ITINERARY n.12 NOT ON MAP 15 4 7 8 9 12 13 1 2 3 5 6 10 11 14 With the nights lengthening, we present some alternatives to an evening by the tellie - local architectural history books. Future BLOCK guides will look at Kiwi architecture journals and monographs on local architects. 1 1940 Out-of-Print 1: Histories & Anthologies Paul Pascoe ‘Houses’, Making New Looking over the books on the history of New Zealand architecture, perhaps the most surprising Zealand Vol. 2, No. 20 thing is how few of them there are. Our Institute of Architects recently celebrated its centenary, but Dept of Int’l Affairs, Wellington one hundred years of professional activity have produced only a half-dozen major history books and a comparable number of minor ones. Even through the overall number of texts is small, expansion in the field is nonetheless noticeable from the 1970s. This followed, and was also concurrent with, the comprehensive redevelopment of our inner-cities, which involved the large-scale demolition of historic buildings to make way for new highrises. Public support for the retention of significant historic buildings meant the expansion of the heritage conservation sector, which led to an increase in research and writing on the country’s old buildings. In the latter 1970s and the 1980s, the rise of postmodernism encouraged further interest in architectural history; to make historical references in their buildings, architects had to know something about history. The 1990s saw renewed enthusiasm for the clean lines of modernism. This is evident not only in our buildings but also in the architectural history books and papers produced that decade. Consistent with the interest in modernism, New Zealand architectural history of this decade culminated in Clark and Walker’s excellent book, Looking for the Local (2000). The process begun in the 1990s and which will likely be continued in future publications is the re-evaluation and re-incorporation into our historical narratives of figures who, for various reasons, have previously been excluded. This includes architects such as Kenneth Albert, Bill Haresnape, Lillian Chrystal, and Claude Megson, who have each been omitted from a number of otherwise thorough books. The Making New Zealand Most of our early histories were written by practicing architects. The wave of texts published through series was published on the the Historic Places Trust tended to involve input from social historians, such as Frances Porter (she occasion of New Zealand’s centenary. Paul Pascoe was married to architect George Porter, who had founded the Wellington Architectural Centre in 1946). wrote the text for the two More recently there has been greater divergence: Peter Shaw, the author of our best survey text, has a architectural issues, and background in journalism and exhibition curating; Douglas Lloyd Jenkins is a design historian turned his brother John was the architectural historian and now gallery director; Justine Clark has an academic background and is illustrations editor and currently editor of Architecture Australia; and Paul Walker is an academic. We can be hopeful that the designer for the series. coming years will bring an increasing number of books by local academics. While Performance-Based ‘Houses’ provided a history of New Zealand housing Research Funding requires academics to be constantly researching and writing, getting their work into covering Maori whare, settler book form requires some skill in handling the mechanics of the PBRF system – its weighting encourages huts and homesteads, academics to produce articles for scholarly journals (and thus for comparatively limited readerships) villas and bungalows and rather than books aimed at a broader readership. state housing initiatives. It But NZ’s dearth of architectural histories may be not for a lack of writers but a perceived lack of culminated in then cutting- readers – until recent years, publishers have assumed the market for such books was limited. However, edge projects by Humphrey with the increasing popularization of design culture and the success of books such as Douglas Lloyd Hall, Robin Simpson and Vernon Brown, as well as the Jenkins’ At Home (2004), there is reason to be optimistic about the future of publishing on New Zealand Berhampore flats, soon to be architecture and architectural history. Julia Gatley and Andrew Barrie renamed Centennial Flats. Reference as: Julia Gatley and Andrew Barrie, “Out-of-Print 1: Histories & Anthologies”, Itinerary No. 12, Block: The Broadsheet of the Auckland Branch of the New Zealand Institute of Architects, No. 3, 2008. 2 1940 3 1947 4 1954 5 1972 Paul Pascoe, James Garrett ‘Public Buildings’, Making New Ernst Plishke Home Building, 1814-1954: John Stacpoole & Peter Beavan Zealand Vol. 2, No. 21 Design and Living The New Zealand Tradition Architecture 1820-1970 Dept. of Int’l Affairs, Wellington Dept. of Int’l Affairs, Wellington Pelorus Press, Auckland A.H. & A.W. Reed, Wellington The second architecture issue in the Making New Plischke was a frequent writer This compact volume contains Zealand series claimed that on the subject of modern a sweeping survey, dividing ‘Our architecture derived design. His best known book, This was published as the New Zealand architecture from England’, although quite Design and Living, was an catalogue for an exhibition into three periods: 1820-80, progressively, it opened with expanded reworking of the curated by students of the 1880-1920 and 1920-70. Each the line that, ‘The earliest earlier text, About Houses, Auckland University College of the three periods has an type of public building in which had been published School of Architecture; one of introductory essay, followed New Zealand was the whare by the Army Education and these student curators was the by key buildings, most given a runanga or tribal meeting house Welfare Service in 1945. young Peter Bartlett. Author single page of images and text. of the Maoris’, and the opening Interestingly, Plischke was James Garrett would later write Notable is the attention given image was of Rangiatea using the alternative spelling the entry on ‘Architecture’ in A. to large and public projects, in Church, Otaki. The historical of his surname in this period to H. McLintoch’s Encyclopaedia contrast to the usual obsession styles were all covered, along help unsophisticated Kiwis with of New Zealand (1966). In this with the house; the houses with 20th century architects their pronunciation. The book book, Garret’s survey of New that are here are more often including Gummer & Ford, covered design at every scale, Zealand houses covered Maori mansions than baches. There William Gray Young and from furniture and interior whare through settler buildings is comparatively little attention Stephenson & Turner. The late design to town planning. It was and Arts & Crafts to the 1950s. to mid-century modernism, and 1930s public architecture is one of the most widely read It culminated in one of his own Beaven’s work on this book noticeably less radical than the NZ books on architecture of designs for a concrete block coincided with his increasing corresponding houses shown its time, and made Plischke house, which pre-dates the interest in designing buildings in issue 20. Issue 22 of the famous enough to leave the frenzy of activity in the use of that demonstrated a clear series, by G. L. Gabites, looked Housing Division of the MoW this building material in the response to their historic at furniture. and go into private practice. mid-to-late 1950s. contexts. 1976 1979 1984 1986 6 7 Frances Porter, ed. 8 9 Jeremy Salmond John Stacpoole Historic Buildings of NZ: David Mitchell & Gillian Chaplin Old New Zealand Houses Colonial Architecture in NZ North Island The Elegant Shed 1800-1940 A.H. & A.W. Reed, Wellington Cassell, Auckland Oxford Univ. Press, Auckland Reed Methuen, Auckland The Elegant Shed differs from Stacpoole was a prolific writer A South Island counterpart to previous texts by its focus on on 19th century New Zealand this volume was published by the post-World War II period, architecture. Books that pre- Methuen in 1983. The book’s its attention to ordinary and This book developed out of date Colonial Architecture coverage is limited to the everyday architecture (a la Jeremy Salmond’s Masters include a biography of William 19th century, but extended to Venturi et al) and its frank thesis on the subject of Mason (1971), the survey both the Maori and Pakeha analysis of comparatively historical New Zealand houses. with Beaven (1972), and traditions. Like Stacpoole’s recent architecture - written It is a comprehensive guide to Victorian Auckland (1973). book, these two volumes by a practicing architect. Like our heritage of cottages, villas Stacpoole’s 1976 survey does coincided with increasing Douglas Lloyd Jenkins’ At and bungalows, supported not correspond to the exact public concern about the Home, The Elegant Shed was by a raft of explanatory line years of New Zealand’s status demolition of large numbers also a TV series, although in drawings and photographs. It as a colony (1840-1907), but of New Zealand’s historic the 80s the TV show came first. has become a standard text for instead covers the 1820s buildings and their replacement The book’s myth-making power architecture students and home to the early 1880s, when a with concrete highrises. is such that it was assigned renovators, and has been re- recession slowed construction. The New Zealand Historic a whole chapter in Exquisite printed many times; it must be It is concerned with ‘European Places Trust was actively Apart, where Peter Wood one of the best selling books architecture’, but was still a researching and classifying described it as a ‘watershed’ ever produced on New Zealand much more complete survey the country’s historic buildings in New Zealand architectural architecture.