CONVENTION
2004
A new President was inaugurated and several awards to individuals
and projects were announced during the Presidential dinner
held in Bloemfontein on Friday, 27 August 2004.
Ms Patricia Emmett, from Durban, was unanimously elected
President of the SAIA for the period 2004-2006 at a meeting
of the Board held on Wednesday, 25 August and is only the
third woman to hold this position in the 77-year existence
of the Institute. The Vice-President for this period is
Cape Town based architect Hassan Asmal.
The Award for Excellence was conferred on three projects:
• The Westcliff Estate, a New Residence for Mr Gordon
Schachat by studioMAS architecture and urban design
•
New Medical Research Facilities at Somkhele Village in KwaZulu-Natal
for The Africa Centre by East Coast Architects
•
The South African Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg for Akani
Egoli (Pty) Ltd by GAPP Architects & Urban Designers,
Mashabane Rose Architects, Bannie Britz/Roodt Vennootskap,
and Linda Mvusi Architecture & Design with project coordinator
Sydney Abramowitch.
The Awards programme has been supported by the PG Group
of companies since 1990, and the Award for Excellence, conferred
every second year, is for an exceptional achievement in
the field of architecture. Projects completed during 2001
and 2002, that had received an SAIA Award of Merit in 2003
were eligible for this premier Award for Architecture in
South Africa.
The Board also made several Awards to members of the Institute:
• The Writers and Critics Award was conferred on Piet
de Beer, the past editor of the Institute’s Journal
•
Three Medals of Distinction were awarded, respectively to
Mr Dave Bryant, Prof Alan Lipman and Senior Professor Wally
Peters
•
The Institute’s Gold Medal was conferred on Prof Bannie
Britz.
Three students, who received the PG Group Scholarship earlier
in the year, attended the SAIA convention and dinner as
guests of the Institute. They are Ms Vanessa Archer of the
Technikon Witwatersrand, and because of their identical
results the brothers, Kobus and Johannes Smit of UCT, share
the university scholarship.
The SAIA convention took place on Friday and Saturday 27
and 28 August at the end of the term of office of the Board
of Representatives for the period 2003-1004.
Prof
Markku Komonen (below), whose visit to South Africa was
sponsored by the SA Institute of Steel Construction, presented
the keynote address on Friday morning. This was followed
by individual presentations of the projects that received
the Awards of Merit in 2003.
Outgoing President Jan Ras delivered the SAIA Biennial Report
and Su Linning the Executive Report incorporating the Financial
Statements. The Vivienne Japha Memorial Award was presented
to the University Schools of Architecture, and this year
comprised the reference work 10 Critics; 10X10 published
by Phaidon. Reports on the Transformation Charter process
and the Rome scholarship concluded the afternoon’s
programme.
Saturday’s programme was introduced by Prof ‘Ora
Joubert, who spoke on Committing Architecture: Discrepancy
between Practice and Academia and lively debate followed.
The convention and Conference was adjourned at 12:30.
Click here to download the SAIA Biennial Report 2003-2004
