VENICE HOUSE
VENICE HOUSE Cape Town
CLIENT & DEVELOPER Prospekt Property Developers
PRINCIPAL AGENT Lincc Consulting
ARCHITECT Bruce Wilson Architects
QUANTITY SURVEYOR Liberate Developments
STRUCTURAL ENGINEER Struxit Projects
ELECTRICAL ENGINEER AOCon Consulting Engineers
FIRE, MECHANICAL & WET SERVICES ENGINEER EKCON Consulting Engineers
MAIN CONTRACTOR East Fort Properties
PHOTOGRAPHY Karen Haacke
At the corner of Burg and Hout Streets in the heart of Cape Town’ s historic city centre stands a building that has witnessed nearly a century of change. Originally designed in 1926 in the‘ Italianate Cape Revival’ style, the six-storey structure – long known as New Zealand House, has always been a distinctive feature of the city’ s urban fabric. Its five-bay façade on Burg Street, with a double-volume vaulted colonnade, balconettes and richly ornamented plasterwork, has for decades framed the pedestrian experience that leads toward Green Market Square.
For Bruce Wilson Architects, the opportunity to re-imagine this Grade IIIA-listed heritage building was both a privilege and a challenge – to breathe new life into a piece of Cape Town’ s architectural story without erasing its past. Developed by Prospekt Development Company and completed in 2025, Venice House is now home to 37 apartments, each designed with a sensitivity to the building’ s character and the rhythm of its original structural frame.
A living piece of architectural heritage Venice House forms part of a collection of early 20th-century insurance houses that once lined Burg Street, each bearing the confident ornamentation of a growing city finding its architectural voice. The building’ s craft quality stands in deliberate contrast to the polished modernism of its neighbours across the way, serving as a reminder of an era when hand-wrought detail and proportion carried as much weight as efficiency and scale.
Situated a short walk from Long Street and Green Market Square, Venice House is immersed in one of the most pedestrian-friendly parts of the city
72 Venice House