Peter Beaven 1

ITINERARY n.24 NOT ON MAP 2 3 5 6 9 13 10 4 11 8 7 12 1 : Stephen Goodenough Photo This itinerary looks at Peter Beaven’s architecture before his hiatus in London in the late 1970s and early 1980s. A forthcoming itinerary will look at the work he has completed since his return to NZ. Biography: Peter Beaven 1: The 60s & 70s Peter Jamieson Beaven was In 1972 an exhibition entitled “The New Romantics in Building” was held at the Dowse Gallery in Lower born in Christchurch on 13 Hutt, including work by Ian Athfield, Roger Walker, Peter Beavan, Claude Megson and John Scott. The August 1925. He attended show celebrated one of the high points of 20th century Kiwi architecture, as a cohort of designers spliced Christ’s College, deciding local and international influences with such audacity that it seemed, if only briefly, that the nation could to become an architect after host a globally significant stream of architectural development. Peter Beaven was one of the senior a conversation with Paul members of this group (he’s seventeen years older than Walker), but he had rapidly made the transition Pascoe. He studied at the from a more orthodox modernism to the adventurous, hippy-fied approach of the youngsters. Such School of Architecture at the slipping in and out of both the Kiwi and international mainstreams has been the hallmark of Beaven’s University of Auckland, his career. studies being interrupted by Beaven established his office in the mid-1950s and his early work sits comfortably within the restrained, war service in the NZ Navy. earnest modernism of the Christchurch School. He gradually began to shake off this local conformity, Returning to his studies, he however, in favour of more global influences. Beaven travelled widely, spending six months living in Japan studied alongside members in the early 1950s, and making major excursions in Europe and Asia in the 1960s. This found its way into, of the Architectural Group in particular, the highly sculptural composition of the Lyttelton Tunnel building, which shows the influence (which he deliberatly avoided of post-war Le Corbusier and his Japanese followers. joining), becoming particular However, rather than becoming more international, his approach soon became more local. Beaven friends with Bill Wilson and became increasingly focussed on his Christchurch context. This led, on the one hand, to his involvement in setting up the Christchurch Civic Trust, which was dedicated to protecting and preserving the city’s John Scott. After graduating, ever more endangered architectural heritage. On the other hand, with projects such as Manchester Unity Beaven spent four years in Building, he turned to Christchurch’s Victorian heritage as a source of design inspiration. Timaru designing woolstores Such historical referencing has led to Beaven being called our first post-modernist. But where the post- all over the country, before modernism of his local rivals followed global trends and looked to either pop culture or the classical establishing himself in world for inspiration, Beaven picked up the nostalgic, romantic, and picturesque qualities of the Victorian Christchurch with two design- Gothic Revival. It was certainly “less is a bore”, with turrets and spires sprouting from every rooftop, but if build projects. In 1965, Beaven’s form making was sometimes extravagant, his approach avoided the superficiality of run-of-the- Beaven and several others mill Po-Mo; his way of building gave the greatest possible opportunity for the exercise of craft and for the founded the Christchurch intimate shaping of space. Civic Trust, the first heritage Beaven has been a vocal advocate for good design, and also one of our most prolific writers, producing lobby group in NZ. In the numerous articles and one of our first book-length architectural histories. But perhaps the most important, late 1960s he spent a year but still under-appreciated, contribution of Beaven’s urbane approach is his medium-density housing. studying at the Architectural Projects such as Tonbridge Mews mimicked the additive, ad hoc character of vernacular building to create Association in London, a rich, vibrant architecture, one that combined modern abstraction with traditional patterns to make an participating in the first urban elegant, convivial lifestyle possible in the heart of the city. Like all passionate designers, he saw the logic design course run at the of his approach as self-evident: he described his neo-vernacularism as “a concept which allies beauty school. Back in NZ, Beaven with the familiar, with commonsense, and with an appropriate and convincing lifestyle”. worked in partnership with Beaven’s architecture of the 1970s set aside one of mainstream modernism’s central traits – the need to Burwell Hunt, completing create a break with history. His brand of modernism sought genuine connection with the past; a frequent a number of large projects. Beaven-ism was “the continuity of tradition is the basis of living”. He sought the shock, if anything, The partnership ended when of the old. By the mid-1970s, however, he had departed for the UK, and the romantic stream in Kiwi he left for England in 1975, architecture was soon swamped by the global tide of post-modernism. It would take Beaven’s return to where he worked in private NZ after almost a decade in London for his irrepressible “other tradition” began again its dance with the practice for a decade before mainstream. Andrew Barrie eventually returning to NZ. Reference as: Andrew Barrie, “Peter Beaven 1: The 60s & 70s”, Itinerary No. 24, Block: The Broadsheet of the Auckland Branch of the New Zealand Institute of Architects, No. 7, 2009. 1 1961 2 1961 3 1962 4 1962 Canterbury Terminating Carson House Building Society Canterbury Court 16 Dyers Pass Road Beavan House 159 Manchester Street 20-22 Twigger Street, Cashmere 4 Millbank Lane Christchurch Addington Merivale Located adjacent to the Addington Show Grounds, this Located on the road that exhibition building was built by heads over the Port Hills : www.christchurchmodern.co.nz Built with a reinforced concrete the Canterbury Manufacturers towards Lyttelton Harbour, frame, a sense of lightness was Association and the this house sits on a dramatic Photo achieved in this eight-storey Canterbury A & P Association site that looks over the city Designed by Beaven for his building by filling the entire as a venue for industrial and to the Canterbury plains. The own family, this three bedroom structural bay with windows agricultural shows, as well as house has been extended and house was located at the end (although bronze panels were exhibitions, indoor sports and modified, but was originally a of a narrow lane; standing on used as a lower spandrel). The entertainment. Designed with crisp composition of a blank a small site on the banks of seventh floor offices have a engineer Bill Lovell-Smith, concrete block façade wall, the Avon River, it looked out balcony all around recessed precast columns support a weatherboards, and a metal on Hagley Park. Like much beneath an overhanging roof dynamic, long-span structure roof. Built for a doctor and of Beaven’s other work of slab. Above this, a penthouse of zig-zagging roof planes and his young family, the house the period, this house is a composed as a highly diamond-shaped skylights. was planned so the parents prismatic form but the crisp transparent steel-framed and The building has been occupied the ground floor, walls of white painted concrete glass-walled structure was for a extensively renovated as the with a bathroom and a large block were interupted by large time occupied by the architect. sales centre for Pegasus, a new open room for the children panes of glass and softened Beaven completed several town being developed outside placed upstairs. The sleeping by timber floors and wooden projects for CTBS, including Christchurch, the display and services areas were joiner. The house had been the Canterbury Arcade in including a gigantic Chinese- accommodated within a gabled sympathetically updated over Auckland (1965-67). After CTBS made model. The bones of volume, with living areas the years, but changed hands became UBS, he designed Beaven’s building survive, but and covered outdoor spaces recently,. In the time its has their office (1988) nearby at a visit is now an altogether arranged as flat-roofed volumes teken to prepare this itinerary, the corner of High and Cashel sobering experience. around its perimeter. the house was demolished and Streets (now a Holiday Inn). See Home & Building March See Home & Building June a new home is now rising on See Home & Bldg. Oct. 1962 1962, NZIA Journal Feb. 1963. 1962 and NZIA Jnl. April 1965. the site. 5 1963 6 1962-64 7 1964-67 8 1966 Askew House Lyttelton Tunnel Authority Manchester Unity Building Christchurch Town Hall 128 Dyers Pass Road Administration Bdg & Toll Plaza 180 Manchester Street Competition Entry Cashmere 1 Bridle Path Rd, Heathcote Christchurch Christchurch Regarded as one of Beaven’s most important buildings, this Published as the ominous project won an NZIA Gold sounding “Entry No. 17”, Positioned back from the Medal in 1966 and a 25 Year This project received an NZIA Beaven’s scheme was street on a steep hillside site, Award in 1999. The building, Canterbury Branch Bronze commonly understood this three-bedroom house is located at the Christchurch Medal in 1969. When the (possibly with Beaven’s accessed via a long staircase entrance to the tunnel, housed building won an NZIA 25 encouragement) to have come and a dramatic bridge. The tollbooths, administration Year Award in 1999, the jury second in the high profile Town building is composed, with offices, and workshops for the suggested that the tower sat Hall competition.

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