Yes
You probably dont know who I am, my
name is Lonka Guedes.
Of course I know who you are, about
30 years ago we had lunch together at
Richard Hepners flat in Cape Town; we
had chicken and mayonnaise.
You seem to have a good memory, are
you like my father?
No one is like your father, and I only
remember things that are not important.
Lonka explains the reason for her call.
I know that I cant come but its difficult
to say no.
4th October Weimar
I see the list of speakers. Long lost friends.
I know that I cant go.
11th December Johannesburg
Dear Pancho here I am.
Karl Heinz Schmitz is a Professor at
the Bauhaus University in Weimar,
Germany

Heather Dodd

first met Pancho when I was 17 - half

a lifetime ago and arrived at Wits to
study Architecture. The first project was
to design a hotel and the first crit was
a pin up in the foyer of John Moffat
where Pancho went through all 120
of the schemes giving comment to all.
Later in the year, I got to know Pancho
better, as like all first years in the past we
began our revolt against the tyranny of
Physics. Pancho enthusiastically helped
us with our battle, and we would go and
meet with the Head of Physics, trying to
persuade him of the patent unsuitability of
Architects to the subject. Unfortunately, it
didnt happen in our year, only five or so
years later and I just scraped Physics.
Later I sat on the Faculty Board and
witnessed Panchos innate delight in
pushing the limits of institutional authority.
His last meeting was a memorable
performance.
There are many wonderful things that
I remember of Pancho and things that I
have taken with me into the way I think
about architecture.
The extraordinary treasure trove that
was his office filled with slides and
books and drawings from floor to ceiling.
One would meet Pancho in the passage
and ask about a project or an architect
excited about your discovery and he
would take you to his office and show
you a book or a slide that would take you
further on your voyage of discovery. To this
day, I have never really learnt to engage
with the index system of the Library,
because there was always Pancho to ask
and the method of just looking at the
shelves to discover a book the index of
the mind.
Then there were Panchos school talks
at the beginning of term where he
would talk about his holiday projects
the progress of the house in Sintra,
or even doorknobs. I also remember
Panchos delight in the challenge of a new
scheme whether real or not and his ability
to produce a beautiful set of drawings
overnight.
I have often mused on why it is that I
visit such obscure places at great cost to
seek out a particular building usually off
the given tourist map in places where noone speaks English, and I am sure that this
is Panchos influence.
Pancho had a saying about architects
being magicians, prostitutes, acrobats,

and traders of ideasand he dwelt in

a world where imagination and dreams
intertwined with reality. When the going
gets tough in the real world and I write an
email to a Project Manager saying that I
am not Harry Potter, and somehow I feel
that my magic wand has forsaken me, I
always remember this saying of Panchos
and his enthusiasm for taking up a

challenge, in pushing the boundaries and

his absolute delight in architecture and life
itself.
It is this that I remember and it renews
my passion for the challenges that I face in
my architecture.
Heather Dodd is an architect
practicing in Johannesburg.

29

Manfred Schiedhelm &

Karen Axelrad

hen I first came across the work

of Pancho Guedes I was struck by
his unusual approach to architecture. It
was unusual in the way that his work
encompassed both the culture of the
country he was working in and the
possibilities contemporary architecture
provided. Later at a variety of Team X
meetings, he brought the only non-western
perspective to the discussions.
Here was a man living and working
in Mozambique who found ways of
encompassing all sources available and
translating them into an autonomous way
of making buildings. This symbiosis was
also nurtured by using the craftsmanship of
local woodcarvers, painters, embroiderers
and builders of the region. His close
collaboration with his African co-workers
contributed to a unique understanding of
the needs of the people he was building

30

for. This method distinguished his work

from the usual implantation of western
architecture which one finds all over Africa.
As he once mentioned, he operates in a
rather clandestine manner avoiding what
he calls ready-made stiff architecture.
Pancho Guedes has developed a
refreshing way of creating buildings
beyond the actual trends. He has taken
interesting sidepaths and thus avoided the
commonplaces of architecture. The result
has been a considerable number of unique
buildings throughout his long career.
In giving Pancho Guedes the Honorary
Doctorate, you are honoring a great
architect and a wonderful person.
Congratulations,
Manfred Schiedhelm & Karen Axelrad
15 October, 2003
Manfred Schiedhelm was a fellow
member of Team X with Pancho and
is currently based in Berlin, Germany.

List of Photographs & Illustrations

Page 1: Photomontage of Pancho
crowned in laurel by Manfred Schiedhelm
& Karen Axelrad.
Pages 2 and 3: Portraits of Pancho in
various stages of early to late youth. Dori
appears twice, at their wedding and in
the drawing, incredulous at Panchos early
career as a sportsman..
Page 4: Portrait of Pancho and Dori on the
roof of the recently completed Leite Martins
house in Lourenco Marques.
Page 5: Left: Pancho & Revel Right:
Inauguration of the wooden totem-column
marking the northern boundary of the
Smiling Lion. Pedro and Lonka have
climbed the sculpture, while Pancho, Dori
and everyone from the office look on.
Page 6: Top: Panchos authoritative
diagram, teasing out the characters of
plans and the subtle art of bending space.
Bottom: an unraveling view of Cazal dos
Olhos, Pancho and Doris little house in
Eugaria near Sintra in Portugal.
Page 7: Top: Pancho at the drawing
board, working away late into the night.
Bottom: Plan of the beach hotel at S.
Martinho do Bilene. Designed to be formed
and sculpted in the sand of the lagoon-side
dunes prior to being cast in concrete.
Page 8: Prometheus appearing as an
apartment building in Lourenco Marques.
Page 9: Left: Clandestine nursery school
in the City of Reeds. Axonometric. Middle:
Church of the Sagrada Familia in Machava.
Axonometric. Right: Luis Bernardo
Honwana in the 1960s.
Page 10: Left: The founders of the city
on horseback. Sculpted from an assembly
of cut-outs in flat steel plate. Model.
Right: The design for Market Square in
Johannesburg. Axonometric.
Page 11:Top: Peter Rich discerning the
workings of Panchos mind through an
African prism incorporating montage by
Neville Dubow. Bottom: S. Cipriano
Anglican Centre. Built for the Bishop of the
Libombos, Joaos father.
Page 12: Study for a painting: Panchos

home in Maputo about to be digested by

the State.
Page 13: Semi-detached houses for
Urbano Benites in Lourenco Marques. With
some help from Frank Lloyd Wright in the
beginning.
Page 14: House in Piet Retief, RSA. Part
of Panchos extended family of Euclidian
Palaces.
Page 15: Swazi Zimbabwe, Goedgegoen.
This is the younger sister of the Habitable
Woman who was nearly built for a dentist
in Nelspruit.
Page 16: Top: Agricultural School
for the Swiss Mission at Chicumbane.
Axonometric. Middle: Malangatana
with Breyten and Yolande Breytenbach.
Bottom:Church of the twelve Apostles,
Gala Massala. Section.
Page 17: Cathedral of huts, Macie.
Axonometric.
Page 18: Country Club, Mucifal, Portugal.
Axonometric.
Page 19: Top: Plan, Axonometric and
Section of The Red House. Maputo.
Bottom: Taking the salute: Left to right
- Le Corbusier, Pancho and Tim Ostler.
(Montage by Tim Ostler) Extreme right:
Perspective of the house for the Tzeserra
Mountains, near Vila Manica, one of the
very earliest embodiments of stiloguedes.
Page 21: Panchos abridged manifesto
from back cover of AA exhibition catalogue
1979. From time to time, available as a
T-Shirt.
Page 22: Saipal Bakery, LM. Briefly
pristine, before gently falling into ruin.
Page 23: Left: Waterford/Kamhlaba.
Phases 1-3. 1961 Axonometric. Middle:
Train tower. Sculpture in polished,
ebonised hardwood. Right: Resort hotel,
Nossi-be, Malagasi. Axonometric.
Page 25: Pedros recent reflections on
Panchos multiple identities, appearances,
aliases and disguises.

Illovo, Johannesburg. Ground floor plan.

Top, right: Twelve terraced houses on
Avenida Antonio Enes, Lourenco Marques.
Plan. Middle: Semis for Matos Ribeiro.
Polana, Louenco Marques. Bottom:
Smiling Lion. Perspective.
Page 27: Top: Segmental Golf Club, LM.
Plan. From the family of early designs in
curves and circles. Bottom: Polygonal
house for Otto Barbosa, LM. Plan.
Page 28: Saipal Bakery, LM. Street and
rear elevations.
Page 29: Top: Pancho, Dori, Kitty and
Grannys House in Melville, Johannesburg.
AKA: The Consulate of Eclectica. Bottom:
Pancho and Dori arriving at Cazal dos
Olhos in Eugaria, Portugal in their Citroen
2CV. In the rear-view mirrors: The house
in Melville and the more distant house in
LM-Maputo.
Page 30: Top: Pancho by himself in
line, pale with modesty and delight at
all the kind words, unrestrained eulogies
and pleasant memories brought together
in this publication. Bottom: House for
Moreno Ferreira, Beira. A young relative of
buildings with walls twisting and turning.
Sections, elevations and plans.
Cover: Habitable Woman. Rendered in oil.
Inside Front Cover: Top left: Gallery
mural and roof, NW elevation of Smiling
Lion, Maputo/LM. Middle left: Swazi
Zimbabwe revived as an oil painting.
Bottom left: Cargo of Pyramids, Ship.
Sculpture in wood. Top right: Dispute
over the broken bicycle. Painting, oil.
Middle right: Sheboat. Sculpture in
Jacaranda. Bottom right: Morning break
at the Swiss Mission primary school at
Antioka.
Inside Back Cover: Top left: Early
Sheboat, painting. Middle left: Family
group, painting. Bottom left: Elephant
hunt, painting. Top right: Football match,
painting. Middle right: Wall of glass
faces, painting after a sculptural proposal
for the Biennale di Venezia. Bottom right:
Blind muse. Female figure in polished
hardwood.

Page 26: Top, left: Desirello House,

31

Amancio dAlpoim Miranda Guedes

Born:
Nationality:
Married:
Children:

13th May 1925 in Lisbon

Portuguese
Dorothy Ann Phillips, 24th December 1947
Pedro Paulo, Veronica, Godofredo, Catarina

Primary education
1930
Principe Island, Gulf of Guinea
1931
Sao Tom Island, Gulf of Guinea
1932
Lisbon, Porugal
1933
Manjacaze, southern Moambique

This publication is the third in the series of

publications by the Total Cad Academy,
sponsored by Total Cad Solution Centre
with a supporting grant from Business & Arts
South Africa (BASA). It commemorates the
award of a doctorate to Pancho Guedes by
Wits University in December 2003. Previous
sponsored publications include: Building
Culture/Construir Cultura by Jose Forjaz
and Selected BDG by Paul Sanders.
Limited copies of these publications are
available on request. The Academy will consider
suitable material for publication in line with its
philosophy to promote architectural dialogue
in the Southern Africa context. Enquiries
in this regard may be directed to Andre
Strauss of the Total CAD Academy, eMail:
andre@archicad.co.za

Secondary education
1934 1939
Government High School & Colleges Loureno Marques
1940 1944
Maritz Brothers College, Johannesburg
University
1945 1949
1953
Positions held
1999 present
1975 1999
1997 2001
1995 present
1990 1993
1990 1995
1998 1990
1950 1974
1955 1956
1952 1953
1951 1952
1950

University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg B.Arch course

Escola Superior de Belas Artes, Porto, Portugal
State examination to obtain recognition of the B.Arch Degree
In private practice, Lisbon
In private practice, Johannesburg and Lisbon
Professor Catedratico
Department of Architecture, Faculty of Arts
Universidade Moderna, Lisbon
Professor Catedratico
Department of Architecture, Universidade Lusofona, Lisbon
Professor Assoiado Convidado
Faculty of Architecture, Universidade Technica, Lisbon
Professor Assoiado Convidado
Department of Architecture, Universidade Luziada, Lisbon
Professor of Architecture
Department of Architecture
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
In private practice, Loureno Marques
Part-time teacher
Part-time designer for Vitale Moffa, Civil Engineer
Part-time assistant to City Planner
Architecto F Mesquita, Loureno Marques Municipality
Part-time designer for Silva Carvalho, Ferreira & Gaddini,
Civil Engineers

Visiting Professorships & Exhibitions

1988
Technion, Haifa
1982
U.C.L.A. Los Angeles
1980
University of Queensland, Australia
1976
Exhibition: Biennale di Venezia
1979
Exhibition: AA London
32

Published by: Total Cad Academy

www.archicad.co.za
Editors: Lonka & Pedro Guedes
Compilation: Pancho & Dori Guedes
Proofing: Heather Dodd & Georgina Guedes
Production: Yusuf Patel / Architects
Collaborative cc +27 31 206 1591
Scans: MacBat +27 31 201 0754
Printed by: Impress +27 31 263 2755
December 2003