The Egyptian Building is the home of

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) (, ) is a public university, public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest univer ...

Michaelis School of Fine Art The Michaelis School of Fine Art is a public university, public tertiary education, tertiary art school in the Cape Town suburb of Gardens, Cape Town, Gardens. It was founded in 1925 and is named after its benefactor, Max Michaelis. It is the Fin ...

on that school's campus on Orange Street in

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. After its foundation on October 1, 1829, the South African Athenaeum (also known as the South African College and the forerunner of the UCT as well as the

South African College Schools The South African College Schools (colloquially often known as “SACS”) is a public English medium primary and high education institution situated in Newlands – part of the Southern Suburbs region of Cape Town in the Western Cape provinc ...

secondary and primary institutions) was for a while housed in an orphanage 'Weeshuis' at the end of Long Street. This unsatisfactory situation continued until the late 1830s, when Governor Sir

Benjamin D'Urban Lieutenant-general (United Kingdom), Lieutenant General Sir Benjamin D'Urban (16 February 1777 – 25 May 1849) was a British General officer, general and colonial Administrator of the Government, administrator, who is best known for his fro ...

granted a plot of land to the school that had once housed a zoo at the end of Government Avenue in

Company's Garden The Company's Garden is a large public park situated in Cape Town CBD - the main commercial district of Cape Town. It is the oldest garden in South Africa, and a national heritage site. The garden was originally created in the 1650s by the ...

for use while a new building was constructed. The land could be accessed from Government Avenue through Leeuepoort, built by

Louis Michel Thibault Louis Michel Thibault (28 September 1750 – 15 November 1815), was a French-born architect and engineer who designed numerous buildings in the Cape Colony. He was Cape Colony's first trained architect and brought with him a distinctive man ...

and Anton Anreith. The college English professor, James Constantine Adamson, made a rough sketch of the building in the then-popular

Egyptian Revival architecture Egyptian Revival is an architectural style that uses the motifs and imagery of ancient Egypt. It is attributed generally to the public awareness of ancient Egyptian monuments generated by Napoleon's French campaign in Egypt and Syria, invasion of ...

style. Col. G.G. Lewis of the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

adopted the proposal and expanded on it once finished with the old military hospital. When construction began on the new building, the site was still surrounded by the abandoned cages that once held animals for Capetonians' entertainment. It had apparently broken down by the time Prof. Adamson opened the college on April 13, 1841. The construction cost £3,000, but the new building was a major improvement on the cramped conditions on Long Street. The history of the building is well described in the Cape Town History Site.

Bibliography

* (nl) Dreyer, Rev. Andries. 1910. ''Historisch Album van de Nederduitsche Gereformeerde Kerk in Suid-Afrika''. Cape Town: Cape Times Beperkt. * (af) Hopkins, Dr. H.C. 1965. ''Die Moeder van ons Almal. Geskiedenis van die Gemeente Kaapstad, 1665–1965''. Cape Town/Pretoria: N.G. Kerk-Uitgewers en -Boekhandel. * Picton-Seymour, Désirée. 1989. ''Historical buildings in South Africa''. Cape Town: Struikhof Publishers. * Whiteford, R. in Peacock, M.A. 1972. ''Some famous South African Schools, vol. I: English-medium boys' high schools''. Cape Town: Longman Southern Africa.

References

External links

* Library buildings completed in 1841 University of Cape Town buildings 1841 establishments in South Africa Egyptian Revival architecture in South Africa {{SouthAfrica-struct-stub