Consolidated Building
office in Johannesburg, South Africa
The Consolidated Building, or ‘Johnnies’ as it became affectionately known, is an office building situated in the Marshalltown district of Johannesburg, on stands 149, 150 and 152 at 84/86 Fox Street and 29/31 Harrison Street. In 1895, before the Consolidated Building was built, these stands were home to the Jewish Social Club and in 1897, Johannesburg Waterworks had its offices there.
The Consolidated Building was originally owned by Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Corporation Ltd. The Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Corporation was started as a family business by Barnett (Barney) Isaacs and his older brother Harry who later changed their surname to Barnato. Barney Barnato subsequently became a household name in South Africa and in international financial circles. The Corporation was responsible for the investments of many mining firms and collieries in South Africa.
Design
The Consolidated Building was designed by architect Theo H. Smith of London, with supervision by Aburrow and Treeby architects of Johannesburg. It was built in 1904 and opened in 1906. This eight storey steel-framed building addresses the street corner of Fox Street and Harrison street with an attractive rounded corner entrance. It was originally built as six storeys, the original extent indicated by the cornice with dentil detailing, and two additional storeys were built on top in 1935 (architect unknown).
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Consolidated Building” as office in Johannesburg, South Africa. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as office in Johannesburg, South Africa. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q28223455. Authority coordinates are -26.206, 28.038. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1895, 1897, 1904 and 1906.
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This entry incorporates text from “Consolidated Building” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.