Saldanha’s castle is an improbable one. As you stream into the West Coast outpost, the sky an ossified blue, the defunct Saldanha Steel Works swims into focus. A roiling steam-punk palace of industrial architecture. Rusting into the landscape, the mauve citadel is a tangle of pipes, conveyors, silos and blast-furnaces. It’s one of those pieces of architecture that is as much mocked as it is adored. Architect Hannes Meiring modelled the complex on a medieval city, setting the main shaft at 110 m (361...
From iron ore to flor in South Africa's wild west
Guest contributor
Thursday 11 December 2025
• 1 min read
On South Africa’s remote West Coast an unlikely fortified-wine revival is taking place. Malu Lambert reports.
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