Description

The University of Cape Town (UCT) main campus occupies a swathe of land below Devil’s Peak down to Rondebosch Main Road. It is dominated by the formal, neo-classically inspired upper campus, set slightly apart and above the urban context below it. The middle and lower Campuses developed incrementally and more loosely, assimilating pockets of historical fabric and landscape patterns. In this context, the Baxter Theatre on the lower campus stands out as an exceptional late Modern Movement building. The theatre was made possible by a bequest of W. Duncan Baxter to UCT to establish a performing arts venue “for all the people of Cape Town” (to quote from the memorial plaque in the foyer), a sentiment that challenged the prevailing Apartheid context and resonated the personal beliefs of the principal designer, Jack Barnett (Leslie Broer was his associate). While Apartheid policies regulated race interactions in public venues by means of racially segregated audiences and amenities, the theatre leveraged its campus location and UCT association to challenge this status quo, hosting multi-racial productions and audiences.

Located on a steep site between UCT’s College of Music and Rondebosch’s Main Road, the theatre is composed of two tall monolithic structures of course, corbelled facebrick which house the main performance spaces. The main theatre seating 657 people has a traditional raked auditorium and proscenium stage with generous side and rear spaces. A second concert hall, seating 630 people, is asymmetrical in plan, engaging interest between performers and audiences. A third flexible theatre space is located above the circular concert hall. These spaces are tied together by an oversailing roof of Corten sheeting on lightweight steel rafters, with suspended custom-designed fibreglass-dome light fittings. The roof is visually separated from the walls of the foyer by a tall band of clerestory curtain-walling, giving the effect of a floating roof canopy. The result is a voluminous and brightly lit, terraced central foyer that connects the main performances spaces in plan and section.

The slope of the site dictated the incline of the seating, the level of the foyer and the placement of the stages and back-of-house functions towards the Main Road, the assumed main entrance of the venue. Through the skilful design of the architects, this apparent flaw in site selection was circumvented to become one of the design’s greatest strengths: the building does not have a single, intimidating axial entrance; instead there are multiple entrances to the upper-level foyer, all of them approaching the central space obliquely, as one would move through a city and come across a public square, or in nature, coming across a cave under a sheltered overhang. The theatre therefore acts as a public space – a place to pause or to move through freely – instead of an institutional building.

From the campus side on Baxter Road, access is gained through a domed porte-cochère, mimicking the domes of the canopy roof. The entrance is low and unintimidating, revealing a generous staircase leading down to the central foyer. The same materials are used externally and internally, an earthy palette of brown and grey slate for the floors and rough-faced brickwork for the walls, with a uniform domed ceiling, so that the transition between inside and outside dissolves. From Main Road, visitors are confronted with an articulated solid brick façade, the oversailing roof (lit up at night) hinting at the activity inside. Arriving by car would take visitors through the southern parking court and terraced steps to the Baxter Road entrance, while for pedestrians, a generous ramp wrapping around the curved external wall of the concert hall gives access to the main foyer via the building’s north-facing flank. This intentionally protracted procession allows for a ceremonious entry making good use of the communal space of the northern garden with its magnificent ficus trees.

The building is skilfully detailed. Internally and externally, the walls’ rugged textured brickwork with deep-set jointing laid in an unassuming stretcher bond appears modest at first, while up close the finesse and consideration become apparent. Each brick had its facing sides removed to hide joints and imperfections, which emphasise the monolithic, civic impact of the façades but also present a malleable decorative quality, invoking the cliffs and crevasses of the nearby mountainside. The building is well-used and in excellent condition and has remained true to its original intention of serving the community – a testament to its architectural distinction and its designer, Jack Barnett, who believed that “architects are the custodians of a vital tradition and although they may build for a specific client, in the cultural sense, they build for all” (Barnett, 1994).

References

Barnett, J. (1992). Jack Barnet, Practice Profile. In: Architect and Builder, July 1992, pp. 10–15.

Barnett, J. (1994). “Sophia Gray Memorial Lecture”. In: Pretorius, H., Verster, W. and Viljoen, M. (eds.) (2014). 25 Sophia Gray Memorial Lectures and Exhibitions 1989–2013. Bloemfountein: Department of Architecture. University of the Free State.

Pretorius, H., Verster, W. and Viljoen, M. (eds.) (2014). 25 Sophia Gray Memorial Lectures and Exhibitions 1989–2013. Bloemfountein: Department of Architecture. University of the Free State.

The Jack Barnett Papers BC 1217, Manuscripts & Archives, University of Cape Town Libraries.

Townsend, S. and Abrahamse, C. (2023). A Survey and Inventory of the Heritage Resources of the University of Cape Town. Unpublished Report.

Wale, L. (ed.). (1977). Baxter Theatre, University of Cape Town. In: Architect and Builder, November 1977, pp. 2–9.

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Originally published in: Uta Pottgiesser, Ana Tostões, Modernism in Africa. The Architecture of Angola, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Birkhäuser, 2024.