‘Ora Joubert obtained a B. Arch degree, cum laude, at the University of Pretoria, an MSc. Arch degree at the Pennsylvania State University in the USA, and a PhD at the University of Natal, with the thesis title: “A contemporary assessment of the genesis of the modern aesthetic – the impact of modern art on modern architecture”.
Upon graduation, she worked as in-house architect for the Get Ahead Foundation – a township-based, non-governmental organization – in which capacity she also initiated art and architectural programmes for township children.
Apart from lecturing and examining at most South African universities, she was Head of the Department of Architecture at both the Universities of the Free State and Pretoria. She is currently Affiliated Professor at the University of the Free State, and in private practice.
She has been the recipient of numerous design awards, including nine Awards of Merit from the South African Institute of Architecture, and her work has received critical acclaim in more than sixty publications, including Australian, British, Chinese, Hungarian and Russian journals. She was cited as one of the most internationally esteemed architects under the age of forty in 40 Architects Under 40 (Cargill-Thompson, J. Köln: Taschen, 2001) and her work was included in The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture (London: Phaidon, 2004).
She was the convener and editor of the seminal, 450-page reference book on contemporary South African architecture entitled 10+ Years 100+ Buildings: Architecture in a Democratic South Africa (Cape Town: Bell-Roberts, 2009) which received an Award of Excellence from the South African Institute of Architecture in 2010.
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