Cluster F*ck Homes

You’re looking over a solidly constructed (and prettily painted) concrete wall, topped by a serious electric fence. Beyond the electric fence, side by side, are two of the prison-cell environments that those in South Africa like to call ‘homes’.

Note the blunt weirdness of the wide extended vertical slab that the ‘architect’ has cut the building in two with - presumably to overtly impress potential paying prisoners with the ’separateness’ of the living unit. (Despite the fact that it's obviously the same building-plan placed side by side.)

Welcome to the local idea of architecture, in its struggle to try to disguise prison-like environments as ‘homes’.

South Africans with money - herd nervously together into what are euphemistically called ‘cluster developments’. Above is a close view of one of them.
Massively fortified, high-walled enclaves containing multiple copies of the same architectural plan, repeated over and over. It’s oddly reminiscent of the Middle Ages, where peasants seeking protection and safety, would give up their freedom in order to live within a castle’s territory.

The same thinking is at work in the society here, and is being eagerly exploited by property developers. Rather than call for the fixing of the violent reality, local developers simple cash in and create these projects of walled-off Protected Villages (as they were called in Vietnam)
for the frightened sheeple to hide inside.

The overriding factor is clearly not aesthetics - at least for the tenants - it’s all about the supposed ’safety’ of living inside a walled off, gated, and permanently guarded armed encampment, within a society that lacks any basic civil order, or proper decent authority.

Below is a view of the boom-gate, and armed guard entrance to one of these ‘cluster developments’.

 It’s funny how the property developers try to make these guarded encampments look like ‘civilian’ properties.

Note the carefully planted (fully grown) trees which have been put in place, to hide the crashing reality, that this could well be an entrance to a military installation - yet it's considered 'home' to its tenants.

And below is a side view of another ‘cluster development’ - where it’s clearly been decided that external appearances aren’t that important.

(Unless the main selling point is to try and make potential tenants who want to live in a prison, feel right at home.) Seriously high walls, topped by electric fences.

This total emphasis on conveying nothing of aesthetic value aside from a prison-like 'maximum security' feel, is widespread and considered normal in this society.

Below. Take this side view of a building. The architect (and clients as well, I'd imagine) saw nothing abnormal, ugly, or strange in the creation of this 'installation'.

And these cluster developments are spreading across Johannesburg and elsewhere. It's become normal to be constantly driving past what look, to all intents and purposes, like well maintained permanent military encampments, or pseudo high-security government installations.

Below is a view of another ‘development’. As you can see, there’s little regard, for the visual effect or aesthetic on the surrounding area.

Anyone living nearby one of these, has to abruptly deal with the physical reality of a high-walled fortress in their immediate vicinity, blocking whatever view there may have previously been.

Again, as is typical with almost all these prison-like installations, fully grown trees have been planted to help disguise and soften the brutal architecture, for the potential tenants.

And here’s another wall section of a different ‘cluster home development’. As you can see, the height of these walls leaves no doubt that this is a Fortress. There are no kids playing nearby, no unexpected visitors welcome.

One could maybe say that  - in terms of Meaning - this conveys the sensation of being a fortress-like encampment in ‘occupied territory’. (More in keeping perhaps, with what one might expect to see in the Middle East).

Naturally, all the trappings of capitalism continue, and SA advertisers do their best to sell their products, alongside the growing fortresses. And doing this in a society where few citizens feel safe going out once night falls, causes peculiar quirks.

Below. Here’s a roadside billboard.

And if you look carefully, amidst the bushes at left, you’ll see the barbed wire to the left of the sign, which is sealing off a vacant lot. And to the right of the billboard, the high walls of yet another fortress encampment, for the imprisoned consumerist South Africans.

BELOW. Another roadside advert, in front of the high walls of a ‘cluster home’.

If you look closely, you can see the jagged wall-spikes on top of the wall beyond - and note the yellow ‘armed guards on call’ poster on the wall, at right, posted as a warning to anyone approaching the wall, on foot.

Below: Another fortress encampment.

Notice how the fully grown trees have been planted in front of the clearly dominating high walls, as if to suggest some sort of elegance or sophistication in the architecture.

 You can almost hear the architect or planners describing it to the money-hungry investors, way back before construction began:
“We’ve chosen two different heights of grown trees to place in front of the 20-foot high walls, to create a sort of two-level effect, so that the eye doesn’t notice the- er - 20 foot high wall.”

Of course, the funny thing to me, is that those who built this, seem to have forgotten the very simple fact that people have been climbing trees for a lot longer than they have been climbing over walls.

So it's ghoulishly ironic that they've unthinkingly planted the simplest way for all their expensive security measures, to be bypassed. 

 

“I raise my face in this arid wilderness of steel and stone...”

-Anton LaVey.