Recorded: October 1, 2010
In this recording of his lecture, Jo Noero, of the South African firm Noero Wolff Architects, presents the office’s long history of design work in the once segregated townships of South Africa, most notably the competition and multiple-award winning design for the Red Location Museum and Master Plan in New Brighton township outside Port Elizabeth. Noero discusses a series of projects that demonstrate the “commitment to making an architecture that straddles the everyday world of people in South Africa and the radical possibilities that this world of the everyday offers.” The Red Location Museum was included in The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement, which ran from October 3 2010 to January 3, 2011.
Jo Noero founded Jo Noero Architects in Johannesburg in 1984 and has been in practice as Noero Wolff Architects (with Heinrich Wolff) since 1999 in Cape Town. The firm’s work ranges from residential houses to institutional work including law courts, churches, sport facilities, hospitals, and schools. The office’s recent projects includes the work in Red Location, which includes not only the museum, but housing, a gallery, and market; House Noero; Alfred Street Commercial Redevelopment; the Attridgeville Magistrates Court; and the Inkwenkwezi Secondary School and St. Cyprian’s School both in Cape Town.
The Architectural League’s Current Work series presents the work of significant international figures, who powerfully influence contemporary architectural practice and shape the future of the built environment.
