Description: Graham Viney sheds light on his country's history with this comprehensive exploration of South Africa's architectural legacy. The houses featured on this book a timeline, charting not only the evolution of South Africa's architectural and interior design styles but also its culture and society in the two centuries leading up to its independence.

Whether its an eighteenth-century Cape Dutch farmhouse, a Regency villa, or the Victorian mansions favored by the wealthy nineteenth-century sugar barons and diamond magnates, specially commissioned full-color photographs, capture the spirit of each house. The authoritative text provides a lively examination of the architecture and interior design of these houses along with colorful portraits of their builders and occupants, including the merchants of the Dutch East India Company; the English aristocrats who tried to recreate England on foreign soil; and visionary architects like the Englishman Herbert Baker, who resurrected the Cape Dutch tradition and, in the process, established it as one of South Africa's most important architectural and decorative motifs.

Historic Houses of South Africa is an indispensable resource for anyone who is a student of colonial architecture and design. It also serves as an excellent primer for people traveling to South Africa -- several of the houses are open to the public -- or for those who are simply interested in enriching their understanding of this unique country.

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