Erich Mayer's depiction of the vernacular hut and multiple hut building tradition

Abstract

Erich Mayer is not considered as one of South Africa's well-known and significant artists. Regardless of this, South Africa has inherited a few thousand drawings and watercolour paintings from Mayer that are of incalculable value to historians and cultural historians. His work has also not been "discovered" and exploited by architectural historians interested in South African vernacular architecture. Mayer visited various regions in South Africa and made drawings of the simple vernacular homesteads and other structures he saw on the farms and in the smaller villages and hamlets. Most of the buildings have now probably disappeared and the drawings are the only evidence of building types that otherwise could only have survived through oral traditions and legends. The buildings vary from beehive structures covered with grass mats in the North West [and] "kapsteil" dwellings in Namaqualand, to Bushveld dwellings with gables and thatched roofs. Mayer also made a contribution to the recording of the crude shelters the prisoners of war erected in the prisoner of war camp on St Helena, where he was sent as prisoner of war during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). Even though these structures were not erected on South African soil, they reflected the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the Boers who were imprisoned.

Erich Mayer word nie as een van Suid-Afrika se bekendste en belangrikste kunstenaars gereken nie. Nogtans het hy 'n magdom sketse en waterverftekeninge nagelaat wat vir die historikus en kultuurhistorikus van onskatbare waarde is. Sy werk is tot nog toe ook nie deur argitektuurhistorici wat in Suid-Afrika se inheemse volksargitektuur belangstel, ontgin nie. Mayer het as landmeter verskeie streke van Suid-Afrika deurkruis en sketse van eenvoudige plaasopstalle en ander strukture gemaak. Die meeste van die geboue bestaan nie meer nie en is die tekeninge die enigste bewys van volksboukunstipes waarvan net in volksvertellings vertel en met behulp van mondelinge oorlewering vorm gegee is. Die geboue wissel van eenvoudige grasmat koepelhutte van die Noordweste [en] kapsteilhuise in Namakwaland, tot eenvoudige Bosveldhuise. Hy het ook 'n besondere bydrae gelewer tot die optekening van die skuilings wat die Boere vir hulleself in die krygsgevangene kamp op St Helena opgerig het. Alhoewel die skuilings nie op Suid-Afrikaanse bodem opgerig was nie, was dit wel met boere-vindingrykheid en -handvaardigheid gedoen.