Description
The appearance in 1965 of THE OLD HOUSES OF THE CAPE by two well-known Cape museum curators, Hans Fransen and Dr Mary Cook, was an epoch-making event. For the first time, an attempt had been made to compile a full survey of the old architecture of the Cape, with architectural as well as historical descriptions and authoritative introductions on the Cape gable and groundplan.
The book went out of print within a few years and today is valuable Africana. Ever since its appearance, the authors set revising their work, and Hans Fransen was responsible for expanding its terms of reference and including hundreds of new gable diagrams, groundplans and halftone illustrations. The second edition of their book, now entitled THE OLD BUILDINGS OF THE CAPE to reflect its new scope, now covers most significant buildings from the period up to the end of the 19th Century, and thus includes not only Cape Dutch but also Georgian, Regency and Victorian architecture.
