Whether it’s for a celebration, a commemoration, or simply for its own beautiful sake, the commissioning of stunning, once-off works of art, specially created from the finest metals and precious stones, is the ultimate way of capturing special moments and creating enduring keepsakes. This is the opinion of Prof Fred van Staden from the Unisa Department of Psychology, who embarked on an exciting treasure hunt through the archives and further afield for goldsmiths and silversmiths and some glittering, symbolic Unisa objets d’art.
In his research, Prof Van Staden discovered that during the 70s and 80s Unisa commissioned a veritable treasure trove of unique and captivating pieces in precious metals to commemorate special landmark moments. Two of South Africa’s foremost creative goldsmiths, Erich Frey and Stephen Colegate, were responsible for these exceptional presentation objects.
 The Unisa Durban Regional Office inauguration key, consisting of a lapis lazuli stone set in sterling silver and 18 carat gold-fused plate. Made by Stephen Colegate and presented in 1989 |
 The Unisa Durban Regional Office inauguration key, consisting of a lapis lazuli stone set in sterling silver and 18 carat gold-fused plate. Made by Stephen Colegate and presented in 1989. |
 The pendant is shaped in a three-dimensional impression of the Theo van Wijk building and parking area. |
 Pendant of 18 carat gold and ivory encrusted with Transvaal jade and an emerald-cut diamond pendant made by Erich Frey and Stephen Colegate. |
Where did the tradition begin?
When the Theo van Wijk Building was opened in 1972, the first on the new Muckleneuk Campus, architect Brian Sandrock commissioned Frey to manufacture the symbolic inauguration key in sterling silver along with a commemorative pendant in gold and gemstones. The key was designed in the form of the architect’s line drawing of the building, with a modernised crest of the university mounted on the left-hand side and the letters UNISA attached to the lower right-hand side.
A three-dimensional 18 carat gold and ivory pendant in the form of a stylistic architect’s model of the first phase of the new Muckleneuk Campus development was presented to Eunice Pauw, wife of the retiring Principal and Vice-Chancellor at the time, Prof Samuel Pauw. Four rectangular-cut Transvaal jades and an emerald-cut diamond were used to complete the design of the pendant.
The opening of the new administration building, now the Oliver Tambo Building, in 1980 on the Muckleneuk Campus was also celebrated with an inaugural key, manufactured by Stephen Colegate. It was done in the form of a horizontal impression of the building, with a round moonlike disk mounted behind the shortened crossbars representing the top floors of the building, giving the impression of a moving ship in front of an ascending moon. It was manufactured in sterling silver.
Colegate was again requested by the architects to manufacture the symbolic keys for the inauguration of the main Unisa Library in March 1988, as well as for the opening of the Unisa Regional Office in Durban in 1989. The octagonal finial of the symbolic key for the library consists of ivory surrounding a granulated 18ct gold square and is set in sterling silver. The gold square is repeated on the front part of the key.
This abstraction was taken even further with Colegate’s design of the inaugural key for the Unisa regional offices in Durban. It consists of a brushed and smooth sterling silver basis, with the finial set in a skewed four-sided ivory base and punctuated with an 18ct gold fused plate centre. The bittings or teeth of the key consist of uneven silver bars attached to a rectangular-shaped lapis lazuli gemstone. The ultramarine blue colour of the stone is fitting in symbolising the Unisa offices on the KwaZulu-Natal seacoast.
Across the centuries attractive artefacts from gold and silver have been created in various imaginative and beautiful designs to honour people and events. The purpose of such commemorative pieces is to trigger a memory through a tangible and durable form of recognition. These symbolic keys to Unisa unlock the remembrance of the creation of one of the ten mega universities in the world and give expression to that status and prestige.
