Durban - The old picture this week is from our archives and features Protea House in West Street, today Dr Pixley kaSeme Street, which was built in the international style in the early 1960s.
Published in 1964, the photo contains no caption but was shot by Eckart Lütke of Le Portrait Studio, also in West Street.
The 11-storey building was designed by Johannesburg architect John M Shunn and stands at 332 West Street. Next to it on the right is the art deco Colonial Mutual Life building erected in 1933, which at the time was home to many of Durban’s top medical professionals.
According to local historian Gerald Buttigieg on Facts About Durban, Protea House replaced two smaller buildings, one of which housed sports outfitters G Dalton and Son and the other the Moore Shoe Company, which later moved to Salisbury Arcade. Other tenants included Tiny Thomas Dancing and Natal Hatters. The two buildings were demolished in 1957.
Buttigieg remembers that on the ground floor of Protea House was the South Seas Coffee House and Milk Bar.
Recently sold on auction, the building was noted as an ideal residential conversion with basement, ground floor retail and 10 floors for a total floor space of 4 900 square metres, with Nedbank as the main tenant.
Today Protea House is still an integral part of the city’s CBD and has been painted to resemble a somewhat gaudy jigsaw puzzle, as Shelley Kjonstad’s pictures this week show.
The Independent on Saturday