Killarney is a suburb of Johannesburg in Gauteng. The suburb lies astride the M1 motorway, between the major nodes of Johannesburg CBD to the south and Rosebank to the north.

Killarney is a predominantly residential, middle‑class area noted for its mix of Art Deco, post‑war, and 1960s–70s mid-rise apartment blocks. It was formerly known as the Hollywood of Johannesburg, due it being the location of one of the first film studios in South Africa. The suburb has historically been associated with its Jewish residents and founder, I.W. Schlesinger.

During the apartheid era, it was classed as a "whites only" area under the terms of the Group Areas Act. Although White South Africans remain the largest population group in Killarney, the suburb today has a notably cosmopolitan character and racial makeup.

History

In the early 1930s, the land in Killarney, an outlying northern suburb, belonged to I.W. Schlesinger’s African Realty Trust.

Geography

Killarney is a compact, predominantly residential suburb located between the major hubs of the Johannesburg CBD to the south, and Rosebank to the north. It forms part of Region E of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. The high-density suburb is bisected by the M1 motorway. Its immediate neighbours are Riviera and Houghton Estate to the north, Saxonwold and Forest Town to the west, Upper Houghton to the east, and Parkton to the south. Its position astride the M1 provides direct access to this major north–south transport route, while Oxford Road and Riviera Road provide alternative links to Rosebank, Parktown, and the inner city.

Killarney lies on gently sloping terrain between the higher ground of Houghton Ridge and the lower-lying areas toward the Johannesburg Zoo and Saxonwold. The suburb incorporates the Killarney Mall, Johannesburg’s first shopping mall, which functions as the suburb’s main commercial node. Its location places it within short driving distance of the University of the Witwatersrand, Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, and the business districts of Rosebank and Sandton. There are many schools in the vicinity, the Johannesburg Zoo is nearby, as are two golf courses. There are also other shopping malls and hospitals within a few kilometers.

Architecture

The suburb is characterised by mid‑rise apartment buildings, some of them Art Deco or early‑modernist in style, set along tree‑lined streets.

Whitehall Court, a three-storey Neoclassical building, was designed by Australian immigrant architect, John Abraham Moffat, in 1923, and commissioned by I.W. Schlesinger. One half of the second floor was originally one large apartment for Schlesinger. The remaining part of the buildings were offices for his business interest. After the Second World War, the building was reconceived as private apartments.

Daventry Court, an Art Deco building on Riviera Road, was built in 1933-34 and is regarded as one of the first multi-storey apartment block in the suburb. It was commissioned and financed by Samuel Hillel and Woolfe Jossel, through their property development company, Jossels Mansions. It was designed by Leopold Grinker, along with Israel Wayburne and Hugh Robert Skelly. In 1936, an extension to the building, along 4th Avenue was completed by Swiss architect, Theophile Schaerer and local architect, Charles Small.

  • Peter Tucker
  • Hugh Lewin (1939-2019), anti-apartheid activist and writer, lived and died in Killarney
  • Thelma Gutsche (1915-1984), scholar, historian and film writer, lived in Gleneagles apartment building
  • Amina Cachalia (1930-2013), anti-apartheid activist and politician