page_title: Mutual Building
section_title: The atrium
hierarchical_section_title: Mutual Building / Features of the building / The atrium
caption_attribution_description: English: When in commcercial use, this Atrium was open to the weather. The building is now converted to residential use and there is a transparent roof; there are 12 levels of accommodation, seven lifts, and more than 180 apartments.
context_page_description: The Mutual Building, in Cape Town, South Africa, was built as the headquarters of the South African Mutual Life Assurance Society, now the "Old Mutual" insurance and financial services company. It was opened in 1940, but before the end of the 1950s—less than 20 years later—business operations were already moving to another new office at Mutual Park in Pinelands; since then Old Mutual has become an international business and their present head office is in London.
  The building is a fine example of art deco architecture and design, and it has many interesting internal features such as the banking hall, assembly room, directors' board room; external features include a dramatic ziggurat structure, prismoid windows, and one of the longest carved stone friezes in the world. It has been said that it provides evidence of the colonial attitudes of the time, and the "ideals of colonial government promulgated by Rhodes in the late nineteenth century".
  The Mutual Building is now converted to residential use, although some parts of the building are used commercially. For example, the Banking Hall and the retail shops that operate outside on the ground level.
context_section_description: The atrium extends from the roof of the banking hall to the very top of the main building. It was originally open to the weather, but it is now protected by a translucent roof, through which the tower can be seen extending even higher.
  The circular windows visible here are incorporated into the apartments that now occupy the front of the building.
caption: On entering the residential area of the building, one is struck by this extraordinary "top to bottom" atrium
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