BLENDING OLD WITH NEW IN OUR ECO-AGE

The Skeleton Coast was named after the numerous ships wrecked there ever since nations’ curiosity and greed got the better of them. Boats and lives were ruined from as far back as the 1500s to as recently as 2018. Today their stories are fused into the legends of the land and, thanks to modern creativity, their shipwrecks are remembered in the architecture of the Shipwreck Lodge north of Möwe Bay.



The Skeleton Coast was named after the numerous ships wrecked there ever since nations’ curiosity and greed got the better of them. Boats and lives were ruined from as far back as the 1500s to as recently as 2018. Today their stories are fused into the legends of the land and, thanks to modern creativity, their shipwrecks are remembered in the architecture of the Shipwreck Lodge north of Möwe Bay.
The lodgings form a poignant picture with elements protruding like broken gunwale. The timber “hulls” lie at an angle.

And yet: Modern merges with ancient in a fascinating synthesis. What a unique way for guests to experience Namibia’s history, coastline and sensitive desert.

The initial creative idea was the late Piet du Plooy’s, the owner of Trip Travel, and the simplicity was sculpted by Nina Maritz Architects.

When the lodge opened in June 2018, the world sat up and noticed. Architect, the Journal of the American Institute of Architects, appeared with enticing photos: ...the timber cabins were designed to evoke broken pieces of ships… The challenge was to design a 20-bed luxury lodge in an extremely harsh environment, with almost zero environmental impact and a high level of guest comfort.”
How’s that for fusion? A light footprint while paying homage to a past age ánd integrating the best in comfort.

American architect Steven Holl wrote in 1988: “Architecture does not so much intrude on the landscape as it serves to explain it. Architecture and site should have an experiential connection, a metaphysical link, a poetic link.” Enough said. Those cabins perched on the beach link us to seafaring dreams of yesteryear.

Remembering yesteryear is part of what makes us human. Throughout history, regimes have come and gone across the world, leaving behind tangible expressions of power in their architecture. Windhoek’s Independence Memorial Museum depicts the anti-colonial and independence struggle and houses memorabilia related to Namibia’s resistance period. As from 2014, this contemporary building has stood alongside the Christuskirche, built in 1907 as a symbol of peace following the German-Herero/Nama wars. Here cultures have fused in another step towards integration. Ours is a common history spanning two hundred years since Jonker Afrikaner’s arrival, not discounting the San’s earlier footprints in our sands of time.

Carl Jung has the last word: “Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one’s being, but by integration of the contraries.”

Christine Stoman