MAAA Mathews and Associates Architects Not Architecture Cool Capital Visual Books Sit Bench Furniture African Zen Chair Braak Pavilion Stellenbosch Triennale Venice Biennale Publications Saadjies, Architexture Stand van Poësie Poetry stand Stellenbosch Outdoor Scuplture Trust SOST, jewelry design, Explorative divergence, ED, Divergent thinking, academic, Academia, Designer, graphic design, Books, magazine, Pieter J Mathews,

Pieter J Mathews was born in Lichtenburg Northwest province where he matriculated in 1985 (head boy). He obtained his degree in Architecture at the University of Pretoria (1991), receiving the prestigious Gold Fields of South Africa Scholarship for Architecture. He completed part of his practical training in London, after which he travelled extensively around the globe. He is principal of Mathews & Associates architects cc based in Pretoria. Mathews and associates cc have received numerous awards and their projects have been published in many local and overseas publications with the latest being the prestigious Wallpaper, Arch Daily (electronic), UK Guardian and the official 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale catalogue. The latter was a result of his appointed by the Department of Arts and Culture as curator for the official South African Pavilion at the 15th Architecture Biennale Venice. Other biennale participation includes Sao Paulo Brazil (as part of Sharp City), Miami Beach USA 2005 and the 2012 Venice Biennale (Traces of centuries & Future steps). He was President of the Pretoria Institute for Architecture (PIA) 2013/2014, ex board member of SAIA (South African Institute of architects) and Cool Capital 2014 Biennale founder and convener. The PIA President’s award was bestowed on him in 2005 & 2014 for his book Architexture and Cool Capital respectively. He received the University of Pretoria Dept. of Architecture Boukunde Zero Hour recognition (edition 3) in 2012. He was elected member of the “Suid Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns” in 2014. They bestowed their medal of honour Visual Arts (Architecture) on him in 2018. This award was only awarded to 20 Architects since the inception of the Akademie in 1909, the remainder of the recipients were all from the field of Visual Arts and related disciplines. He has published 2 well received books- Detail Housed and Architexture, edited the PIA Contemporary Capital publication. He co-edited Cool Capital Catalogue in 2015 with Carla Taljaard and acted as editor of the 2017 Cool Capital magazine. (Both publications were exhibited at the Austrian Vienna Take festival 2017 to showcase the best international independent design publications.) Pieter was De Kat magazine’s Architectural editor and has appeared on more than 30 television shows showcasing his firms’ designs. A retrospective of the work of Mathews and associates Architects called Musings was published in 2021 by renowned local publishing house Protea. He acts as external examiner for TUT, UP, UFS (Professional Masters) and third year programs. Additional judging includes acting as judge for the merit awards programs for the Namibia Institute of Architects in 2012, Free State Institute of architects and Pretoria Institute for Architecture in 2019. In 2020 he was approached to act as judge for the online International architectural competition Apocolypse. He was external judge for the Murray & Robberts Des Baker 2016 architectural student competitions and the PPC Imaginarium Design Competition in 2019. The Flemish delegation invited Pieter to judge their Climate Change meets Street Art city mural project (CCMSA) (2017) where he co-presented these awards with the visiting Flemish Minister-President H.E Mr. Geert Bourgeois in Pretoria. Passion for preserving the built environment led to the Embassy of the Netherlands appointing Mathews & Associates in 2013 to document the Dutch Built Heritage in Pretoria to be accessible online. www.dutchfootsteps.com Public speaking included TEDx Pretoria 2016, various student congresses with the last being keynote speaker at the AZA 2016 conference held at Wits University. In 2017 a talk for the Attractions Africa conference hosted in Pretoria followed. In 2019 Lafarge Holcim Tanzania sponsored Pieter to give a series of public lectures at the Universities of Dar Es Salaam and Ardhi. He is the founding member of MG Design Box (interior design boutique), Visual Books (architecture publishing house) and Cool Capital Biennale (a citizen driven initiative with the aim to bring design into the public realm). The Cool Capital project was a finalist in the 2015 Loerie Ubuntu awards as well as BASA Business South Africa) awards which included Innovation for the PPC public benches project as well as the small business award for the Saadjies project which was funded by the South African Department of Arts and Culture. He was executive producer for the documentary film “DorpStad” unwrapping a Cool Capital which premiered in 2015 at the Sax Theatre Irene. The film was selected for the Hilversum Scenes Film festival in the Netherlands and one of three documentary finalists for the 2016 Kyknet Silwerskerm film festival in Cape Town. Other related creative interests include furniture design, product design, and the curation of urban art. The Stellenbosch Triennale invited Pieter to advise them of the spatial use of various venues and appointed Mathews and Associates to design the Stellenbosch Triennale Braak Pavilion which was featured in manty publications including Wallpaper (online). The Stellenbosch Sculpture Trust commissioned him for a bicycle stand completed 2018. Concrete Growth as well as House & Leisure- Absolute Vodka for designing various bespoke pieces. Sculpture is another of his keen interests: he successfully completed two sculpture courses in 2010 at the Fried Contemporary, followed by an exhibition in 2011 at the Association of Arts Pretoria called Form, Scrap & order. Art curation in the urban domain is another of his fortes. In 2014 Mathews and Associates with Pieter as curator was appointed by SANRAL and the City of Tshwane to curate public artworks for the A RE Yeng TRT bus stations. 11 of these public artworks have already been installed at bus stations throughout the city. His appointment as one of the curators for the 2016 Aardklop kunstefees followed. The Saadjies exhibition was selected to be showcased at the North West University Alumni Hall. This travelling exhibition won a BASA award in 2017. As an outflow of his belief that art, architecture and sculpture should be in constant dialogue, Mathews and Associates architects cc was appointed to design the new Javett-UP Art Centre that cross Lynnwood Road. This major gallery, museum, restaurant and auditorium complex places art in the core of the public domain with a bridge gallery linking North and South Campuses of the University of Pretoria. The Javett-UP was featured in many international publications, such as Wallpaper and Arch Dailey. As research component for this major undertaking he was invited in 2013 to form part of a UP study group to the USA, organized by the Andrew W Mellon Foundation to visit various Museums and gallery buildings. University Museums and galleries included Yale, Princeton, Rutgers, Penn, The Metropolitan, NYU and Johns Hopkins. This also gave Pieter the opportunity to discover and learn from the urban design and character of world class institutions. Rutgers University gave me insight and access to their art curriculum and university program. Pieter was one of the first candidates to enrol for a new combined practice-based post graduate M Arch and PhD research program at the University of the Free State. He received his M Arch degree with specialization in design in December 2019 and his PhD with specialisation in design in 2023. Pieter is married to Ami, and they have two boys Gian and Kyle.