Hermann Kallenbach – architect of Linksfield Ridge and Gandhi’s friend

JORDAN MOSHE

The steep inclines and breathtaking views of Linksfield Ridge might never have become accessible were it not for Hermann Kallenbach. This German-Jewish-South African architect was not only a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi, but was also responsible for establishing the suburb of Linksfield Ridge.

In fact, according to Kathy Munro, honorary associate professor in the school of architecture and planning at the University of the Witwatersrand, “Linksfield Ridge was the only Johannesburg suburb established by an architect.”

“Kallenbach is the man credited with building the north-to-south cutting through the steep cliff face, namely Sylvia Pass. He built his own house at number 5 New Mountain Road, and he built the road from the bottom of Sylvia Pass to his house.”

The history of the Linksfield area can be traced back as far as 1910. This was when the Muller Plantage Sijndikaat approached the municipality with a proposal to establish “the township of Linksfield” on the grounds of its plantation. In spite of many agreements, arrangements, and transfers, it wasn’t until 1922 that the project was gazetted and formally approved.

It is into this scene that Kallenbach and his architect partner, AM Kennedy, entered, buying up portions of land that would be merged into a single suburb.

“It seems the two men consolidated the portions to create the suburb of Linksfield,” writes Alkis Doucakis, the author of In the Footsteps of Gandhi – An Illustrated History of Johannesburg’s Linksfield Ridge and Environs. “Kallenbach bought the first portion that was to become the north-eastern sector of Linksfield Ridge.” In 1939, he would become the owner of the ridge itself. He continued to expand the suburb by buying property in the area well after it was established.

Born in 1871 in Neustadt, Kallenbach was an immigrant who arrived in South Africa in 1896. He spent much of his professional life in Johannesburg where he left his mark.

“He was highly successful in his profession,” says Munro. “He is remembered and known in the city for some well-regarded period buildings ranging from churches to synagogues, office blocks to retirement estates.”

Kallenbach introduced numerous elaborate terraces, stairways, retaining walls, and stone garden tables on Linksfield Ridge, according to Doucakis. There is even a shrine at number 4, made of dressed stone fronted by a gate with a Magen David, where apparently, Kallenbach’s funerary urn was kept until his ashes were taken to Israel by his relatives.

Under Kallenbach’s influence, Linksfield Ridge rose to prominence, boasting what was believed to be South Africa’s first “all-electric house” in 1932 on the corner of Sylvia Pass and Kallenbach Drive.

Although Kallenbach’s grand-niece, Isa Sarid, says that her uncle was never really a religious man, he was firm in his Jewish identity. He reportedly said, “I was born a Jew, and I will die a Jew.”

He was an equally ardent Zionist, a fact which made Kallenbach arguably the most important link between the Indian nationalist movement and the Zionist movement. Not only was he a close friend to the Indian community, he also developed a deep connection with one of its greatest leaders: Mahatma Gandhi.

Says Munro, “It was Kallenbach’s karma to befriend Gandhi, but it was both his good fortune and perhaps his misfortune that this should have been the intense and best-known relationship of his life. The link to Gandhi gave Kallenbach an enduring place in the Gandhi story.”

She explains that their friendship was based on strong mutual attraction, shared interests in diet and vegetarianism, enduring physical tests, and deep philosophical debate about human values.

“Together they hammered out the tactics and organisation of passive, non-violent resistance, and satyagraha (devotion to the truth), and applied these evolving methods to oppose the Transvaal government’s new law insisting on the registration of the Indian population,” Munro says.

The two shared a strong bond, living together for a time during which they often meditated and even showered outdoors. Their shared ideology resulted in them creating a rural, co-operative, pre-industrial community at Tolstoy Farm at Lawley to the south west of Johannesburg, where people grew their own food, made their own sandals, and became skilled carpenters and bricklayers. Munro maintains that this project influenced Gandhi’s later creation of ashrams in India, and could be a strand in the shaping of the kibbutz in Israel.

Gandhi had a hand in shaping Kallenbach’s outlook on life, including his Jewish and Zionist values. “Kallenbach is an interesting figure, far removed in outlook and temperament from the mainstream of South African Jewry of the time,” says Sarid. “He not only adopted Gandhi’s ascetism, but proposed fresh austerities.” It was Gandhi who urged that Kallenbach devote his resources to saving his own people, the Jews. Kallenbach would eventually bequest the better part of his wealth to the establishment of the state of Israel late in his life.

“Together, they shaped a philosophy and strategised around political positions,” Munro says. “They developed a programme of action for justice that had far reaching consequences.” Sadly, wartime conditions terminated the partnership in 1914, and it was not until 1937 that Kallenbach visited Gandhi in India.

“For ten years, theirs was a close and intense friendship. They were soulmates,” says Munro.

Kallenbach passed away in 1945, and his niece, Hanna Lazar (after whom the Ridge’s Hannaben Street is named) transported his ashes to Israel for burial at Kibbutz Degania. In October 2015, a statue of the architect and Gandhi was unveiled in Rusne, Lithuania, recognising Gandhi’s creation of the concept of non-violent resistance, and Kallenbach’s pivotal role in shaping Gandhi’s ideas and testing them in practice.

According to some, Kallenbach not only lives on through his legacy and architecture, but at Linksfield Ridge itself. Residents who have lived in the Kallenbach house and surrounding properties have, since the 1970s, reported hearing footsteps and knocking sounds late at night. One woman even claims to have seen Kallenbach himself entering her home through the bathroom window.

Doucakis concludes, “Could it be a coincidence that these adjacent houses on New Mountain Road were built on what, at one time, had been someone’s hallowed ground – one for meditation?” Kallenbach may be gone, but he clearly remains alive in more ways than one.