Iterior designer Marcia Margolis has devoted her career to offering South Africans resource material about developing a décor sensibility. Since 1998 she has been responsible for compiling the authoritative guides to design in the annual SA Décor and Design: The Complete Buyer’s Guide. This season she has brought out the equally resourceful LIVING SPACES (Décor & Design), created as a showcase for the ubiquitous homeware store @home.
Margolis’s book comes with a CD Rom and a philosophy that will no doubt benefit the store for whom she has worked. She notes: “There is no ‘correct’ way to design an interior” — for many that advice will come as a relief.
The book, like the home itself, is organised according to human function. And so there are chapters on living, sleeping, cooking, bathing, outdoors and working. Finally there is a DIY section called “Finishing Off.”
A drawback of the work is that it showcases the somewhat generic homestore style. But who, with an interest in interiors, won’t bring their own personality to bear on their decorating tastes?
The recent National Antiques Fair showcased the enormous resource of fine objects available to home decorators in South Africa. Guest of honour at the fair was Judith Miller, who launched her new ANTIQUES PRICE GUIDE 2003 (Dorling Kindersley) at the event [Buy online].
Press reports noted that there are still bargains to be found in local antique stores. Miller herself noted that South African antiques of oriental origin, found in the Cape, are world-renowned.
Miller’s guide is a delectable full-colour excursion through the world’s great brand names, culminating in the latest craze for “modern classics” — objects from the Sixties and Seventies. Miller said, in an interview with the Mail & Guardian, that relics of the apartheid era of South Africa would
gain in value as time wears on [See Getting better with age].
What South Africans don’t often realise is that the local landscape has a fascinating appeal that stretches beyond our shores. It is strange to imagine international collectors investing large sums, say, in acquiring an apartheid regulation “whites only” sign.
While we go about our daily lives we often disregard the objects and structures we see on the street. That is why the arrival of architectural guides to South African buildings, on the shelves of local bookshops, is welcome. Filling a gap is Dennis Radford’s A GUIDE TO THE ARCHITECTURE OF DURBAN AND PIETERMARITZBURG (David Philip) [Buy online].
Where the previous books mentioned dwell on the interior architecture of the home, Radford’s guide shows KwaZulu-Natal’s two centres as reflections of the province’s multicultural heritage. Beginning with Durban’s civic buildings — the Edwardian City Hall and the earlier Town Hall (now the Central Post office) — the guide also includes the fabulous Fifties Brazilian-influenced designs of Crofton and Benjamin.
Religious structures of Asian influence and Seventies brutalism combine to showcase a province that is rich in diversity. For the tourist, Radford’s guide, replete with maps, is a must-have. It’s a further reminder that, for the lifestyle junkie it’s as important to look outward as it is to look in.