One of South Africa’s first official civic buildings

A surviving remnant of colonial Cape Town, the modestly titled Old Town House is a prominent landmark in the historic Greenmarket Square. Built between 1755 and 1761 under Governor Rijk Tulbagh, this late-eighteenth-century Rococo-style building was one of the city’s first official civic structures. Over its long history, this national monument has served as a Burgher Watch House, the seat of the Burgher Senate, a magistrate’s court, a police station, and, until 1905, Cape Town’s City Hall.

Architecture and features

Architecturally, the Old Town House is notable for its three-arched portico, green shutters, white and ochre plasterwork, decorative mouldings, fanlights, and a small belfry. Visitors can still see the Cape-silver trowel used to lay the building’s first stone, ceremonially placed by Baerendt Artois of the Court of Justice.

Sir Max Michaelis

Born into a German-Jewish family in 1852 in Eisfeld, Germany, Sir Max Michaelis arrived in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, in 1876. After landing in Port Elizabeth, he later moved to Kimberley in 1878, where he rose to prominence as a diamond dealer, founding the Cape Diamond Mining Company that was later taken over by De Beers. He then moved to Johannesburg, where he became the manager of the Central Mining and Investment Corporation, which conducted the business of Wernher, Beit, and Co. Michaelis thus became what was known as a “Randlord”- a wealthy industrialist whose fortune was built on the mining industry. Unlike many of his peers, Michaelis led a quiet, private life, away from the lavish social scene of London during his years abroad from 1896 to 1919.

The outbreak of World War I and the anti-German sentiment sweeping England prompted his return to South Africa, at the urging of General Jan Smuts. In 1919, he and his wife were welcomed in Cape Town with a grand civic reception attended by 2,000 guests, and they settled at Montebello in Newlands, now an arts centre.

Michaelis is best remembered for his extraordinary contributions to South African art and culture. In 1914, he donated a major collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings to the Union government, forming the foundation of the Michaelis Collection at the Old Town House in Cape Town. He further cemented his legacy by endowing the Chair of Fine Arts at the University of Cape Town in 1920, earning an honorary LL.D., and was eventually knighted in 1924.

His wife, Lilian, Lady Michaelis, continued and expanded this philanthropic work, adding to the Michaelis Collection in 1933, donating art to the South African National Gallery and Pretoria Art Museum, and founding the Lady Michaelis Orthopaedic Hospital in Plumstead. Michaelis also enriched museums in Kimberley and Johannesburg. He died of cancer in Zurich in 1932.

The Old Town House today

Now a historic museum and cultural venue, the Old Town House houses the Michaelis Collection of Flemish and Dutch paintings. The collection features works by renowned artists such as Frans Hals, Jan Steen, Jacob van Ruisdael, and Anthony van Dyck. Architect J.M. Solomon remodelled the interior to resemble a seventeenth-century Dutch guild hall while retaining the building’s historic exterior. Notable interior spaces include the main staircase and the panelled, timber-beamed Frans Hals Room, formerly the City Council chamber.

The museum opened to the public in 1916, becoming Cape Town’s first dedicated art museum. Its central location on Greenmarket Square enhances the building and collection’s role in the cultural life of the Mother City. That role extends beyond regular hours, as the venue hosts chamber music concerts, lectures, meetings by cultural organisations, and receptions in the Van Dyck and Frans Hals Rooms, or the intimate courtyard behind the building.