It’s been two months since Thorsten and I joined a Johannesburg Heritage Foundation tour of three crazy houses on New Mountain Road in Linksfield Ridge. I have very limited time to write this post (I’m getting on a plane to Namibia tomorrow — more on that soon), but I want to share my photos and Thorsten’s sketches of the New Mountain Road tour before 2023 runs away from me. Please excuse this quick version of what could be a much longer (and better) post.

The tour was called “Mid-Century Masterpieces – the houses and people of New Mountain Road”, although all three houses were built a bit later in the 20th century. South African architect Gerald Gordon designed all three homes, and one of them was Gordon’s own home from 1968 until his death in 2016. Gordon was inspired by the legacy of architect Hermann Kallenbach, who designed the Linksfield Ridge suburb in the 1920s and lived in New Mountain Road himself before his death in 1945.

Falling Water in Joburg

Our first visit was to the Falling-Water-inspired house, which Gordon designed for Linksfield Ridge resident (and die-hard Frank Lloyd Wright fan) Alkis Doukakis and his wife. I really loved exploring this house, which has a delightfully 1970s interior and ancient rocks protruding though the basement floor.

Gerald Gordon’s Home

I totally failed to capture Gerald Gordon’s home, which is considered a heritage home and an architectural masterpiece. The home is four stories tall and built right into the steep face of the ridge. Luckily Thorsten’s sketch gets the point across.

Gerald Gordon taught Thorsten in architecture school, and Thorsten visited the house when Gordon still lived there. Here’s what Thorsten wrote in his Instagram caption, which is similar to the (somewhat illegible) text in the image above:

“Gerald was my construction lecturer in 3rd year. His house is like an enormous shack in the best sense of the word. It feels organic, ad-hoc and hand made with a clever, daring and frugal use of materials and systems. The house makes the most of its location on one of Johannesburg’s ridges. The incredible views and the rock of the ridge are ever present.”

The Wildest Mansion on Linksfield Ridge

I don’t even know how to explain the last house we visited — also designed by Gerald Gordon, although no one seemed sure exactly when or for whom. It was totally wild and awe-inspiring.

I have done a very bad job illustrating/explaining these houses, and you probably all have 100 more questions than you had when I started. I think that’s one of the reasons I held off on blogging about this tour — because I don’t know how to explain it. But I couldn’t let the pictures and sketches go to waste. If you do have questions, fire away and I’ll do my best to (badly) answer them.

The Johannesburg Heritage Foundation has a lot of great tours coming up in the first quarter of 2023. Browse them here.