"You wouldn't believe what lies in basements at the University of Witwatersrand," says Fiona Garson, who with Nina Cohen and William Martinson, won an architectural competition to design an art museum for the university.

"Rooms that few people ever see house one of the largest and most fascinating collections of art in the world.

"We were completely blown away with what we saw - particularly the African art - lying hidden away from public view," says Garson.

This will change. Thanks to the fund-raising efforts of Julia Charlton, senior curator, and Fiona Rankin-Smith, special projects curator of the Wits Art Museum (Wam), this body of artworks will soon be accessible to all of Johannesburg's residents and its visitors.

The extensive collection includes works from west, central and southern Africa. There are traditional crafts, contemporary interpretations of traditional crafts, household objects, ritual objects, and masks.

Southern African beadwork, some from the 19th century, is well represented too. The collection, which consists of between 8000 and 9000 works, also includes pieces by many contemporary fine artists.

"After we won the competition six years ago we spent over six months with the curators getting our designs and ideas to suit their needs perfectly," says Garson.

The idea that won the three architects the competition is to express the weight of the collection as if it were a treasure chest suspended above the open spaces of the gallery.

"We wanted the storage of the collection to be expressed throughout the gallery as a solid brick container - a metaphoric box containing the cache of the collection," says Cohen.

"It's a complicated project. We decided against demolishing in favour of reinventing and re-imagining three buildings, stitching them together in a new and exciting way.

"All of the buildings are spatially beautiful so we took our cues from what's already there."

These buildings are on the corner of Bertha and Jorrison Streets in Braamfontein with one front of the redesign facing Jan Smuts.

"The location is wonderful because it offers the opportunity to create a gateway between the university and the city around it," says Garson. "As Julia (Charlton) puts it, it's a place where Wits shakes hands with the city."

It is also close to the Wits cultural precinct, which houses the Wits Theatre and The School of Arts and it broadly falls into the cultural arc of Braamfontein, close to the iconic eland sculpture by artist Clive van den Berg.

"We envision the space being accessed by people off the street constantly, if only as a thoroughfare."

Construction started in April this year and the gallery is expected to be finished around the middle of next year.