Several months ago, Thorsten and I took a walk through the old Johannesburg Gas Works. Our visit happened spontaneously and we definitely shouldn’t have done it. Most of the Gas Works has been abandoned since gas production terminated 30 years ago, and the buildings aren’t safe. I felt guilty afterward and I don’t want to encourage anyone else to do this, which is why I didn’t blog about it for so long.
But we kind of just stumbled upon it. And once we peeked through the first doorway, a powerful magnetic force yanked us inside and kept pulling us further in. There’s something magical about this abandoned industrial space, filled with old machinery and stray piles of ancient coal, slowly crumbling away as weeds and vines creep through the windows and spontaneously sprout up through the floors.
I happened to have my camera that day and Thorsten had his sketch book. The opportunity was too good to pass up.
We spent 30 or 40 minutes wandering around, photographing and sketching, before it finally started to sink in that those rusty floors could easily give way and we were probably inhaling a lot of asbestos.
A Very Brief History of the Johannesburg Gas Works
The Johannesburg Gas Works, owned by Egoli Gas, opened in December 1928 and was the city’s main gas producer for several decades. The plant produced gas out of coal, which was obviously not a very environmentally friendly process. The Gas Work’s production gradually decreased throughout the mid-20th century as the city began to source more gas from Sasol. The plant closed down completely in 1992.
The Gas Works is now considered an important architectural heritage site. The buildings are beautiful, in an early-20th-century-industrial kind of way. Egoli Gas still has offices in a section of the Gas Works property, and Liebermann Pottery occupies another section. While there have been various proposed plans over the years to redevelop the unused buildings, nothing has happened.
I used to do a lot of urban exploration during my early years in Joburg, sneaking into abandoned buildings with my photographer friends and taking pictures of whatever we found. Exploring the Gas Works took me back to those days — to that heart-revving feeling of being in a place I know I’m not supposed to be, climbing rickety ladders and shooting through broken windows.
As I crept through the Gas Works, I missed my buddies who I used to explore with back in the day. Most of them have since become wildly successful in various creative endeavors and moved away from Joburg to other corners of the world. Y’all know who you are — I wish we could all travel back in time to 2013, when Instagram was still cool, and explore the Gas Works together.
In conclusion: Please don’t visit the Gas Works. But if you do, please dress smarter than we did. And wear a mask.
Beautiful building! A prime example of re-purposing an old industrial space is the conversion of the old Electric workshop into the swish new HQ of Anglogold Ashanti in the cbd. Hopefully something similar can be done for the old gas works.
Yes, that would be amazing!
It’s a great industrial heritage site. When I was still doing my architecture undergrad, our year was given an official tour of the site by Monika Läuferts le Roux and Judith Mavungandize whose book, “The Johannesburg Gas Works” goes into spectacular detail with inserts of old plans, photographs and operational diagrams. It’s a shame that nothing can be done with it due to the extent of the ground contamination.
I am so sad I missed that tour. I heard it was amazing.
LOL, you rebel! Great photos, though. I feel like someone should be shooting a dystopian future film there. I expect zombies to pop out of the floor.
Haha yes, Joburg actually has a LOT of dystopian spaces! One of the Resident Evil movies was shot in Ponte City.
Our family’s “extra” house in Parktown North had a functioning huge old gas stove, right up to ;92 when it was sold, which felt very Dickensian to me.
Same year as the Gas Works switched off!
It’s a lot of fun though to get off the beaten path and have a look around. Let your imagination run a little wild and take some great photos!
That’s totally it 🙂
Is this in an area that i could be converted to studios and restaurants and markets and such (like so many other cool old structures in Joeys/environs) It looks amazing.
Yeah, that would be great but apparently the contamination is quite severe and there’s one of the big issues. I’m not totally sure though.
After the gas works closed there was a metal club in one of the outbuildings called “The Fridge” – I think it was only open for 6-12 months….
Wow, that sounds amazing!
Thanks for posting
Thank you so much for taking us back to a bygone era in Jhb’s history – I often visited and played on the soccer training fields at Sturrock Park when BidVest Wits was still an entity and I often wondered what was inside those buildings 🙂
Thanks Greg, I’m glad you enjoyed it!