Zone d'identification
Cote
Titre
Date(s)
- 1950s-1970s (Accumulation)
Niveau de description
collection
Étendue matérielle et support
6 boxes
Zone du contexte
Nom du producteur
Notice biographique
Douglas Calderwood was born in Johannesburg, the son of DY Calderwood, mine manager of the New Kleinfontein Gold Mining Company. Educated at King Edward VII School. His architectural studies were done at the University of the Witwatersrand. Thereafter he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on a foreign student’s scholarship. On his return he was appointed Chief Research Officer, National Building Research Institute (NBRI) of the SA Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), whereafter he became Head of the Architectural Division.
Calderwood’s doctoral thesis was published in 1953 as “Native Housing in South Africa” with funding from the CSIR. This focussed on the prevailing issue at that time: how to implement the new (1948) Nationalist government's post-Second World War township building programme and minimise costs. In the service of the CSIR, as a state-funded instrument for researching of the so-called ‘Native Housing problem’, Calderwood was charged with drawing up national standards for state funded housing while minimising cost. In his commendation of Calderwood's thesis, William Holford, then Professor of Town Planning at the University of London, describes the work as 'a breath of fresh air' because it shows that 'the technical, the social and the economics of housing must be looked at together'. Calderwood designed three housing types designated NE 51/6, NE 51/8 and NE 51/9 (where acronym ‘NE ’is non-European dated 1951 types 6, 7 and 9). While Calderwood stressed that these were intended as a demonstration of the outcome to the rational design process, they were nevertheless taken up by government and housing authorities to be reproduced in the thousands across South African for three decades from the 1950s. [Commentary précised from Haarhoff, 2010 (See Appropriating Modernism: Apartheid and the South African township.)]
Calderwood served as President of the Transvaal Provincial Institute of Architects for the term 1957/58. Calderwood was working at the National Building Research Institute when the University of the Witwatersrand invited him to manage the new Building Science course there in 1967. Calderwood overhauled the curriculum and improved its relevance. It was his subject, industrial organisation and management, rooted in Calderwood's father's mine management techniques, that characterized the whole building degree. In the course the importance of human relations in the building industry - welfare, incentives, conflict management, even body language, were taught.
He married Pauline Pearson of Port Elizabeth in 1949 by who he had two sons.
Histoire archivistique
Source immédiate d'acquisition ou de transfert
The collection of items was deposited by Professor Hannah Le Roux, School of Architecture, University of the Witwatersrand.
Zone du contenu et de la structure
Portée et contenu
The collection contains some of the working papers that were generated by Douglas McGavin Calerwood during his time at the Department of Architecture at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Évaluation, élimination et calendrier de conservation
Accroissements
Mode de classement
Zone des conditions d'accès et d'utilisation
Conditions d’accès
Conditions de reproduction
Langue des documents
Écriture des documents
Notes de langue et graphie
Caractéristiques matérielle et contraintes techniques
Instruments de recherche
Instrument de recherche téléversé
Zone des sources complémentaires
Existence et lieu de conservation des originaux
Existence et lieu de conservation des copies
Unités de description associées
Zone des notes
Identifiant(s) alternatif(s)
Mots-clés
Mots-clés - Sujets
Mots-clés - Lieux
Mots-clés - Noms
Mots-clés - Genre
Zone du contrôle de la description
Identifiant de la description
Identifiant du service d'archives
Règles et/ou conventions utilisées
Statut
Niveau de détail
Dates de production, de révision, de suppression
Langue(s)
Écriture(s)
Sources
Note de l'archiviste
The collection was processed by Mabore Seshibe.