Johanna Eleanor Ferguson

The multi-talented Johanna Eleanor Ferguson (1900-1982), born in Shanghai but trained at the Delft Institute of Technology, was one of the first female architects in the Netherlands. From her self-designed flat-roofed house near Breda she obtained her engineer’s degree in 1926 as an already married woman. Subsequently she designed the reed-covered house De Huif in Wageningen for her mother (1927) and two almost identical flat-roofed houses near Utrecht for her father (1928 and 1935). Meanwhile she had given birth to two children and divorced her first husband, and in late 1932 she relocated to the Gooi region to join a theosophist community. It was while here that she married her second husband. Looking for better perspectives, the young family emigrated to Johannesburg at the end of 1935. One year later, Eleanor Ferguson was formally registered as an architect in South Africa. In 1938, after another divorce, she started a joint practice together with a local architect, Stakesby-Lewis who became her third husband and shared her interest in theosophy. She worked under her maiden name as the principal designer and he as the builder. The firm was responsible not only for various ‘Wrightian’ cottages and houses in the suburbs (for example, for A.J. Du Plessis at Cottesloe), but also for typically modern commercial buildings in the business districts, such as August House with its conical mushroom columns. In 1948 Conrad Sayce became a partner in the practice, which was based in Washington House. The expansion of the firm was presumably prompted by Eleanor’s increasing social activities alongside the design work. Following in the footsteps of Clara Codd and Jan Kruisheer, she was appointed National President of the Theosophical Society in southern Africa (1946–53) in which capacity she lectured widely. She also made an elaborate pro bono design for a new Lodge in Johannesburg, but this was never executed. Instead, the Stakesby-Lewises converted an existing villa into a ‘theosophical temple’, inaugurated in 1951. Two years later, they migrated to Salisbury (now Harare) in former Rhodesia to start a new joint practice, mainly focused on building private bungalows, and to extend the theosophical network. In mid-1961, in response to the growing political and economic uncertainty, the couple finally settled in England where they lived amongst a theosophist community on the Tekels Park Estate in Camberley. The estate was accordingly expanded by two neighbouring houses designed by Ferguson, one for herself and her husband, the other for her eldest daughter’s family (Loveday). In 1972 the Stakesby-Lewises moved to another self-designed bungalow on the estate (further away from the motorway) where Eleanor passed away in 1982 after a long and eventful life. Until the very end she remained proud on her Delft engineer’s title.