Auckland City in the 1990S

ITINERARY n.37 NOT ON MAP 2 5 9

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6 Force Entertainment Center

1 1974-1990 Auckland City in the 1990s Aotea Center Aotea Square, Queen Street If the 1980s were a decade in which, as Gordon Gekko said, “greed is good”, the 1990s were a time in Auckland City Council Works which the traditional disposition of virtues and vices re-emerged. In reading through the books and journals Department published in the 90s, a sense of remorse for the excesses of the previous years is palpable. At the beginning of the decade the building industry was moribund in the wake of the 1987 stock market crash, but economic recessions provide fertile ground for the growth of architectural ideas, and the early 1990s were a moment when many architects sought to re-think or re-theorise their work. The expansion of digital technology into architectural practice opened up new possibilities that, though much discussed, had little discernable influence on design here. Two streams of thinking that were prominent internationally – deconstruction, with its desire to challenge or subvert established notions, and critical regionalism, with its concern for the geographical and cultural context of the building – came together in New Zealand in an unusual way. These streams were connected by notions of “fault” that saw the literal and metaphorical Described by Peter Shaw as ”the ground for architecture in NZ being unstable and fissured; such notions produced much discussion and predictable result of a series of underlay The University of Auckland School of Architecture’s Venice Prize-winning installation at the 1991 unresolved crises, delays, and Venice Biennale, the Architetti scheme for the Museum of New Zealand competition, and John McCulloch’s panics”, this project opened 1992 visitor centre at Milford Sound. in 1990 but really dates from Postmodern classicism drew its last breaths in the early 1990s, but those years saw another move to recover the mid-1970s. The design, history. The 1970s had seen both renewed appreciation for our built heritage and the absorption of colonial described by Joseph Esherick forms into the work of architects such as Ian Athfield and Roger Walker, and the 80s saw interest in drawing as one of “abject neutrality”, from a wider range of sources (especially classical architecture), but the 1990s innovation was the recognition was greated by a series of of modern architecture as worthy of appreciation and preservation. This was most visibly expressed in the objections from the architectural Auckland City Art Gallery’s The 50s Show in 1992-93. Modernism became the concern not just of historians community, culminating in and heritage campaigners, but also reappeared as a conservative neo-modern strain in contemporary design. students and staff at Auckland A seemingly endless series of schemes was produced in the 1990s for the Auckland waterfront. The opening University proposing an of the Maritime Museum and the old Harbour Board Workshops on the Viaduct Basin in 1993 were a step alternative scheme. The building forward, but it was Team New Zealand’s winning of the America’s Cup in 1995 and the need to host the 1999- holds an extensive art collection, 2000 challenge that finally provided the impetus for a major reworking of the Viaduct Harbour. including a water feature by Another of the important development in downtown Auckland was the rise of inner city dwelling. The first Architectus. That was later wave of apartments involved the conversion of older buildings – such as the St James on Kitchener Street by demolished but Architectus Richard Priest – although these were soon joined by many larger and often rather downmarket new apartment recently remodelled both square complexes. These buildings might be criticised for their small apartments and substandard design, but by and building, stretching a slinky repopulating the central city they have served a valuable role in urban regeneration. Hadid-meets-Kuma louvered The 1990s were a decade when Wellington, in terms of both architecture and urban design, seemed to get canopy across the previously ahead of Auckland. While our most talented designers did much of their best work elsewhere, the burghers un-sexy façade. of the capital built well, including a Civic Square ringed by an inventive Athfield library, a brilliantly adapted art See NZ Architect no. 6, 1985, gallery, and two concert halls, creating a civic architecture with a grace and generosity that has eluded us here Architecture NZ Sept./Oct. 1990, – and to a large extent still does. Andrew Barrie and Home & Bldg Feb/Mar 1990.

Reference as: Andrew Barrie, “Auckland City in the 1990s”, Itinerary No. 37, Block: The Broadsheet of the Auckland Branch of the New Zealand Institute of Architects, No. 3, 2011. 2 1983-1991 3 1987-1991 4 1991 5 1992-93

Starship Hospital ASB Bank Centre Coopers & Lybrand Tower The 50s Show Park Road 135 Albert Street 23 Albert Street Auckland City Art Gallery Stephenson & Turner Peddle Thorp & Aitken Hassell Architects McKay Pearson Architects

Designed before the late-80s The brief for this building required financial crash but completed that it have “character and in less confident times, the sea With 41 levels, this building was Not an architecture design per personality” and “should be clearly of imported granite, huge water at the time of its completion the se, but this exhibition marked the for children”. Designed to cast off feature, and $1.3 million dollar country’s tallest building. Prior start of a new era in New Zealand institutional scale and appeal to the sculpture in the forecourt of this to that, the project had made architecture. Fifteen years we can sick kids, the project exaggerated building were seen by some as headlines when Robert Jones both applaud the way it prompted some of the more cartoonish extravagant for a building housing Investments pulled out of buying appreciation and preservation aspects of Po-Mo form-making a community bank. The frenzy the building from developer of our modern heritage, and be to create a playful and colorful of 60 and 120-degree angles McConnell Dowell Corporation chagrined at the way it heralded environment. To further humanise rather reinforce the impression when pre-completion leasing the substitution of neo-classical the building, it was planned that the complex composition targets were not met. A bitter legal pastiche in the 1980s for a around a striking 33m-high atrium wriggled free of its architects’ dispute ensued. The completion of pastiche of neo-modern styles in configured to maximise natural control. The handsome 31-storey this building and the nearby ASB subsequent years. It also marked lighting and ventilation. The colors tower was fitted with the latest Bank Centre marked the end of the start of Rick Pearson’s career on the exterior have been altered, communications and maintenance an era – none like them would be as a gifted exhibition designer but the atrium is still original – a services and “future proofed” to built for years. The building won and Bill McKay’s emergence as a pastel Piranesi. meet international standards. an NZIA-Resene National Award leading historian. See Architecture New Zealand See Architecture New Zealand in 1992. See Home & Building Souvenir Sept./Oct. 1988 and Jan./Feb. 1992 May/June and Sept./Oct. 1991, and See Architecture NZ May/June Edition The Newstalk 1ZB 1950s and Home & Bldg Feb./Mar. 1992. Home & Building June/July, 1992. 1990, and May/June 1992. Show (1992).

6 1993 7 1993 8 1994 9 1958-1995 Kermadec Ocean Fresh National Bank St James Apartments Restaurant Cathedral of the Holy Trinity 122-130 Karangahape Road 28-36 Wellesley Street East Cnr Quay and Hobson Sts. Parnell Rd, Parnell Andrews Scott Cotton Richard Priest Architects Noel Lane Architects Charles Towle, Richard Toy

This building was the first to be built following the implementation of the K’ Road façade design guidelines which govern ratios of solid to void, verandahs, heights, and so on. This waterfront eatery received an Holy Trinity demonstrates the This didn’t stifle the design, which NZIA-Resene National Award in huge shifts that took place in NZ became one of New Zealand’s 1995. The judges citation read: “An architecture during the time of its most credible expressions of This building was originally built ambitious project which serves to construction. Following a huge deconstruction beyond the for the YMCA in 1913 by G.W. interpret the South Pacific theme in bequest in 1935, plans began for domestic scale. Dense with Alsop (who is also thought to a fresh, stimulating way, reflecting the construction of a cathedral references to fine art, architecture have designed parts of Greenlane the collaborative efforts of the to replace the ‘temporary’ St. and the history of the site, the Hospital) and building was later architect and a diverse group of Mary’s. A neo-Gothic design by building is a fractured composition offices for the Auckland District artists and craftspeople. Sensory Charles Towle won a subsequent in which layered solid and glazed Health Board. Priest added a floor and visual elements are interwoven design competition, but with the facades and floating canopies slide and converted the building into using the Kermadec Trench as the outbreak of war in 1939 both past each other. The project won 32 apartments and a swanky art ‘umbilical cord’ of the South Pacific fundraising and construction an NZIA Branch Award in 1993. space now occupied by John Ocean to create a sophisticated were suspended. Due to inflation, See Architecture NZ May/June Leech Gallery. According to the real and highly successful blend of the over-ambitious competition and Nov./Dec. 1993, as well as estate listings, the building includes art and architecture as a point of design was scaled down, only Constructional Review Feb. 1995. a sauna and roof terrace for the interface between contemporary a first stage eventually being ASC employed a similar fractured use of residents. See Arch. NZ July/ New Zealand and the vast Pacific constructed between 1958 and aesthetic on the now expanded Aug. 1993. A few years earlier Lane Ocean.” 1973. Toy’s wide-span nave was Ronald McDonald House (1994), Priest Architects had completed a See Home & Building Apr./May, built between 1990 and 1995. located nearby at Auckland high–profile warehouse conversion 1994, June/July 1995 and See Church Building Mar./Apr Hospital. See Architecture NZ at 123-125 The Strand. See Home Architecture New Zealand May/ and May/June 1997, and Sept./Oct. 1993 and Jan/Feb 1995. & Bldg Oct./Nov. 1990. June 1995. Architecture NZ Sept./Oct. 1995. 10 1995 11 1996 12 1996 &1997 13 1997 School of Hotel & New Gallery Building Force Entertainment Centre Sky City & Sky Tower Restaurant Studies Cnr Wellesley & Lorne Sts, City Queen Street Cnr Federal and Victoria Sts Cnr Mayoral Dr & Wellesley St Mitchell and Stout Walker Co-Partnership Craig, Craig & Moller Jasmax

The old Telephone Exchange building was bought by a group of art patrons headed This design emerged from a by Jenny Gibbs, refurbished battle between consortiums for and then gifted to the city as a Auckland’s casino license. Built for what was then AIT, venue for contemporary art. The Other contenders included this building brought a touch running costs of the gallery were With its long frontage to Aotea proposals to adaptively reuse the of Richard Meier down under. provided for by the rentals on Square and diagonal through- Railway Station and the Central Post Closely following the curve of the shops on the ground floor. site link from Queen Street to the Office, both then derelict. The CPO Mayoral Drive, the building was The most dramatic element of Bledisloe walkway, this building eventually found a great use, but intended as both a “gateway” to the design is the light well which makes some helpful urban design its interesting to ponder what how and a “shopfront” for the campus. brings light into the center of the moves. Incorporating parts of the shape of the city might have Indeed, JASMaD had been building; it also allowed for the existing buildings and combining changed had the Railway Station masterplanning what was then insertion of a stair and escalator myriad imagery – airplane engines, been selected. Some superlatives: the AIT campus since 1989, and that establishes an urban path spacecraft, nautical bits, alien the complex was one of the largest Jasmax have gone on to complete through the building. Mitchell civilizations – the often disorienting commercial building projects ever a number of other buildings around and Stout redesigned Khartoum complex is organized around a undertaken in New Zealand, and the campus, including the Science Place to better link Lorne Street incredibly tall space brimful of at 328 meters high the Sky Tower & Technology Building (1997) on St with Kitchener Street and the City bridges, platforms, escalators is the tallest structure in the country. Paul Street and the NZIA National Gallery, but the scheme wasn’t and stairs - another post modern The Sky Tower won an NZIA- Award-winning Business School realized. The building received a Piranesi. The project won a Colour Resene National Award in 1998. (2005) on Governor Fitzroy Place. NZIA National Award in 2001. Award in the NZIA-Resene Branch See Arch. NZMar./Apr. 1996, May/ The SoHRS won a NZIA Branch See Home & Building Oct/Nov Award in 1999. See Architecture June1996, Sept./Oct. 1997, May/ Award in 1997. See Architecture NZ 1995 and Arch.NZ Jan/ Feb 1995. New Zealand Nov./Dec. 1999. June 1998, and Nov./Dec. 2007. Mar./Apr. and May/June 1997.

Other Addresses: Beyond the Inner City: Site 3 (1998) Sources: 30 St Benedicts St., Newton Kitchener Street Building (1990) Puukenga, UNITEC (1991) Architects Patterson All photos are by Andrew Barrie. 36 Kitchener Street Carrington Rd, Mt. Albert The building received an NZIA Looking through the 1990s issues Mainzeal with Structon Group Rewi Thompson New Zealand Award in 2002. See of our local architecture mags Winner of an NZIA Auckland The building won an NZIA Urbis Autumn 2002, Monument – Architecture New Zealand Branch Award 1990. See Branch Award in 1995. See Commercial Special 2002. and NZ Home & Building – it is Architecture NZ Nov./Dec. 1990 Architecture NZ May/June 1992 intriguing to see an increasing and Mar/Apr 1994. Treasure & Tales Human international consciousness, both Auckland High Court (1991) Discovery Ctr (1997) in the discussion and use of ideas Cnr Waterloo Quadrant and Auckland Trotting Club Auckland Museum, The Domain then circulating globally and in Parliament Street Stables Complex (1991) Pearson & Associates reports on important buildings Works Consultancy Services Ltd 400 Manukau Road, Epsom Winner of many awards, including overseas. The journals also present This adaption of Edward Rumsey’s Adams Langley Architects an NZIA-Resene National Award evidence of local lecture tours 1868 Supreme Court building won This project won an NZIA- 1999. See Arch. NZ May/June and exhibitions by international a CHH Award in 1991. See Arch. Resene National Award in 1991. 1999. While you are looking big shots – Fumihiko Maki, Jean NZ July/Aug. and Nov./Dec. 1991. See Architecture NZ Mar./Apr. around, take note of Noel Lane Nouvel, and Brodsky & Utkin. and May/June 1991. Architects’ refurbishment of the The second edition of Peter Shaw’s St. John’s Ambulance Station Museum (1998), the first stage history, A History of New Zealand 47-49 Pitt Street (1995) Axis (1991-92) of which won an NZIA-Resene Architecture (Auckland: Hodder Warren & Mahoney 91 St Georges Bay Rd, Parnell Branch Award in 1999. See Arch. Moa Beckett, 1997) – gives an Winner of an NZIA-Resene Patterson Co-Partners NZ Sept./Oct. 1998. account of the key moments in Regional Award in 1996. See Architecture New Zealand Auckland’s 1990s transformation, July/Aug. 1993. Cumulus (1999) as does Errol Haarhoff’s Guide Viaduct Basin Urban Design 8a Cleveland Road, Parnell to the Architecture of Central Customs Street West (1998) Hitchcock Photography Architects Patterson Auckland (Balasoglou Books, 2nd Architectus Studio The project received an NZIA ed. 2006). See Arch. NZ Nov./Dec 1998 35 Virginia Ave West, Newton Supreme Award 2003. See For an indication of the mood of the David Howell Architects (1993) Monument Oct/Nov 2003 times, check out essays published The project won an NZIA- by David Mitchell and journalist Resene National Award in 1994. Alice Shopland in Architecture New See Architecture NZ May/June Zealand Jan./Feb. 1995. 1994. For the key texts telling the “architecture to a fault” story, see D–72 (1994-96) the issues of Architecture New 72 Dominion Road, Kingsland Zealand dated July/Aug. 1990, Patterson Co-Partners Nov./Dec. 1991, and Sept./Oct. See Architecture New Zealand 1992, as well as Interstices 2 Auckland High Court May/June 1997. D–72 (1992).