Motani Industries

A Brutalist concrete frontage for a furniture factory still run by the founders' family.

From a backyard to a factory

The Motani brothers started making furniture in the backyard of their home in Marabastad. The business grew quickly into a large-scale furniture manufacturer, and by the early 1970s it needed a proper factory in Koedoespoort.

As with many of the practice's early clients, a home and a business went hand in hand: House Satar Motani in Laudium dates from the same year.

A face for the business

Aziz Tayob conceived a Brutalist building with a striking concrete frame as the factory's frontage. Its three tiers of openings, arches at street level, rounded windows above and half-circles at the top, give a working building a memorable identity, with the Motani name set into it.

Behind it, the factory floor and showroom were deliberately kept clean, simple and efficient, planned for how furniture is made, stored and sold.

Half a century on

More than fifty years later, the building is still a furniture factory, run by the descendants of the original owners. Today the concrete frame is almost entirely clothed in creeper, a green facade that has grown over the original structure.