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Morgenstern & Morgenstern

Jacques Morgenstern (BArch., DIP. T.P, M.I.A., A.R.I.B.A., A.M.T.P.I. ) and Riva Morgenstern (BArch., DipTP.), South African husband and wife architect team.

Biographical details
Jacques Morgenstern was born in Lodz, Poland, but his parents moved to Antwerp, Belgium when he was a baby. In May, 1940, the family narrowly escaped Nazi-occupied, fleeing across. In, Jacques' father managed to attain a permit as a diamond-cutter and they were able to board a ship bound for Lourenço Marques (now ), capital of , arriving finally in in April 1941.

Three months after his arrival, Jacques had learned sufficient English (and Afrikaans) to tell his story in a local monthly newspaper in a piece named “Escape.” In 1944, he began his architectural studies at the University of the, where he met Riva.

Riva Morgenstern (formerly: Borkowf) was born January 6th,. Owing to increasingly virulent anti-Semitism, the family immigrated to, when Riva was a young girl. Riva's story, recounting childhood memories of the Old Country and her family's immigration in the early 1930a, is to appear in the September 2013 edition of the South African journal, The Jewish Affairs.

In 1950, Riva and Jacques were married and settled in. They had six daughters as well as numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren, all of whom reside in today. The couple joined their children in in 1997. Riva passed away on 26 October 2011, and Jacques, on 27 January, 2013, both at home.

Academic Activities and Achievements
During the 1940s, both Jacques and Riva studied at the University of the Witwatersrand,, graduating with a B.A. Arch. Subsequently, they were granted membership into professional organizations such as, the Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects, the South African Institute of Architects and the.

Jacques’ academic record was particularly outstanding, winning prestigious awards each year, including "scholar of the university" in 1944. Immediately after the attainment of his architecture degree (Cum Laude), he was asked to lecture in the Department of Architecture and, by 1952, he was a full-time, permanent staff member.

From 1950 to 1952, Jacques and Riva studied Town Planning, earning their Diplomas in 1952. Riva was the first woman in the country to attain a Diploma in Town Planning.

In 1956, Jacques’ father became ill and he resigned from full-time teaching in order to assist his father in managing his affairs. In 1959, he was one of "Studio Seven" who designed the John Moffat Building, which was to house the Faculty of Architecture and the Department of Fine Arts on campus. He continued to lecture in the Department part-time for some time and functioned as an External Examiner for many years thereafter.

Practice
Following their marriage in 1950, Jacques and Riva opened an architecture practice together named Morgenstern & Morgenstern. In the initial stages, they took on co-partners -- Gilbert Herbert, Chinese architect Kouang Chien Toung and Montie Simon, respectively, all of whom left South Africa in the early 1960s.

Architectural projects undertaken by the practice included numerous private residences, apartment blocks and townhouse complexes primarily in the area. In addition, the practice designed or face-lifted existing office-blocks, shopping complexes and petrol stations, making frequent, "trade-mark" use of stone panels sculpted by South African-Italian artist Edoardo Villa as friezes.

Projects undertaken for the Jewish community included the Yeshiva College Complex (1961), the Beth Din building and Bnei Akiva synagogue (Yeoville), the Hasidic synagogue (Bellevue) and work on the Cyrildine Synagogue and community center.

In 1954 Morgenstern & Morgenstern along with Gilbert Herbert won first prize for a north-facing site for a design submitted to the “Star” Model House competition and in 1962, the practice placed equal fourth for a design submitted to the Johannesburg Civic Centre Competition.

“House Morgenstern”
In 1964, Jacques and Riva Morgenstern were the recipients of a prestigious prize awarded by the Transvaal Institute of Architects once a decade for the design of their own home. “House Morgenstern” was built in Kallenbach Drive, upon the scenic northern slopes of Linksfield Ridge.

The award earned the couple numerous extensive articles in the local newspapers (see Bibliography). Notably, one paper reported that “A Johannesburg housewife, Mrs. Riva Morgenstern, was the co-designer of a house which has won an award for the most outstanding house built in the Transvaal since 1955.”

The house, which looks onto a panoramic vista of the city, is built on several terraces, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece Falling Waters. Accordingly, it abides by Lloyd Wright’s rule of building not “on” but “of” the mountain. It was described by one local journalist as the “house that belongs to a hill.”

It also answers Lloyd Wright’s ideas of building with indigenous materials. In some places, natural bedrock forms part of the walls, including a section of the swimming pool, which has a waterfall running down. Other walls are mainly of natural stone quarried on the site by local builders Petrus Kaswa and Mac Mayana and there is frequent use made of timber and slate.

Additional features include a wine cellar, change rooms built into a cave under the pool with a glass panel that gives an underwater view of swimmers and built-in original artwork of local artists Eduardo Villa, Armando Baldinelli, Cecily Sash and Rhona Stern. The house continued to attract the attention of local journalists over the years, and even as the Morgensterns “built on” to house their growing family.

Other achievements
In addition to his architecture, Jacques was a property developer and in this capacity was the winning party in a legal dispute which resulted in a well-known South African law case – v. Morgenstern Family Estates. The case stands for a more liberal approach to contract interpretation, as opposed to the more usual formalistic approach and continues to be studied in South African Law schools as well as cited by courts of law.

Jacques also took over his father’s diamond business and in the late 1980s, he was appointed to sit on the South African Diamond Board, established in order to regulate control over possession, the purchase, and sale of diamonds, as well as the processing and the export of diamonds. In 1999 he won an award in recognition of his long and outstanding service to the South African Diamond Industry by the RDDA (Rough Diamond Dealers Association) of.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and FURTHER

Clive M. Chipkin, Style: architecture & society, 1880s – 1960s, D. Phillip publishers, 1993, 249, 252.

“Architectural Winners: Seven designs collect awards of merit,” Rand Daily Mail, (24 March 1964), 17.

Architecture 2000: A Review of South African Architecture, 90, 91.

“Mooiste Woonhuis in ,” Die Transvaler (26 Maart 1964), 17, 20.

“Best House in 10 Years,” The Star,, 3 October 1965, p.41

“Onoortreflike Swier,” Koopvernuf 1965, p. 9.

“Grootwoning 1966” Sarie Marais , 20 Julie 1966, pp. 70, 71, 72.

“The House of the Decade,” Scope (24 January 1969), 60, 61, 62, 63.