ACCA 2000 INTERN 4TIOYAL CONFtREUCE - HONG KONG CHINA 32 1

A Kind of Colonial Brutalism

PAUL WALKER JUSTINE CLARK University of Melbourne

"from Patagonia to New Zealand. and from Alaska to A CRITIC, A POST, AN ARCHITECT (OR TWO) Siberia. architecture was called upon to provide, on a scale never before cnvisaped. the facilities and ameni- "Lack of means is often apparent in the detailing. ties of economic growth...."' although acertain crudity is called straightforwardness and at least by some of the most thoughtful young So the latest edition of Sir Bannister Fletcher's A History of architects. set up as a new country feature in opposition Architecture (1996) describes the post war period. New to the old man's fussiness at home."' Zealand is still seen as one of the world's extremities the 'Z' still pops into writers'minds as they search to encompass the August 1958. Nikolaus Pevsner and Willia~iiToomath outer edges. But how does the historiography embodied by stand beneath a Lower Hutt carport discussing the post Fletcher serve New Zealand - or Patagonia. Alaska or Siberia propping up one corner. The carport was of Toomath's for that matter'? Is New Zealand's architecture really at the design. attached to the house he had devised for his parents in end of some slow and enervating drift of ideas from rnetro- 1949. Pevsner was viewing the house whilst on an architec- politan centre to the antipodes? And does the architecture of tural tour of New Zealand. he was also collecting material for these apparently far flung locations really only concern ame- 'Commonwealth I ' a forthcoming issue of The Architectuml nity? Rel,iert. on the architecture of the Dominions: Canada. South In fact New Zcaland's postwar architectural culture is Africa. Australia. New Zealand.' Pevsner, so the story goes. notable for its polemic. and for the significant number of found the post crude. unfinished and unrefined. Toomath. architectural publications produced. There was a stron, com- however. answered this criticism (very politely, Pevsner mitment to developing an architecture particular to New Zealand, and an intense awareness of developments in inter- national architectural culture. These debates were not simply exported outwards from the metropolitan centres. If we are to develop alternative historiographic modes we need to con- sider this discursive environment. and we need to think of encounters between metropolitan centres and apparent pe- ripheries - for example between Britain and her former colonies - in terms of cultural exchange. This paper attends to one particular encounter. a very specific version of the ongoing. more generalized exchange between local and international that marks New Zealand's architectural culture and identity. This particular discussion betwccn a New Zealand architect and an international arbiter of the canon had ongoing effects. both on the representation of New Zealand architecture to the wider English speaking world and on New Zealand's own architectural discourse. Fie. I .William Toornath. Toornath house. 1949. The post under discussion may be seen in the centre of the photograph. Photogra- pher: G.H. Burt Ltd. (Ron Redfern). Alexander Turnbull Libmry. Wellinyton PA Coll-OX 1 1-09-10 122 CROSS CURRENTS TRAN5-CULTURAL. ARCHITECTURE EDUCATION. AND URBANISM

Fig. 3. William Toomath. Toornath house. 1949. Photographer: Fig. 2. William Toonlath. Toornath house. 1949. Photographer: G.H. Burt Ltd. (Ron Redfern). Alexander Turnbull Library. G.H. Hurt Ltd. (Ron Redfern). Alexander Turnbull Library. Wellington PA ColI-08 1 1-09- I 1 Wellington PA Coll-081 1-09-1 1

hastens to add) with the idea that a 'vigorous young country takes straightforwardness as a broadly positive attribute and ought to call a spade a spade and a 4x4 a 4x4'. What Pevsner comments approvingly on the ingenuity of certain New called crude. Toomath described as straightforward. and it Zealand house plans. But, whatever he found to praise. was. he argued. an appropriate practice for New Zealand Pevsner reported that New Zealand timber detailin," was architecture.4 This point was made by acomparison Toornath rather crude. a condition he attributed to a lack of means. The drew with another post. fussily over designed in his view. second broadcast covered sirnilas ground. recast for an En- supporting another building in another place. glish audience: 'The timber detailing seems to me not so This now rather distant conversation about an apparently satisfactory. rather minimum and a little coarse. But there one insignificant piece of timber was to have a certain impact. of the best younger architects argued with me and from what Retold and referred to a number of times. it props up (or lets he said it transpired that he regarded the European architect's down) various discursive constructions of 'New Zealandness.' fuss over mouldings and profiles a little as an old man's game. Where the content of particular renditions of Pevsner's en- A young nation might well he implied be a bit more impatient counter with Toomath's post does not differ greatly. the mode about it. and be ready to call a spade a spade and a four inch of storytelling changes as the anecdotc is deployed to differ- post a four inch post. So perhaps what seemed raw to me is in ing rhetorical ends. fact robust and vital.' The piece then describes the 'Ingratiat- But each version of this little tale bears on the issue of the ing Chaos' of New Zcaland suburbia but finishes. (after straightforward - or alternatively the crude. Attention is mentioning that nosnobbery is held against anything new). by focused on the putative directness of New Zealand architec- suggesting that in New Zealand modern architecture might ture. and on the range of attitudes taken to this projected have a future: 'And so. after this Journey in one way I believe quality. Even if we no longer believe that New Zealand more in a healthy future of twentieth century architecture out architccturc is necessarily characteri~edby straightforward- of the New Zealand chaos than out ol' our planning in this ness- in itsdetailingorotherwise - a wholerangeofconnected country .' issues and assun~ptionscontinue to pervade New Zealand But the 1959 version in The Ai-c~lzit~ctlrinlRet,ie~t, allows architectural history and discourse. Primitivism is still in the Ncw Zealand no such a future. The flattering account of air. in fact now assuming a certain revival under the guise of planning is omitted. the comments on limited means repeated. a problematic neo-modernism and in the nostalgic \,eneration and the account of the argument for straightforwardness ends ol'baches (small makeshil't holiday shelters). And these have with 'It sounds convincing at first. although California is not become con,joined in peculiar ways. all that old. but it still manages to get its details right." Where Pevsner was to rekr to this conversation each time he Pevsner's three talks acknowledge a certain possibility in the publically discussed New Zealand: in two radio broadcasts post - 'Maybe he was right, maybe that robustness of' detail (the first whilst he was still in New Zealand. the second for the which strikes me as a little raw will one day be a valid BBC on his return): in the Re~,ien,'sComn~onwealth 1 ': and expression of the New Zealand version of' 20th Century finally in a 1962 talk to theRoyal Commonwealth Society. On architecture' - the anonymous piece for the prestigious and each occasion Toomath's timber post is subsumed into New intluential professional journal does not. Crude New Zealand Zealand timber detailing in general. The first radio broadcast detailing was not to be accepted into the canon. ACSA 7000 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE - HONG KONG CHINA 321

Another architect had been present during the conversa- Centennial of' British sovereignty over New Zealand. This tion between Tooniath and Pevsner in 1958. Lewis Martin. a rising cultural nationalism neatly overlapped an increasing New Zealander who had trained at the Architectural Associa- interest in the local within postwar unternational architectural tion in London in the post war years. was to write a piece on culture. A whole series of notable architectural publications the New Zealand building industry Ibr The Architecrural followed on from writingamarkins the celebrations of 1 940.11 Re~,iert.specialissue. A draft of Martin's essay ended with the These witings consolidates a generally accepted account comment 'New Zealanders are prospcrous. materialistic and of thc history of architecture in New Zealand after European self sufficient. For so long they have had so much more to do settlement: carly settlers build in a straightforward. simple than time in which to do it. that finish and perfection have way, driven by utility and the constraints of the building gone by dethult. We cannot hope for refinement. let us hope materialsdirectly at hand - mostly timber: their successors fall that vigour will be accepted as a substitute'. But these words from architectural grace through too much money and the do not appear in the piece as published. Vigour was not an 'worst excesses' of Victorian taste: a potential recovery of' an acceptable rationale for crudity. nor a substitute for refine- appropriate New Zealand architecture will come through ment." attention to climate and materials. To this outline were often These various renditions generated a series of allusions added two other particulars. The brief period of building and comments in the New Zealand press, with most being achievement enjoyed in the early settlement days coincided generated in response to TlzeAi.chitectilm1 Re\.iet~.version. It with the last vestiges in England of the Georgian. Often the was also invoked in the next international publication of New response to material and climatic conditions of contemporary Zealand material. The Architectural Design Small Houses work is figured as a return to the principles of building in the issue of 1961 says 'In handling timber the New Zealand settler period: economy. simplicity. truth. These modes of architect won't be found butchering it with fussy and mean- thinking were common to architects of remarkably different ingless profiles or workins it beyond its means. He fully backgroundsand attitudes."They continue today. in attitudes recognises its qualities.'"Toomath's house was not included to architectural history. in The Archirectuizil Re~~ieuspecial issue. apparently because By insisting that New Zealand's early timber forms were the photographs were not good enough. Yet it is somewhat simple. truthful and functional. this history claimed architec- ironic that Toomath was the one to suffer for these convic- tural modernism as a kind of national trait. Modernism and tions: he was perhaps the most refined. careful. and intellec- New Zealand became doubly entangled: the newly consoli- tually ambitious New Zealand architect of his generation. The dated history was deployed in a generalised promotion of prominent New Zealand architect Miles Warren refers. for modern architecture. hut it also provided the site and source example. to the excitement and surprise he felt when he first for the modern New Zealand 'vernacular'. saw the house: even the terminal vent had been used as a But architecture was not the only discipline in New Zealand compositional piece.l0Ina visual sense. at least. the house was to make appeals to the sin~ple.the straightforward. even the very carefully detailed indeed. But the post came to stand for rugged as a proper response to New Zealand during the 40s the robust and the direct no matter what the other qualities of and 50s. Other arts faced the same exigencies as architectuse: the house, and in doing so it came to stand for New Zealand an introspective nationalism marked both by optimism and architecture. anxiety. The iconic element in painting from this period that signalled all this was the tree stump, a kind of relative of HISTORY Toomath's rough post." And the post's tale echoes through New Zealand writing quite widely. While Toomath's post came to stand for New Zealand In 1960 The Nerr Zealaircl Listerzer- reviewed the Re\,ie,t,. architecture. the case he made for it in his seemingly minor posting the post back home and becoming thc vehicle for its conversation with Pevsner might stand for a certain strain of dissemination in wider cultural critique. The Listerlerreiter- New Zealand architectural discourse. The idea that 'New ates the argument for straightforwardness. this time claiming Zealandness' is to be found in a straightforward use of the qualities of the country's 'thoughtful young architects' - available materials and in the elimination of fussy details those designers of posts - as familiar national characteristics: pervades much writing on New Zealand architecture. The 'theirstructuresare selfconsciously relaxed.dcfiantly straight- argument for the utilitarianly modest develops alongside the forward. sincere rather than sophisticated. and thcy show a history of something called New Zealand architecture. The greater interest in putting things together than in polishing history of 'thc straightforward' is virtually the history of them - familiar national characteristics'.14 Not every local architectural historiography in that country. Before 1940 commentator agreed. An article in the New Zealand pesiodi- reflections on New Zealand's architectural history were few cal Comment. disparages the '...cultural nihilism of the Lis- and far between. but during the forties architectural history tener article. the elevation of crudity into vir~uc...' : 'Yes they writins - and speculations about the relationship of that answered ... puffing out their new world chests. we are rough history to future possibilities - becomes almost commonplace and crude and a good thing too. Finicky attention to detail is in architectural circles. This was driven by the sense of a sign of European decadence. The broad sweep (let the isolation brought by World War 11. butjust as importantly by details look after themselves) is a sign 01' unspoiled. new the general cultural nationalism occasioned by the 1940 324 CROSS CURRENTS: TRANS-CULTURAL ARCHITECTURE. EDUCATION. AND URBANISM

world vigour.'l' The writer ridicules a siniilar case where a Banham's piece identifies certain defining characteristics critic preferred the crude vigour of New Zealand's National of New Brutalist architecture. but whilst he considered a Orchestra to the polish of a visiting stringensemblc. The sanie ran,ne of buildings. only two were admitted to the new canonic year the art critic PA Tornory has a quite different reaction: category. 'Atalastresort'. Banham tells us. 'what characterises 'On the question of detailing in building there has been New Brutalism in architecture as in painting is its je-ni'enl- criticism ofalack of finesse. This comment has come particu- ,fordsnw. its bloodymindedness.'"'This quality he found on11 larly from overseas critics and I think is wrong. A colonial in the work ofthe Smithsons. What TlleAidzirectrirrrl Re\,ie\~. heritage begets directness, bluntness in fact. a kindofcolonial was most dismissive of in the New Zcaland work could also brutalism which provides a strong tonic to the too sugared be characterised as a certain bloodymindedness - as proudly spirit of European sophistication."" This comment was part held national trait as any. Perhaps this was not the sanie as thc of areview of the state of the arts in general within the context bloodyniindedness found in the Smithson's work. But cer- of the country's isolation: Toniory's text forms a chapter ofa tainly the material and structural characteristics Banharn survey bookon New Zealand's national characteristics. haunt- attributes to New Brutalism - material as found - could be ingly titled llistrr~lceLooks Our Wq..The post now supports identified in rnuchNew Zealand work. Ncw Zcaland architec- alocal canon.% tural discourse had been constructed along modernist lines And through this reference the post ghosts in much more with a particular emphasis on 'truth to material'. and on using recent accounts. In 1993 Leonard Bell. writing of the role of materials at hand. Banham almost certainly wouldn't have the primitive in New Zealand art in the 1950s. cites the admitted Toomath's post to his canon any more than the other Tomory passage above. but he carefully excises any reference buildings he canvassed and then rejected and it is not our to architecture." Instead, he relates the passage to the paint- intention to suggest it should be admitted. Nevertheless. a ings of Colin McCahon. So a post becomes a piece of poorly certain attitude to materials and structure was consolidated in played music. an admirable painting. and a familiar national New Zealand long before the Srnithsons assumed the New characteristic. Brutalist name. So. in 1955 New Zealanders who had long admired The Architecturul Re~,iew,found themselves reading 'A KIND OF COLONIAL BRUTALISM' in it an argument for an attitude to materials that they them- selves had already adopted some time ago. Architecture is built with words: with quarrels about posts: Of course Brutalisni after the Smithsons was also to havc with interpretations and appropriations of such quarrels. just an impact on New Zealand. most famously in the work of as much as it is made out of posts themselves. Architecture is Miles Warren." Tomory 's phrase 'a kind of colonial brutalism' underwritten by discourse. might suggestjust such a New Zealand elaboration of an idea Back under the carport Tooniath illustrated his point by that had been posted out. But in fact the colonial version had coniparing his particular post with another, in fact with a already been built here. made from things at hand: both series of posts supporting the roof of an house designed by discursive and material. Peter Woniersley in Farnley Hey. Yorkshire.l'These posts Banham tells us that whilst New Brutalism was opposed to were, for Toomath paradigmatic pieces of fussy over-design. New Empiricisni. New Humanism and something he calls Coincidentally. but rather usefully. Toomath's house and 'New Sentimentality' (and other such terms invcnted by the Womersley's (the plain post and the fancy) was each pub- Re1,ien.). like these various terms it opened up a historical lished ad.jacent to articles with curiously similar agcndas. perspective. A new X-ism. as Banham puts it. postulates than One of these articles is now famous. The Farnley Hey house an old X-ism can be identified by the historian and that the with its 'over-designed' posts had been published in Tlie new one can be distinguished from it by means of historical A~-c.I~itec.tu~.ulRe~.ieu in 1955 directly after Banham's first. comparison." So what of 'New Zealandness"? Did this corre- codifying piece on New Brutalisni. One turns the page from spond to any previous condition? New Zealand was already discussion of thc Smithsons, arthiut. Pollock etcetera. to find haunted-by historical self awareness. New Zealand was the plan and photographs of this house. a rather different kind already modern. However. there is a prior condition to which ormid-50s building. Was it this odd conjunction that made the those interested in New Zealandness aspired - the condition of Farnley Hcy house memorable for Toomath? the settler buildings. They were, in thc words of James Tooniath's house had featured in a 195 1 issue of the Neu Garrett. the New Pioneers." This term referred to New Zealandjournal Design Review (apublication with an agenda Zealand's history, but it also linked these architects to the drawn substantially from The Architectural Review) just pioneers of the Modern rnovcnient. as described by H.-R. before a piece titlcd 'Aesthetics and Morals'.'" A small report Hitchcock. Pevsner and others.'-' on a discussion held in Wellington. this piece was not the canonical work that Banham's was to be. but it did traverse a MAPPING similar terrain ofaesthetics. ethics. history. and architecture. It demonstrates that this ground was being discussed actively Standing beneath that carport, Nikolaus Pevsner repre- in the conimunity to which Toornath belonged. as much as in sented the wider (and distant) architect~~ralworld. But he also London. had more specific relevance forthosc young architects. At the ACSA 2000 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCt - HONG KONG. CHINA 325 time of Pevsner's visit Martin. Toomath and other members explicitly painted as an Englishman with no sensitivity to the of Wellington's Architectural Centre were developinga book local. Issues of nationality and authority becamc increasingly to be called New Architecture in Neu, Zealand. and they cntangled. Centre members were hopeful of Pevsner's pa- needed an international co-publisher. The Architectural Press tronage. but they were not silent in the face of his criticisms. was the preferred choice but they had declined to be in- Thcse architects did not want to locatc New Zcaland in volved." The Centre was. therefore. particularly keen to terms of the Comrnonwealtli - in terms of the stylised map cultivate Pevsner- an editor for the Architectural Press - in the which appeared on the cover ofthe special issue. Rather they hope that he might encourage a reconsideration. In turn wanted to map New Zealand architecture onto what Stanford Centre ~nenibersprepared a shortlist of 35 buildings fbr the Anderson has described as an 'axis of altcrnativc modernism Review's forthcoming special edition: penned the article on running froni Scandinavia through MIT to Berkelcy and the the New Zealand building industry: and obtained photo- Bay Area'.'h This was a map of regionally inflected modern- graphs from which the journal could make its selection.'" All ism: a kind of international resistancc to the Intel-national this was understood as preliminary work for the Centre's Style. It was also territory that TlzeA~*c.llitrct~i~zllRe~.ie~c. had book: the written material could be reused: the buildings helped chart. short-listed would form the nucleus of the book: and the But in the end New Zealand architecture remained teth- special issue would kindle widespread interest in New Zcaland. ered to the Commonwealth. Nen~Arcllitec.t~weill Nen.Zetllnld thereby making the publication of the book viable.'? was not published. partly because the Architectural Press Pevsner's encounter with New Zealand architects did not remained uninterested. However. in 1961 the Architectural enact a simple relationship between 'dominion' and metro- Press did publish IYPLC.Buildillg ill the C(1111111ot1n~enlt11:the politan centre, between local circumstances and the wider Rer,ie\t,'s two special issues on the Commonwealtli (one on English speaking world. Pevsner represented Britain. but the dominions. the other on the rest) published together in with a German accent: he had the authority of the Architec- book fonii.'"The essay contributions from the various coun- tural Press. but the Architectural Centre also used him to tries were omitted. but otherwise the material is identical. further establish its own authority in its local circumstances. There was. it appears an international audience for New For example he was deployed as a spokesman in the fight Zealand work, but only when written from. and understood in against the demolition of Old St. Paul's cathedral: Pevsner relation to. Britain and the Commonwealth. This particular was used to undercut the authority of a bishop who was local was not quite international (orperliapsexotic)enough.30 And by presenting the architecture of the Coninionwealth to the world as 'new building'. not as 'new architecture'. the value of local architectural debates was undercut. New Zealand. it seemed. did not have architecture. but it did have building. Architecture entails discourse: building does not. Local architectural debates are also ignored by the single contemporary paradigm we have for thinking about architecture away froni nietropolitan centres. Critical region- alism. as promoted in the writings of KennethFrampton, does not attend to the intellectual debates and commitments which are part of the works it valorizes." No account is taken of the mediated circulation of ideas. even ideas about the local: no account is taken of local receptions of metropolitan discourse or of any regionally specific discourse: no account is taken of the nietropolitan investment in the idea of regionalism." But 'the regions' seek more than amenity and tectonic rigour in their architecture. They have lively intellectual debates. No doubt these are informed by imported ideas. but they are also elaborated and invented in response to particular circumstances. and as we havc shown in our paper. the dissemination ol'architectural debate i\ not one way.

NOTES 1 Dan Cruikshank et al. eds. Sir Banister Fletcher's A his tor;^. qf A1s11ir~t~lt.e.20th edi~ion(London: The Architect~~ralPI-css. 1996): 1316. 3 'New Zealand' TlirAr.~~liitpc't~rrvllRe1.irr1 \ol. 176 no. 752 (October 1959): 706. 3. Thij story is retold in Robin Skinner. 'Niki Down Under: Impres- Fip.3 'Commonwealth 1 ' The Architectural Review(0ctober 1959). -726 CROSS CURRENTS: TRANS-CULTURAL ARCHITECTURE. EDUCATION. AND URBANISM

sions of Pevsnerin New Zealand' in Loyalt~~ar~tlDi.r.loycilr~.ir~rlre hand. was Professor of Architecture at Auckland Uni~ersity Archirecru~c~qfrlw Brirish E111pir.ecrud Co1r1r1ro11it.c~nlrl1.Selected College where he pursued a conservati\e pedagogical regime, Papers from the Thirteenth Annual Conference of thc Societ! of basedon theclasical training he hadcome fron~at the University Architectural Historians of Australia and New Zealand, ed. of Liverpool. But their views ol'kwZealand architecture and its PhilipGoadandJulie Willis(UniversityofMelbourne. 1996):102- histor) arc remarkably similar. They both comment on the bad 1 10. Skinner pro~idesa full account of Pevsner's New Zealand timing of colonization vis-a-vis thc end of Georgian good taste. tour. See also Justine Clark and Paul Walker. Lookirlplor. thr comment on the particularity to be de~isedfrom local materials. Loerr/: A~.(hi/cw~ir~(111dfir? nle)t.Z(W/NII(/ Morlrr.rr (Wellington: comment on architecture as an expression of national character. Victoria University Press. 2000). and speculate on the achievements to come. Cyril Knight. 'Ar- Toomath had outlined a similar idea in 1955 after returning from chitecture'. in Arthur Sewell. editor. 1840 cir7rlA,fic~(Auckland: Harvard. where he had completed a masters degree: '... Neu Auchland University College. 1940): 179- 18 1: Paul Pascoe. Zealand is not sufficiently industrialized for us to afford the high 'Houses'. Mcrkirig N~JHZealtiurl. vol. 2 no. 20 (Wellington: fini5hes andexact precision weseein overseas buildings. We hill Department of Internal Affairs. 1940): 30. learn instcad how to find a pleasing character by the simple use 13. Michael Dunn. 'Frozen Flame & Slain Tree: the Dead Trce of local materials in. as it were. a crude form. We will exploit Theme in New Zealand Art of the Thirties and Forties. Arr ~V~it. weightiness and rough texture where they are in the nature of thc Zr,mln~~tl.no 13 (1979):40-45: Francis Pound. 'Tho Stumps of material used.' S.W. Toornath 'Architecture in the Nex~Fifty Beauty & the Shriek of Progress'. Art Nu11 Zeolnr~tl,no 87 Years: anaddres$gi\en at thcJubileeCelebrations in Wellington. ( 1987): 52-54. 104- 105: Robin Craw. 'Visible Difference: Na- Oct. 20. 1955' Tlv Jo~ruzcrlof rhe N.Z.I.A. 101. 23 no. 3 (April tionalist Repertoires and the Semiotics of Place in New Zealand 1956):61. Science'. Antic. no 8 ( 1990): 4-7. Nikolaus Pe\ sner. 'New Architecture and New Art'. New Zealand 13. The Lisrolerreprinted the entire dismissive paragraph from TIw Listener vol. 40 no. 101 0 (lkcember 26. 1958).Republished in A~~cI~itc~c~r~lr~nlRe~~ie~t~andconsulted Allan Wild who. after point- Th Journal of the NZlA vo1.25 no. 10 (November 1958): 16 I - ing to a number of errors of attribution and fact. says. '5ome of 285. (Publication of this volume was delayed.) this may seem like pinpricking. but never let it be said that we Nikolaus Pwsner. 'The Ingratiating Chaos: Impressions of New don't take our details seriously'. 'Seen From a Distance: London Zealand' Tlw Li.crPner.(November 20. 1958): 826 JournalLooksat N.Z. Architecture' hl.Z.Lis/e/~er(Feb 12. 1960): 7 'New Zealand'. 206. Robin Skinner points out that New Zealmd I. newspaper editors also edited out positive comment when space IS. 'The Wild Colonial Boys' Com~~~enf(Spring 1960). was tight. Skinner. 'Niki Down Ilnder'. endnote 32. p. 109. 16. P.A. Tornory 'The Visual Arts' in 1Iisrmc.c~LooX.r 0111. WLI! Pe\ sner's last ~ersionof the anecdote returns to the post's earlier (Auckland: Paul's Book Arcade for The University of Auckland. potential. In the 1962 talk to the Royal Commonwealth Society. 1961): 76. Toomath's argument props up a piece arguing for the possibility 17. Leonard Bell 'Lamff'c~ll.the 'Primitive'.and the Visual Artsin the and importance of national differences in architecture: 'Perhaps 19.50s' Lar1clfdl (1993): l l I. they felt this was an old man's argument and an old countries 18. Bill Toomath, personal conversation with authors, July 1998. argument: ah!) not do frankly what you have todo. mayherawly. 19. 'Aesthetics and Morals' De~ignRel,irn vol. 4 no. 1 (August1 but at least straightforwardly. So in a country like New Zealand. September 195 1 ): 12- 14. with its tradition ot'timber. there may be a real national charac- 20. Keynes Banham 'The New Brutalism'. Tl~rA~~'Izirecr~r~d Re- teristic here.' Nikolaus Pevsner 'Architecture in the Modern 1,iat.. ~ol1 18 no. 705 (December 1955): 356. Commonwealth' NZlA Jour7inlvol. 3Ono. 8 ( 1963): 164. Repub- 21. Warren's Dorset St Flats in Christchurch of 1956 introduced lished by permission from Tlw Jo~11mlof rlw Roy11 Com~ror~- other New Zealand architects to a whole neu mode of detailing. ~~wlr11Society. Ted McCoy remembers the detailing of the Dorset St flats as a N&J Sheppard 'Domestic Architecture in New Zealand' Alrhi- revelation for New Zealanders bought up on state house detail- tecrlrrtrl Di.sig11. vol. 3 1 (Oct 196 1 ): 47 I. ing. Personal conversation with Justine Clark. 1998. 10. Miles Warren 'Style in New Zealand Architecture' Ne~t.Zi~a/nr~tl 22. Banham 'The New Brutalism'. 356. Arc11irect~rr.r3 ( 1979): 6. "3. Garrett used 'New Pioneers' to link architects as diverse as I I. For example E. A. Plishke's 011 Hoir.rr.r (Wellington: Army Vernon Brown and Robin Simpson. Pascoe and Hall. Group Education Office. 1945) and Design uric1 Li~.i/~,g(Wellington: Architects. Mark-Brown & Fairhead. William Toomath and Department of Internal Affairs. 1947):Group Architects' 'On the Anthony Treadwell. Sixteen years earlier. in 1942 Courtney Necessity ftm Architecture: the Manifesto of the Architect~~ml Archer had written of the 'young contemporary pioneer archi- Group' (Auckland. 1946) and Plcrrlr~irlg I (August 1946): the tects'. James Garrett. 'Home Building - Our Tradition'. Ho~~zc. periodical Desigri Rc~liiwfrom the Architectural Centre: Cedric nml B~riltli11g.vol. 2 1 no. 5 (October 1958): 41 -3: H. Courtney Firth's Srtrrc, Holrsing in Neu Zcwlnncl (Wellington: Ministry of Archer 'Architecture in New Zealand' Tile Arcllifrc~rlrr~nlReiicw Works. 1949) and 'Architecture in New Zealand' Studio vol. 135 wl. 91 no. 543 (March 1942): 52-58. 110.661 (April 1948): 126-1 29: and so on. These authors operated In 1929 Hitchcock had described Le Corbusier. Walter Gropius. within a set of conventions put in place in the first half of the J.J.P. Oud. Mies van der Rohe and Andr Lurat as the leaders of century in three key articles which suggested that an indi~enous something he called the New Pioneers. Pevsner's earliesl influ- architecture would be based in the timber forms of early settler ential book was Pionr~r.~of tlw Mot1cr11 MOI~IICJII~.Henry- buildings. S. Hurst Seager. 'Architectural Art in New Zealand'. Russell Hitchcock Mntlpr~~~A~-rI~itecrlr,.r,Rorl1nririci.s1i1 ~III~IKP~II- Jmrml (frlwRoyul 111~ririrfrqf LlririsI~A~.c~l~ir(~~s Third Series. tegrnrior1 (New York: Payson and Clark. 1929): 149. 179 (see vol. 7 no. 19 (19 September 1900): 48 1-491 : Frederick DeJersey Henr) Matthews 'The Promotion of Modern Architecture by the Clere 'Domestic Architecture in New Zealand' Srllrlio Yetd~ooX Museurn of Modern Art in the 1930s' Jolrr-11tr1ofDesign Histor?. of' Decorcctil.e Arts ( 19 16): 11 1- 136: W. Grq Yourty 'Nen vol. 7 no. I ( 1994).):Nikolaus Pevsner Pior~~ersof the Motlrrn Zealand' Tllc~A~~cliil~cr~~rcrlRei~irrt~vol. 55 (June 1924):254-257. Moiwwir. 1936. Republished in post war editions as Pionec2r.sof 12. This is exemplified by the writings on the occasion of the 1910 MO~BIWLksign. centennial by Pascoeand Knight. Pascoewasa young Christchurch The Architectural Press did not expect an adequate audience. architect, a committed modernist who had worked in London for 'They seem to accept Reed's statement about 'the obvious Tecton and for Tllr Arcl~irwt~rr~trlRe~,ic.~t.. Knight. on the other integrity with which this work is being approached' and that the ACSA 2000 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE - HONG KONG CHINA 327

sample layout page shows 'the work will be as good as the best to use your influence with them to persuade thcni lo reverse their architectural books now being published'. This sample page decision'?'. The 1958-9 Annual Report states 'This project was featured the Toomath house. The Architectural Centrc Neaslet- piLen renewed impetus by the visit of Dr Pe~sner.and editor of ter (June. 1958):2. the Architectural Press. He has agreed to help us in ourprclirni- 26. Martin. Toomath and Beard are narned as the sub-committee in nary work which includes publication in the Review of a special thc minutes of Architectural Centre council meeting 39 Sept. number on Commonwealth architecture. b'e are supplying him 1958. The Oct I958 Council meeting 'authorized hlr Martin to with a script and illustrations lvhich it is hopcd will be used again send some photographs immediately for the BBC Listener: we in the book'. also decided to continue working on our li5t of buildings. asking 28. Stanlbrd Anderson. 'The ‘New Empiricism-Hay Rcgion Axis' the architects concerned to haw them photographed at their own Kay Fisker and Postwar Debates on Functionalisrn. Regionalism expensc for an article in the AK. making it clear that Dr Pe~sner and Monumentality' Jo~tr~il~[At~~~ltil~~f~o~(i/ Ed~lcufi~uwl. 50 had asked us to act for him. and also telling them that the quality no. 3 (February 1997). of photograph! as well as that of the architecture. aould deter- 39. J.M. Richards, ed. Ne\l. B~riltlir~gsiri tltc Co1ii111or7~1~eilltll(Lon- mine whether or not the building would be shown b!. the Ke- don: The Architectural Press. I96 1 ). vie^ '. The minutes of the Council meeting of the 17 [kc. 1958 3O.Sorne years ago the post around which our stories revolve uas states that the jub-committee had produced a shortlist of 35 removed during renovations dcsigned ~iththe aim of 'creating buildings by 20 architects. There is no indication as to what was a more conwntional New Zealand house. on this list. 3 I. See 'Towards aCritical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architcc- 27. Pcvsner's time in Wellington was orpanired by The Architec- ture of Resistance' in Hal Foster, ed.. TIlp At~ri-A~~srlrrric(Wash- turd Centre, his itinerary is attached to Thc Architectural Centre ington: Bay Press. 1983): and 'Critical Regionalism: Modern Newsletter. August 1958. This also indicates the Centre'j inten- Architecture and Culrul-a1 Identity' in Morletx Archirrct~tt.~:'4 tion to write formally asking his assistance with the book. A letter Ct.iricil1 Hisrot? (London: Thames & Hudson. 1 985). to Pevsner. dated 21 st Oct. 1958 asks 'Would you now be u illing 32. See Paul Walker 'The Tourist as Critic. The Critic as Tourist' UME no. 9 ( 1999): 23-25.