by MarkLives (@marklives) Ad agency RADAR recently moved into new premises in Cape Town, at 21 Rose Street in the Bo Kaap. An early Dutch building (the first record of it is in 1817), it started life as a wooden clog factory, became a button factory, and from then on was used and lived in by a variety of creative people.
Art and furniture collection
The new office houses the considerable collection of mid-century furniture and art (mainly typography based and contemporary South African) that the RADAR team have assembled over the 10 years that the business has been in operation:
- The ground floor, which contains the reception, boardroom and shared workspace, houses work from Black Koki, Christo Basson, Zander Blom and Andrzej Urbanski.
- The first floor, which houses the traffic and finance teams, has works by Khaya Witbooi , Wesley van Eeden and Cameron Platter. “We think that it’s important that our finance people sit in the same kind of creative space as our studio. At RADAR we don’t have a back office.We are a collection of creative individuals,” says RADAR owner, Jason Ray.
- The top floor houses the creative team studio, and presents the use of text and typeface as a visual language. It includes a work by Neill Wright who draws inspiration from the media, society and politics, and a series of 13 intaglio prints by AM I COLLECTIVE studio.
The top floor also houses the in-house exhibition space. This is dedicated as an exhibition area/gallery for the team to showcase their own personal creative work in a light and informal manner.
Credits
- The interiors at the RADAR building at 21 Rose Street were designed by J-P de la Chaumette.
- The photographs of the interiors were taken by Micky Hoyle.
- The art and furniture were collected by Jason Ray over the past 10 (and more) years.
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