Luyanda Mpahlwa, one of South Africa’s first black architects, spent five years in prison, and many more in exile, before returning home. This internationally recognised architect, author, and co-director of Design Network, designs for social change. He sat down with SMF News’ Brigid Taylor in his office in Woodstock to share the story of the spaces he has lived in, and why he now conceptualises them for others.
Luyanda Mpahlwa, one of South Africa’s first black architects, sits at the desk in his open plan office in Woodstock. On his desk lay copies of two books, one which he co-authored, titled Get out of your mind and the other which he contributed to, titled Theorising Architecture in Sub-Saharan Africa: Perspectives, Questions, and Concepts. PHOTO:Brigid Taylor
The average human being spends roughly 90% of their life indoors according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. This percentage may be slightly higher for Luyanda Mpahlwa, who spent the years 1981 to 1986 imprisoned on Robben Island.
Now an architect, Mpahlwa designs the very spaces we inhabit for most of our lives, with a careful consideration for how they shape the way we live.
Mpahlwa, the son of a teacher and a nurse, and the eldest of four siblings, grew up in a tight-knit family.
On his 2 km walk to school in Mthatha, siblings in tow, Mpahlwa took note of the houses in his suburban neighbourhood.
“They were all different, and that interested me,” he recalls.
He started carrying a slate and chalk to draw them on.
“I’d select a house each day and draw what I saw, and then I would keep the drawing, and when my mother came home I would show her,” Mpahlwa says.
Mpahlwa’s first gig
As a teenager, Mpahlwa discovered that drawing houses was not his only talent when he got his hands on a sound machine, made by a boy in his neighborhood who liked electronics.
“This young man made a sound system with turntables, a mixer, and some lights. And so my dad bought it for me, because he knew how much I loved music.”
And just like that, Mpahlwa figured his way around the decks and became the neighbourhood DJ.
His gigs were mostly at the boarding schools in the area, including St Johns College, where he attended school.
“I think most of my performances were in the girls’ schools,” he says with a chuckle.
When Mpahlwa finished matric, he had no idea what he wanted to do. His mom remembered his love for drawing houses and arranged an apprenticeship at an architecture firm in the area.
In 1977 – Mpahlwa’s self-proclaimed “gap year” – he spent his time doing the apprenticeship and DJ-ing, all while patiently awaiting a letter of permission from the minister of education to study architecture at the then all-white University of Natal.
The long and winding path to a degree
When Mpahlwa finally received his letter confirming his entrance, he was off to Durban. But while he was allowed to study on campus, that did not mean he could sleep there too.
Mpahlwa, along with the other black students, were only allowed to live in what was deemed “the University of Natal black section”, he says. It was an old army barracks, situated next to an oil refinery, transformed into student housing.
“It was a two and a half hour journey to school,” he says. “The buses we had did not drive all the way up to the university, and so we had to be dropped next to King Edward Hospital, and walk up another 4 km or 5 km.”
This journey was not easy. Mpahlwa was required to carry building models on packed buses, and sometimes the evening bus shifts ended before his studying did.
Nor was it the only obstacle he faced.
“To be honest, the lecturers were not ready for black students then. They thought we were not capable of thinking in three dimensions. We couldn’t design yet, and they did not think it was their job to teach us,” says Mpahlwa.
So, 1979 was lost.
“Long story short: My first year was a disaster. I failed everything,” he says.
He returned home, back to the architecture firm, and back to waiting for a letter from the minister of education, only this time, it was for permission to study at the Durban Technikon.
“Tech was a slightly less academic, and more practical setting,” says Mpahlwa.
When his second letter arrived, his return to Durban was entirely different. Arriving at the technikon with a bit of experience under his belt, Mpahlwa’s studio master, Mr Napier, started noticing his abilities, and pointed them out to his fellow classmates.
“You have no idea what self confidence that gives you, because in the rest of society you were worth nothing. You’re a black person, you should be staying in the township.”
The group dynamic in his class became different from the others. They started pooling resources and working together. Today, 46 years later, they still remain in touch.
Luyanda Mpahlwa, an award-winning architect, begins his process by sketching out his idea roughly by hand, tracing it once perfected and then rendering it through software on his computer. His architecture is characterised by African contemporary design. PHOTO: Brigid Taylor
Studying architecture did not mean Mpahlwa disregarded his sound system, and as the resident DJ at a club in Umlazi called Star Point Five, he knew where his weekends would be spent. What he didn’t know was that this pastime would soon earn him the nickname DJ on Robben Island.
An arrest
In 1981, sitting in front of his exam venue, Mpahlwa says he was inviting his classmates to visit him in Mthatha when the security police rocked up, and grabbed him in the crowd.
“I was dragged into a corridor that I’d never been in, bundled into a car and off I went,” he says.
Mpahlwa was the last of a group of eight to have been arrested, all of them a part of an underground movement.
“Those days, being a student activist was easy. There were so many issues that we were caught up having to deal with,” he says.
Mpahlwa never carried a single gun. His role was to transport members of the ANC to various locations, ensuring their safe passage.
“I’d get there, a car was ready for me, and I didn’t know who hired it. I’d just finish the journey and drop it back off.”
The group spent the next nine months in detention, part of which was under torture, and then three months on trial.
The state only had enough evidence to charge three of them, and so the rest, including Mpahlwa, were set to be state witnesses. Refusing to do so would result in a sentence of up to five years in prison.
‘I decided “no” ’
“On Friday, three days before my trial, I was sitting in my cell and I decided ‘no’. I refuse to assist the state in convicting people who: one, were black like me, and two, who I think, whatever means they are using, I associate with the cause. And thirdly, I am a christian and I cannot betray my brethren.”
The echo of that decision resounded far past the four walls of Mpahlwa’s detention cell. It followed him into the court room that Monday when he took an oath, and told the judge that he would not testify.
Receiving the maximum sentence of five years in prison, it followed him to Robben Island, where he joined the base of the struggle.
A new perspective
“Robben Island, for me, was the bedrock of what I see in South Africa today,” says Mpahlwa.
His drive to finish his degree was reinforced on the island.
“The senior leadership pushed and got the authorities to allow us to study there, because they believed we needed to build ourselves, and better understand the struggle,” he says.
Architect and freedom fighter Luyanda Mpahlwa’s favourite desk item appears to be a family photo, but for the addition of Nelson Mandela. It was taken in 1995, when Mpahlwa’s family met Madiba. Standing on the right of Mandela is Luyanda’s brother Mandisi, who became the minister of trade and industry under former president Thabo Mbeki. His other brother, Andile, was one of the first black sound engineers in South Africa. PHOTO:Brigid Taylor
He also perfected his Afrikaans on the island, which allowed him to communicate with the prison wardens, and consequently got him the job of postman. He would fetch letters and distribute them to his fellow inmates.
“A language that we initially regretted, now made my life a bit easier on the island. You learn to have a more balanced approach to the world, and to yourself.”
“It was a very enriching experience in many ways,” says Mpahlwa, “There is no way you could wish prison for anybody, let alone detention and everything that comes with it.”
Yet, he speaks of the strength he developed after refusing to allow such a system to break him – irrespective of what it took.
‘You don’t last long in South Africa after Robben Island’
After he was released, Mpahlwa didn’t waste any time getting out of the country. “You don’t last long in South Africa after leaving Robben Island,” he says, about South Africa in the 1980s.
He found refuge in Berlin and spent the next three years completing German A levels, before getting his masters degree in architecture.
Architect Luyanda Mpahlwa keeps this picture on his desk. The picture, of him and a classmate, was taken in 1989, the first year of his masters degree in Berlin. Despite completing his masters degree, Mpahlwa struggled to find work in Berlin because he decided to keep his South African passport. This allowed him to travel home to South Africa, a benefit he says that not many exiles got to experience. PHOTO: Brigid Taylor
Despite how much it disadvantaged him in Berlin, Mpahlwa would not give up his South African passport for anything.
“I knew, without a doubt, that I would come back to South Africa,” he says.
And in the year 2000 he did. Mpahlwa now lives in Cape Town, with his wife, Ulrike, who he met in Berlin, and their two children.
Ulrike returned the favour by dragging him into the reggae scene.
“I’m an amapiano guy. As a DJ, I’ve got to be. But I’m also jazz oriented, and enjoy all African music in general.”
“Most of the music I know and love today comes from him,” says his son, Vuyisa. “And some of my best memories are tied to music because of him.”
Other than music, the couple also share a love for the bush, and concern for Vuyisa’s parallel parking skills.
When at work, the pair are co-directors of Design Network, an architecture firm with the ethos of designing for social change.
“I’m interested in how cities work, and how we can design them to be more inclusive,” Mpahlwa says.
Luyanda Mpahlwa pages through the book Design Like You Give a Damn by Cameron Sinclair. The book, which includes architectural responses to humanitarian crises, features the 10×10 Housing initiative that won Mpahlwa the Curry Stone Design Prize, awarded for “improving lives”. His design used sandbags to create low cost, sustainable housing in Mitchell’s Plain. PHOTO: Brigid Taylor
His interactions with time, space, and change, have provided him with a uniquely valuable understanding of them.
“Our history, as painful as it might be, will remain in our minds. But buildings can adapt, as long as the narrative of that adaptation pays homage to those who have been disenfranchised, ” says Mpahlwa.