Other than spending my time with the family, I passionately enjoy collecting old books. The books i collect are mostly found in second hand bookshops. I can spend hours driving from Muizenberg to Kalkbay to Observatory to Cape Town to look for old books. Mainly on architecture however strange subjects suddenly interest me and will jump out the shelf all dusty and well scrutinized.
In my collection i have an autographed copy of R. Buckminster Fuller's - 9 chains to the moon which i really enjoy. (not any more - i gave it to a not so grateful client in a moment of kind madness - I'm not sorry i gave it - I'm sad that the person had no idea of its value.) I have also been very fortunate to inherit my grandfathers architectural books, Mello G Damstra, dating back to 1896. Mello was the son of an architect, who in turn also became an architect. He started as a journeyman draughtsman in 1890 and travelled the world gaining valuable experience, eventually to settle in Cape Town. A few of his unusually designed homes are found in Stellenbosch, Muizenberg and Upper Orange street in Cape Town.
My grandmother Sally Niland was an English teacher and also had an extensive collection of poetry and English literature books. incidentally unbeknown to me she also loved looking for and buying old books. My mom tells me they would drop her off at the old bookshops on a Saturday morning in the thirties and her treat was to peruse the old bookshops for the afternoon. Like me in my field she collected books on all the great poets and English writers. There is something about finding an old well read book - the main points underlined by someone else and the pages a little worse for wear. The empire bookshop in Muizenberg is a great stop and i have been introduced to many new architects and designers in this little bookshop by the proprietor.
I am very excited about a book i stumbled on called, design for the real world by Victor Papanek. His creative design ideals match my own in many respects and as I'm delving further into the book I'm amazed at his insights. The book was first published in the early seventies and from a design perspective, even for our day, has very advanced ideas.
I have also started collecting old music scripts which you find at these shops from time to time. I enjoy looking at the many hieroglyphics and hoping one day to understand the language which looks fascinating. Over the last few years i have also started collecting a huge array of drawing equipment. rulers and T-squares mainly, again each ruler has the battle scars of many a draughted design. And as my office space gets smaller and i get pushed further out the door I'm really enjoying cluttering my space with these interesting, inexpensive things. Value is submerging oneself in a passion. I find myself migrating back to my study space liar more and more. an afternoon sitting in this space reading my collected books, sketching my scribbles. Is time for me enjoyable to the soul. I just need good coffee and I'm going to get a more comfortable office chair to work on creature comforts.
