The Rise of the Design District

One fine morning a year or two ago, at an open-air counter in the Maboneng precinct of Johannesburg, South Africa, an elegant lady served me one of the world’s more perfect cappuccinos.

- Thomas Demon Chaux

In the willfully sentimental way of travelers in search of stories, I imagined a whole biography for her—maybe she’d brought her family’s La Marzocco machine all the way from Rome in a steamer trunk. With its dour fortified compounds, Brutalist skyscrapers, and acrid mine-tailing hills, Johannesburg doesn’t beguile the visitor like its relentlessly picturesque counterpart, Cape Town. So in Maboneng I was glad to find galleries, food trucks, sidewalk cafés, street art, cool cars, an artisanal craft market, the David Adjaye–designed Hallmark House hotel, and the Museum of African Design (located in a former auto-body shop). A sign bearing the name of the neighborhood swung in a graceful catenary curve, exactly like the famous one in Venice Beach, California. Feeling caffeinated and expansive, I remarked to the coffee lady on Maboneng’s charm. Thank you, she said, because her son had developed pretty much all of it. Some days she liked to sit at the coffee stand just to keep an eye on things.