A unique dwelling found in this breathtaking landscape offers an escape like no other

This minimalist pavilion, set in the landscape of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site – the world’s richest human-ancestor fossil site – is a modernist-inspired, yet uniquely African ‘glass box’ structure with a rich and complex local resonance, which offers a thoughtful and sensitive setting for entertaining guests.

The most famous mid-century-modernist ‘glass box’ houses are, more than anything else, architectural tributes to nature. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House and Philip Johnson’s Glass House might have been experiments in the cutting-edge use of concrete, steel and glass, but they were romantic more than industrial: part house, part shrine, part garden pavilion. The De Wit family’s glass pavilion in the Cradle of Humankind – the rolling grasslands north-west of Joburg, South Africa, and home to humankind’s most ancient origins – pays tribute to these two landmark homes.

This pavilion was the first building the De Wit family completed after they settled here about seven years ago. Brothers Lee and Wesley and their parents wished to ‘separate out family living on the farm,’ as Lee puts it. Lee is partly based in nearby Joburg and is currently in the process of building a studio on the farm, Wes now lives in Germany, and their parents live in the main farmhouse. The pavilion serves as a base for Wesley when he visits, a place for overnight guests to stay and, perhaps most of all, an entertainment spot for sundowners, braais, leisure and relaxation.

But, as much as the pavilion is a jewel in the landscape and a space for the enjoyment of its setting, it was conceived of as a solution to a difficult and complex series of questions raised by its setting. ‘What do you do when you want to live in this landscape?’ asks Lee. Ultimately, the pavilion became a building that extends the possibilities open to a modernist architectural heritage by mediating a much more layered, complex relationship with the landscape than the simple contemplation of natural beauty.
Even though their land is now part of the Khatlhampi Private Reserve and located next to a beautifully landscaped sculpture park and artists’ residency, when the De Wit family first settled there, the land had been farmed for a century and bore the scars.
The pristine natural landscape Van der Rohe and Johnson had envisioned their glass houses artfully disappearing into simply did not exist. ‘This was very different,’ says Lee, who, together with his brother, Wesley, was responsible for designing and building the pavilion and shaping the surrounding landscape.

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