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31 August 2022 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Supplied
Mpeti Morojele and Prof Jonathan Noble
Mpeti Morojele and Prof Jonathan Noble, Head of the UFS Department of Architecture, at the 33rd Sophia Gray Laureate exhibition at the Oliewenhuis Art Museum.

The Department of Architecture at the University of the Free State (UFS) this year hosted the first entirely face-to-face Sophia Gray lecture since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Talking about Changing Landscapes, Practice and Pedagogy, Mpeti Morojele presented the Sophia Gray lecture – the biggest and most prestigious architectural lecture of its kind in South Africa – as the 33rd Sophia Gray laureate. 

Hailing from the mountain kingdom of Lesotho, Morojele established his design practice, the award-winning MMA Design Studio in Johannesburg, in 1995.

Local and international recognition

He is recognised for his work locally and internationally. Some of his projects include the South African Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the South African Embassy in Berlin, Germany, the Maropeng Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, as well as various Freedom Park projects, including Isivivane (the symbolic final resting place for South Africa’s fallen heroes), //hapo (telling the South African story of liberation and the triumph of the human spirit over three billion years), and Isikhumbuto (a place of remembrance, a gathering space at the top of a hill surrounded by the wall of names, sanctuary, gallery of leaders, and the Moshate).

His work engages the African landscape, incorporating indigenous knowledge and ritual to respond to and enhance the emerging African condition. 

Becoming conscious

In his presentation, Morojele explained his journey as an architect. As a student at UCT, he said he felt invisible because of the kind of architecture they were talking about; mostly architecture of the Western world. He elaborated on this point in his lecture, explaining about becoming conscious. 

“It took me back to the origins of humankind. I found it interesting to consider what the architecture at our origins was, and what the environment was in which we first became conscious of ourselves. It has been said that becoming conscious was the beginning of spirituality and art. The idea of origins interested me, and also how we as humans became conscious of ourselves and the space around us, until we achieve the state where we actually create these spaces for our own use,” he said.

As we evolved and became more conscious, we not only found objects, but placed objects in ways that commemorate our unity and spirituality, signifying society coming together to build something collectively. 

Symbiotic relationship with the environment

For Morojele, animism – the belief that inanimate objects have internal and distinct spiritual essences – also played a role in his designs. “It allows us to have a symbiotic relationship with our environment, as opposed to one where we exercise dominion over all things. Animism locates us in the environment as part of it rather than as outside observers of the environment.” 

The Kigutu International Academy, located on the Village Health Works Campus 100 km south of Bujumbura in Burundi and nestled in lush mountains overlooking the beautiful Lake Tanganyika, is an example of where he places humans close to the environment. Here he essentialises the architecture. This project, with its open spaces, also brought about the question of walls. Do they unite or do they divide?

Morojele remarked that architecture takes lessons from landscapes by giving shelter, security, and prospects of freedom. 

Re-establishing what it means to be human

His goal was to plant an idea in the minds of the architects who attended the lecture. Given where we are headed in the world, we need to re-establish what it means to be human; it is only when we recognised the humanity in all of us that we can begin to use architecture to unite societies. 

In order to do this, our focus needs to be less intellectual and more about how we as biological beings behave in environments; for example, do people feel alienated or do they belong in our spaces?

“These are the important things, I think, our architects need to talk about in the future,” he concluded his lecture. 

• Examples of Morojele’s work, including drawings and designs, can be viewed at the Oliewenhuis Art Museum.

News Archive

New building for Centre for Financial Planning Law
2012-04-23

 

A graphic illustration of the new building for the Centre for Financial Planning Law.
19 April 2012

 

During a recent tree planting ceremony, the Centre for Financial Planning Law in the Faculty of Law officially handed over the site for a new building for the centre. The building should be complete by the end of 2012.

The Centre for Financial Planning Law’s present premises has become too small for the needs of the centre, thus a decision was taken to build a new building.

The centre, which was opened in 2001 with three staff members, grew during the past 11 years to a centre with 13 permanent staff members. Some 1 300 students – 120 undergraduate and 1 200 postgraduate students in the Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Planning Law and the Advanced Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Planning Law respectively – are enrolled at the centre. Undergraduate students attend weekly contact sessions while the postgraduate students all study electronically through distance education.

According to Mr Rudolf Bitzer of Bitzer Design Studio, one of the two architecture firms involved in the development of the building, the new building was planned in order to to make provision for future extensions. “The opportunity for the centre to function independently was important from the beginning and facilities had to be positioned in such a way that the lecture hall and committee room could be hired out commercially when lectures were not being presented.

“The building consists of a large reception venue, which gives access to a lecture hall (which can be subdivided), a committee room, public amenities and a reception counter. The centre will present about ten lectures annually in its own building and the lecture hall can accommodate 80 students. Exams will also be written in the venue,” said Mr Bitzer.

The usable inside area of the building totals 827 square metres.

The staff function in their own section of the building, with the offices arranged around a courtyard. Security access makes it a secure environment. In addition, staff have access to a staff room with a service hatch to the reception room, reception counter, personal assistant’s office, nine individual offices and a large open plan office, a storeroom, a cleaners’ room and facilities for staff.

“With the design, an attempt was made to make the building stand comfortably in the landscape without disappearing into the natural landscape. It is an unpretentious building, which seeks to provide well articulated architecture,” said Mr Bitzer.

The architecture firms involved are Bitzer Design Studio and Roodt Architects.

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