Rod Smith, Architect Biography
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
ITINERARY n.51 13 1 5 10 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 11 12 14 Rod Smith, Architect Biography: In October 2002 architect Rod Smith was awarded the Hamilton City Council Civic Award by Mayor David Christopher John Rodney Braithwaite. The Award, in the category of Arts and Culture, acknowledged Smith’s ‘outstanding service given Smith was born in Rochdale, to the city of Hamilton’. The citation states that without seeking praise for what he enjoys doing, he deserved England in 1933. The son of to be recognised as one of the city’s unsung heroes. That the award citation describes his role in the Hamilton an architect, Smith’s family Chamber Music Society, but makes no mention of his architectural contribution to the city, which commenced in emigrated in 1946 to Hamilton 1961, imbuing the ‘unsung hero’ descriptor with perhaps more gravity than was intended. so his father could take up the position of Architect to Smith’s buildings are recognisable because of their Scandinavian appearance. Roofs, if not flat are pitched at 40 the Waikato Hospital Board. degrees, external walls are typically constructed of concrete block with cedar to soffits, and internal linings are of Smith went to Auckland plywood and larch. The Scandinavian influence comes primarily from books and periodicals Smith purchased University to study architecture during the 1950s and 1960s. It wasn’t until 1996 that Smith embarked on a Scandinavian tour and visited Finland in 1953. He originally became for the first time. Buildings that struck Smith as impressive on that tour include the Suomalainen brothers’ aware of Finland through an Temppeliaukio Church (1969) and Arto Sipinen’s Espoo Cultural Centre (1989), both in Finland, and Alvar Aalto’s appreciation of the music Nordic House (1968) in Iceland. It’s the architect Aalto whose influence is most visible in Smith’s work. of Finnish composer Jean Smith designed his first house for a friend while taking a year out of study in 1957. After graduation in 1958, Sibelius. Smith has an interest Smith moved back to Hamilton to work alongside his father at the Waikato Hospital Board. In 1963 Smith in earth sciences, and partially decided to go out on his own, at a time he describes as the ‘busy years’, and not just for him. The Waikato completed a Masters degree Hospital Board were so busy with in-house work they out sourced projects to local firms Gillman Garry Clapp at Waikato University in this and Sayers (the nine-story Hilda Ross Nurses Home, 1963, and the $3.9m Clinical Services Block, 1971, both subject. Through this interest, at Waikato Hospital) and to Smith (Matariki Geriatric Hospital in Te Awamutu, 1965). Smith’s practice quickly he visited Antarctica three grew to incorporate partners Henry Clarke in 1965 and Kelvin Grant in 1966 forming Smith Clarke Grant and times on fieldwork trips, in 1964 to carry out restoration Associates. After Clarke departed for Australia in 1969 the partnership Smith Grant and Associates would work on Scott’s Discovery continue until 1981. Hut (1904) and twice in 1971 During the 1970s the practice was taking on much larger projects, which included work for the Waikato Hospital for further research. Frequent Board such as the Child Potential Unit at Rotorua’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital (1972) and the Tokanui Hospital helicopter flights at Antarctica Administration Building (1973). They also worked for Hamilton City Council, two large projects for pensioner led to Smith’s love of flying, housing, one at Comries Road in Chartwell (22 units, 1974), and one at Crosher Place in Silverdale (35 units, and eventually a commercial 1975). Again, the influence of Aalto is evident in the scale, form, proportion, and materiality of these and helicopter pilot’s licence of subsequent buildings. his own in 1990. Active in Things slowed down for Smith in the early 1980s, so he packed up the office and went to work in Christchurch the NZIA, Smith has been for Warren and Mahoney from 1982-83. He enjoyed the change; working for somebody else and taking on the Waikato/ Bay of Plenty bigger work. Smith was involved in the Canterbury Centre in Christchurch, a fifteen-story building for the Branch Chair, NZIA Councilor, Canterbury Savings Bank (a causality of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake), and the AA Centre in Wellington. convener of two NZIA After that he returned to the Waikato for a short while as a sole practitioner doing some work for the Waikato Conferences (1981, 1993) and on the NZIA Joint Visiting Hospital Board and since 2000 Smith has lived and worked in Katikati. Board (1990, 1992). He was Aalto’s dramatically scaled sloping roofs were a reference to mountain peaks, and it seems entirely appropriate made a Fellow of the Institute for Smith to use the same language in the Waikato; a flat basin surrounded by mountains and ranges, and in in 1975. He currently lives in Katikati adjacent to the Kaimai Range. If Aalto’s architecture demonstrates a close relationship to the landscape, Katikati and continues to work then so too does Smith’s. Matt Grant from home. 2018 Calendars On Your own Images on a Calendar... Sale A Unique Marketing Tool... High Quality Print Service Now!!! in CBD • Wall Calendars (Landscape / Portrait) Phone (09) 303 4716 • Desk Calendars (A5 & A4) [email protected] • 12 leaves + cover www.copybook.co.nz Chamber of Commerce Building Cnr Mayoral Drive & Greys Ave Auckland City Contact Ritesh on 303 4716 for further information. ReferenceBlock Architecture as: Matt Guides Grant, are published “Rod Smith, with the Architect”, Broadsheet ofItinerary the Auckland No. Branch 51, Block: of the NZIA The - Contact Broadsheet [email protected] of the Auckland for Branch more information of the New Zealand Institute of Architects, No. 1, 2018. 1957 1961 1964 1965 1 2 3 4 Bogie House Own House Hamilton Methodist Centre Methodist Parsonage 132 Riverview Rd 10 Moule Place 62 London Street 31 Beatty Street Huntly Hamilton Hamilton Hamilton Located in the centre of Hamilton’s business district The establishment in Hamilton this 13,000 sq.ft. reinforced of Waikato University in 1964 Photo: supplied by Marian Bogie concrete building was a ‘private provided Smith, and other Smith designed this house, job’ while Smith was employed local architects, a ready source his first, while taking a year by the Waikato Hospital of generous and innovative out of his architectural studies Vertical cedar weatherboards, Board, and the impetus for clients. Not all were academics in 1957. It was designed for a steeply pitched roofs, and Smith embarking on his own. needing homes designed a friend of Smith’s from school, internal planning demonstrate It consists of a multipurpose little differently. In this case the whose wife Marion still lives a signature style with a nod auditorium seating five client was Dr Phyllis Guthart, in it to this day. The house towards Aalto’s oeuvre. hundred people, flexible the University’s first Chaplin. remains largely original, save a Originally a very modest home accommodation designed for The sever façade resembles re-clad in 2009 in which vertical with an architectural office, the simultaneous use, classrooms, Jorn Utzon’s Fredensborg cedar was replaced with house was added to in 1965 a kitchen, offices, and storage Housing (1959-62), as do the horizontal weatherboards. The and again 1969 as both the facilities, as well as a first-floor vertical timber louvres. This client’s brief to Smith was for family and business grew. The caretaker’s flat. Internally lined courtyard house attracted something simple and modern, house is simple and carefully with plywood, a stark exterior Henry Clarke to join in with a large living area and detailed. Neighbours would appearance, three-paned partnership with Smith in smaller bedrooms. The design find parking in the Moule Place (Alvar Aalto-inspired) entrance 1965, which was a significant had to be inexpensive as its cul-de-sac very difficult in the door, and flat roofs all begin event leading eventually to the modern design and remote mid-1960s due to Smith’s to reinforce Smith’s leanings partnership Smith Clarke Grant locate from the centre of town increasingly busy practice towards the Scandinavian and Associates with offices meant that the clients didn’t which brought numerous trade modern. NZIA Award of Merit in Auckland and a little later qualify for a State Advances vans and client vehicles to the 1964. Refer NZIA Journal Aug Whangerei. Refer NZIA Journal Loan to have it constructed. street. 1965. March 1966. 1965 1966 1967 1967-8 5 6 7 8 Matariki Geriatric Hospital Freyberg House Sharples House & Grey House Te Rahui Tane Hostel 389 Kihikihi Road 199 Silverdale Road 49 & 51 Kakanui Avenue 294 River Road Te Awamutu Hamilton Hamilton Hamilton Professor Freyberg commissioned Smith to design Two homes constructed side The original home and site Built on the site of the Matariki this house for his family, and by side, both designed in which belonged to the Anglican private hospital, the older its prominent position within the same year and built the Church was purchased by buildings have been retained walking distance of Waikato following year, with the Grey the Methodist Church for use by the Waikato Hospital University led to numerous House a little ahead in both as a hostel for young Maori Board and used as staff commissions from other cases. Both designs feature a men. The project was broken accommodation, dining, and academic clients. This house similar (and complimentary) into two stages; the first to bulk storage. The new building is an L-shaped building scale and form at the street convert existing buildings to consisted of a double corridor constructed of white-painted elevation, as well as internal accommodate 20 men, the 40 bedroom wing running concrete block and lined courtyards (but only Sharples second was for new buildings east to west, with rooms in internally with plywood.