Search for Newtown's official website and the home page is blank, save for a banner saying "under construction". Visit the Johannesburg precinct and you realise it is a message to be taken literally.
In the area bounded by Miriam Makeba and Carr streets, next to the historic Market Theatre, multiple cranes (rare and precious birds in a stretched economy) tower over a massive building site, a 70 000m2 commercial and retail development called Newtown Junction, set to open in October next year.
Nearby, the small complex of shops facing the theatre's entrance is boarded with signs indicating the construction of the Majestic, a boutique hotel complex. A few blocks west, towards Fordsburg, the old grain silos are being converted into student accommodation, with railway containers stacked atop them like Lego blocks awaiting conversion into living spaces.
It all makes you want to broadcast the second (or fifth or sixth) coming of Newtown, but history is a cruel teacher. Newtown's past is the story of a cultural precinct that has endured many headlines foretelling its rise. Each new development, and there have been many, has been greeted as a sign of a turnaround.
But despite the success of singular institutions such as the Sci-Bono science museum, the Market Theatre, Museum Africa, the SAB World of Beer – a top-rated tourist stop – and the impressive remaking of Turbine Hall, each operates as an island, the spaces between carrying the whiff of broken promises of the area's sustained life as Johannesburg's cultural precinct.
On an average day you can barely discern Newtown's pulse. Mary Fitzgerald Square – a historic and contemporary site for public gatherings and labour disputes named after trade unionist Mary "Pick Handle" Fitzgerald, who was also deputy mayor of Johannesburg in 1920 – stands bleakly empty, while construction dust swirls about. The streets are quiet.
Ironically, the most enlivening aspect of Newtown's streets is the graffiti and street art that washes over the walls. Usually interpreted as a sign of urban degeneration, like many things in Johannesburg, what you see is not necessarily what you get as the graffiti is proving to be a popular attraction. Urban walking tour company Past Experiences even offers guided tours.
Then there's the growing list of former Newtown tenants – among them Khaya FM, the French Institute of South Africa and Xarra Books, which have moved to other parts of the city. And the less frequent sightings of the area's most famous denizen, Prince Twala, known as "the Prince of Newtown", who, going one up on Uri Geller, fashions antique spoons into covetable jewellery.
On an average day a headline would simly read, "Newtown More like ghost town", but Newtown doesn't only have average days. It has exceptional days when events like the Joy of Jazz, Bloc Party and the Hansa Festival of Legends, draw thousands of people to the only area in the city designed for the convergence of such high human traffic.
It's a phenomenon that Denis Charles Courdent, deputy director of the French Institute and cultural attaché, remarks on, comparing the space to the Roman forum in which people of the ancient world once gathered.
He is quick to emphasise that the institute only left Newtown for neighbouring Braamfontein because the building it had occupied was to be renovated. "We loved being in Newtown and consider it one of the best places for culture in Johannesburg. I really think it of it as the heart of the city," Courdent says, adding that the institute still supports many Newtown events and collaborates frequently with the Market Theatre and Museum Africa.
So what's the real Newtown story? Built close to a century ago on a stretch of land from which the Brickfields community was forcibly removed following a reported outbreak of the plague – the area was then torched to prevent the spread of the disease – Newtown rose out of the ashes. In The Joburg Book, Nechama Brodie writes that Newtown was "perhaps the first example of urban regeneration in Joburg". With 100 years behind it, Newtown is still working on getting it right.
To this end the mall has been designed so that it works with the streets, with attention paid to integrating the design, using materials and elements that are consistent with the area's original design, such as red brick, but also introducing more modern aspects.
"We have also chosen materials tough enough to stand up to the patina of time," Fehrsen says. "We didn't want a pastiche, a mimicry of what is there. It's important that you can read the historic elements and discern what is new."
Great effort has been made to put in place environmentally-friendly building practices and to make use of natural lighting. Another consideration was making sure that the new structure is gentle on the city grid and infrastructure, which includes utilising an air conditioning system that works with an ice storage system.
The development is set back from the M2 highway to ensure that the view of the city is unobstructed, but it is hoped that its high visibility from one of the city's busiest freeways will also contribute to it becoming a major attraction.
Architect Jeremy Rose of Mashabane Rose, says: "Generally I am anti-malls but we've got to embrace the future. Look at how people hated the Gautrain at first. [But] it is all part of modernising the city and that takes a few steps at a time. It's not instant."
There is mention of artefacts that were recovered during the Newtown Junction excavations. Museum Africa's curator of geology, Katherine James, confirmed that various animal husbandry tools, glassware, crockery and other general household goods that were recovered give insights into the daily lives of Newtown's early residents. Samples of the ash from the Brickfields fire of 1904 were also taken. These will be displayed at a later date, while the history of the area will be woven into wall spaces at Newtown Junction and the Majestic Hotel.
The past is critical – but an illustrious past without a glorious future is just an empty reminder of promises that went unfulfilled. Within months, the dust will settle in Newtown and the new development will literally rise from the ashes. Never before has a city district had so many willing it to live up to its name.
"We've got to embrace the future … people hated the Gautrain at first. [But] it is all part of modernising the city and that takes a few steps at a time. "
