[ CONSTRUCTION I THE BUILDING I HALL OF ACHIEVEMENT I CHAIRMAN'S OFFICE AND BOARDROOMS I BASEMENT I OUTGROWN ]

CONSTRUCTION

Escom House, the headquarters of the Electricity Supply Commission from 1937, was an outstanding landmark in the city of Johannesburg. The fact that it was the highest building in the Union of South Africa was merely incidental, as it was not designed with that intention. The chairman of the commission conceived a building with every office as an "outside" office receiving direct sunlight. To achieve this it was necessary to follow a design, which also ensured that, although the building rose to a height of 236 feet, the three streets bounding it received an ample amount of light.

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Site on which Escom House was built in 1935 at the corner of Main & Rissik Streets Johannesburg

Escom House under construction in July 1936

The twenty-one storeys of Escom House, including the tower, were "stepped-back" in several stages, thereby introducing a new and pleasing style of architecture to South Africa. This marked a departure from the edifices built mainly to ensure the maximum space to let, with no regard to other considerations.

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View of Escom House

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THE BUILDING

Escom House contained over 280 well-lit and temperature controlled offices, three board rooms, a large exhibition hall, lecture theatre, two banking halls, Ladies' rest rooms, lunch and recreation rooms for the staff, a chemical laboratory, and a parking garage in the basement.

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Parking garage in the basement

The Laboratory on the 14th floor

Drawing office in engineering department 9th floor

The sixth to the fourteenth floors were occupied by the head office administration of the Electricity Supply Commission, the South Africa Iron and Steel Industrial Corporation, Limited, and its associate and subsidiary companies. The lower floors were let to outside firms. The banking halls were on the ground floor and occupied by branches of Barclays Bank (D.C. & O.) and the Standard Bank of South Africa Limited.

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Aerial view of Escom House

Escom House decorated for the royal visit in 1947

Facing East on Rissik Street and bounded by Main Street on the North and Marshall Street on the South, the building, seen under different conditions, took on varied expressions of beauty. The base, faced with polished black granite, and the surface of the structure pierced with rectangular windows, scintillated in the sunlight. At night it was floodlit and the stately, clean-cut lines and the perfect balance of the building stood out clearly against the dark sky.

Passing through the portals, which rose through three storeys at the main entrance, you entered into the elevator hall. The walls of this hall were faced with Travertine marble and the main doors were of "Staybrite" steel.

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Elevator Hall

View of the main entrance hall

Three electrically operated, highspeed passenger lifts, of Waygood-Otis signal-controlled type, served the occupants. An auxiliary passenger and goods lift, used for deliveries, was situated at the rear of the building.

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HALL OF ACHIEVEMENT

Leading off the elevator hall was the Hall of Achievement, which was used for a permanent exhibition of approved domestic electrical appliances from different countries, to encourage the domestic use of electricity and to facilitate selection by prospective purchasers.

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A lecture theatre was used for demonstrations of approved domestic electrical appliances to encourage the domestic use of electricity

Hall of Achievement from the mezzanine showing the upper exhibition bays

The sweeping staircases at the rear of the Hall led up to a mezzanine containing more exhibition bays.

The Hall of Achievement, had walls of black glass panels framed in "Staybrite" steel, and pillars faced with longitudinal strips of black and white marble. It was expressive of quiet dignity and provided a fitting background for the exhibits. A special feature of the Hall was the series of sandblasted panels depicting all phases of modern (1936) industry. Willem Hendrikz, a South African artist, executed these.

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The centre panel in the Hall of Achievement displayed on black glass carried the inscription: "DEDICATED TO THE IDEAL OF CEMENTING TOGETHER BY COMMON ENDEAVOUR FOR ACHIEVEMENT ALL THE PEOPLES OF SOUTH AFICA REGARDLESS OF RACE OR CREED INTO A BROTHERHOOD OF MUTUAL TRUST AND GOODWILL FOR THE WELFARE OF OUR COUNTRY AND THE GLORY OF ALMIGHTY GOD"

Hall of Achievement Ground Floor panelled in black glass

Daylight was admitted to the Hall through the large front and the north side entrances and glass bricks in the crescent-shaped wall above the staircases flanking the hall. Although the Hall was high and covered for the most part with a dark material, these lighting sources, aided by the reflecting surface of the ceiling, gave adequate illumination. A specially designed fitting in the centre of the ceiling provided artificial lighting for use on dull days or at night. The corridor and the exhibition bays in the Hall and the mezzanine were artificially illuminated by long trough fittings in the ceilings.

Above the Hall of Achievement was the Lecture Theatre with seating accommodation for 215 people, the seats were arranged in tiers rising backwards towards the ceiling. The theatre was equipped with, what was then, a modern sound motion picture projector specially adapted for lecture purposes. The walls and ceilings of the theatre were lined with acoustic tiles in accordance with the most modern practice.

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The Lecture Theatre

The Chairman's Dining Room

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Staff Room on the 18th Floor

Large Boardroom 7th floor

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CHAIRMAN'S OFFICE AND BOARDROOMS

The three boardrooms and the chairman's office were on the seventh floor. In the modernly equipped chemical laboratory on the fourteenth floor, analytical and research work was continually carried out in connection with the many and varied problems encountered in the generation of electricity.

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Committee Room

Chairman's Office

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BASEMENT

The basement, in addition to solving the parking problem for tenants by providing space for approximately 60 motor cars, also housed two boilers, each capable of supplying 3, 000 lbs of steam per hour, for the heating of the air supply to the building and a motor driven turbo exhauster for vacuum cleaning the building. A diesel engined automatic self-starting emergency generating set, to supply power for lighting in case of failure of the main supply, was situated on the first floor.

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Emergency Generator

On the roof were two fans, each having a capacity of 32,000 cubic feet of air per minute and in the basement were two smaller fans for delivering washed tempered air into vertical airshafts communicating with a distribution system on each floor.

The two panoramas gave the impression of the expansive views of Johannesburg and its environs that could be had from the top of Escom House.

Escom House symbolised the services to the community of electricity – the spirit of progress and stood as a monument not only to the work of the Electricity Supply Commission and to those who had successfully organised, in the public interests, the industry so vital to modern progress, but also to General J C Smuts, with whom the idea of such a body originated.

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Chairman Dr Hendrik van der Bijl making a speech at the official opening of Escom House June 1937

The Prime Minister, General J C Smuts, cutting the ribbon at the official opening of Escom House June 1937

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OUTGROWN

Scarcely twenty years after occupying Escom House it was bursting at the seams. Escom's sphere of activities had expanded to a degree that required larger premises. A new Head Office in Braamfontein was built in 1958.

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[ CONSTRUCTION I THE BUILDING I HALL OF ACHIEVEMENT I CHAIRMAN'S OFFICE AND BOARDROOMS I BASEMENT I OUTGROWN ]