Jonathan Noble on the architecture of Peter Rich

Internationally renowned, Peter Rich’s career represents a lifelong attempt to find a contemporary, yet uniquely African mode of design. This talk follows the chronology of his work, emerging from a fascination with African indigenous settlements, including his documentation, publication and exhibition of Ndebele art and architecture, and his friendship with sculptor Jackson Hlungwani. It explores what Rich calls “African Space Making” and its forms of complex symmetry; various collaborative community oriented designs of the Apartheid and post-Apartheid period, especially Mandela’s Yard in Alexandra township; and finally, his more recent timbrel vaulted structures, constructed from low-tech hand-pressed soil tiles derived from his highly innovative and award winning work at Mapungubwe. Rich combines African influences with an environmental awareness aligned to Modernist principles.

Jonathan Noble is Head of Department in architecture at the University of the Free State, South Africa, where he also convenes the PhD in Architecture with Specialisation in Design program. Jonathan holds a BArch (professional) and MArch by independent research (both from the University of the Witwatersrand), a PhD from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and is author African Identity in Post-Apartheid Public Architecture: White Skin, Black Masks (Ashgate, 2011), and The Architecture of Peter Rich: Conversations with Africa (Lund Humphries, 2020).