The Master Architect Of The Highveld
Farmer's Weekly
|July 17, 2020
Dutch architect Sytze Wierda left a unique and timeless legacy across the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek before the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902).
The discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886 transformed the Zuid Afrikaansche Republic (ZAR, also known as the Transvaal) from a poor to a prosperous state. Provided with this unexpected source of capital, President Paul Kruger set in motion plans to build grand government buildings and modernise the country’s primitive road network. And to carry out these tasks, he appointed Sytze Wopkes Wierda, a well-known Dutch architect and engineer, whose designs he held in high regard.
BUILDINGS
Before arriving in the Transvaal in late 1887, Wierda had been chief supervisor of construction on the railways in the Netherlands and involved in the design of the Amsterdam Central Station. Appointed as the ZAR’s government architect and engineer, he swiftly built up a team of architects, draughtsmen and other experts who would help entrench his architectural legacy on the Highveld.
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