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Usually representing spirits, ancestors or the primordial couple, these figures were placed in shrines and treated with great respect. Through a wide range of style, scale, belief and function the couples depicted share a timeless, serene equality necessary to the continuity of their societies.

Move Over, Paul Klee: Pancho Guedes And My Guardian Angel

A guardian angel, exactly 1,94 metres high, lives under the Jacaranda trees in our garden in Johannesburg. This is not one of those golden European baroque angels, the kind that lives in cathedrals, and which consists only of a head and wings and a chubby butt. This one does not sing sweetly. This is an angle-grinder angel. Made in Jurie van der Westhuizen’s security steelwork business in Indus...

Pancho Guedes, A “Legend of African Modernism Architecture, Dies at 90

Pancho Guedes, one of the pioneering architects of lusophone African architecture has just passed away at age 90. Pancho died Friday at the age of 90. Famous for his artistic look at architecture and a keen eye for spatial acquity, Pancho is famously known for his buildings such as the Smiling Lion, the Saipal Bakery, and a a host buildings across Mozambique. His work perhaps tied the modern er...

Datum Antique: Pancho Guedes' Saipal Bakery

Every so often architecture smacks you right in the face and forces you to remember why it is exactly that buildings touch us so deeply. The Amancio Guedes designed Saipal Bakery has more controversy in its use than most other buildings but the architectural trials and triumphs cannot be overstated. Completed in the mid 50s, the space frames that welcome you into the building are so definitive ...