A collaboration of passion and expertise resulted in the successful R20 million restoration of the 167-year-old Government House in Pietermaritzburg.

Leading heritage and conservation architect Robert J W Brusse was appointed to the project to oversee the restoration of UNISA’s newly acquired regional Campus in 2010.

Only once all the groundwork and preparation had been done did Brusse, in 2012, approach Corobrik to assist in the replacement of 1775 bricks which had to be especially manufactured for the project.

“While standard bricks were replaced with bricks salvaged from parts of the buildings that had to be demolished, there were a number of decorative, special bricks which could not be sourced from the demolitions or from Amafa’s warehouse,” said Brusse.

Faced with these challenges, Brusse approached Corobrik as the principal manufacturer of clay bricks in the province to help find a solution.

Recreating the past

A large number of handmade salmon pink bricks typical of the 1900 period had been used in the original historical buildings.

Working with a set of detailed drawings of the required bricks, supplied by Brusse, clay from the Corobrik Avoca factory in Durban, which would provide the best colour match, was road freighted to the Midrand Factory where the bricks were formed by hand.

Once manufactured, they were brought back to the Avoca Factory kilns to be fired at a particular temperature to achieve a specific vitrification and colour.

Many of the 29 special shapes that were produced for the restoration project had not been previously made at a Corobrik facility and special-shaped dies were manufactured to help ensure the correct fired sizes to match the existing brick work.

“Numerous specials were hand-shaped and tempered by a special product team,” explained Pat Moon, Corobrik manager.

This was a really interesting project to be a part of with product handling and logistics playing important roles and it was rewarding for the production teams from the two factories involved to be able to meet the challenge.

Commenting on the project, Brusse said: “Government House was entrusted to us at the start of the project and we tried to respect the integrity of this historic National Monument by repairing and restoring the buildings in the spirit in which the original structures were built.”