Origin in Cape Town: The history.

Origin Coffee Roasting may only have come to Cape Town in 2006, but our building was here long before us, and has passed through some quite significant hands before we became its proud stewards.

The Origin building and Roggebaai in the early 20th century - Thanks to Heritage Specialist, Ashley Lillie. Ref: R1586, Cape Archives.

This face brick beauty was built in 1901 by Otto Heinrich Ludwig Landsberg; a snuff merchant, artist and musician. It originally functioned as a tobacco warehouse. The colourful character of Landsberg arrived in Cape Town from Germany in 1818 with his wife and children and settled down as a watchmaker. Being a man of diverse interests, he had by the 1820’s become a snuff manufacturer and in 1831 was registered as a retailer in Shortmarket Street, where the firm still exists. His business eventually expanded to include tobacco, cigars, medicines, wines and spirits.

Lansberg was also a co-founder of the Cape Musical Society and played the first violin in its orchestra, as well as a teacher of drawing and music at the Tot Nut van’t Algemeen school from 1847 to 1851. He has painted over 200 works of art, most of which are housed at the Potchefstroom Museum. His paintings are either biblical or historical and are very detailed. One of the most famous of these is the Hottentot woman- a painting now viewed as an offensive display of white male power (hmmm…) His Cape scenes (some in water-colours) include ‘Farmstead at Worcester, 1847′; ‘Storm at the Cape, 1865′; ‘Washerwomen in Platteklip, 1882′; and ‘A rugby match on the Camp Ground, 1888′.

Otto Landsberg Great Storm of 1865

Perhaps the reason Landsburg was able to do so much in his life was that he lived to 102 years of age (!) and was also possibly the last South African to have seen Napoleon en route for Russia in 1812. He left a legacy in Cape Town, and we feel privileged to be intertwined in the story of this city’s heritage.

Another legacy-leaver in early Cape Town was Arthur Eliot, who took many photographs of the burgeoning city, including the one below where the Origin building can be seen again. This native New Yorker’s love of South African architecture is evident through the some 10 000 photographs of both historical and artistic merit he took in recording early 20th century Cape Town.

See the Origin building highlighted on the left. E9138 - Cape Town from the Elliott collection by Arthur Elliot. You can even see Allie's Corner Store!

Elliott was orphaned when he was 12 years old and found his way to South Africa at the age of 20. He ended up in Cape Town as a war refugee in 1900 and took to photography. You may have seen a plaque in commemoration of him on strolls down Long Street, where he lived at number 134 for many years. In a world becoming ever-modernised, Elliott was determined to record as much as he was able of the old farmhouses, buildings and streets that were quickly disappearing. See the Arthur Elliott Facebook Group to find out more.

Arthur Elliott

These early photographs of Cape Town are also thanks to the Reclaim Camissa website and facebook group.

Read more about Otto Landsburg: his art and his life.