Book review: Henry Kulka | Architecture Now

The ensuing guide, Henry Kulka, is one other collaboration between Reid, based mostly in London, and photographer Mary Gaudin, who now lives in France. It’s a work of artwork. 

Henry Kulka was deeply linked and totally concerned within the trendy motion in Austria within the early twentieth century, effectively earlier than he arrived in New Zealand as a refugee, in 1940. His trainer, mentor and later colleague was Adolf Loos (one of many pictures within the guide is {a photograph} of the bridal social gathering at Loos’ marriage ceremony in 1929 — Kulka is beside and behind Loos and the heat of the event shines on his face). Kulka, Czech born and educated in Vienna, labored with Loos from 1920 till his loss of life in 1933 and wrote the primary monograph on Loos, Adolf Loos: The Work of the Architect, in 1931. In 1939, Kulka, who was Jewish, escaped Austria along with his household, travelling first to England earlier than lastly arriving in New Zealand. He remained right here for the remainder of his life and, by his work and direct data as a practitioner of early modernism, contributed considerably to structure on this nation.

Kulka landed effectively in New Zealand; he was employed shortly after his arrival by the Fletcher Building Firm, at the moment nonetheless a family-run enterprise. Within the Forties, Fletchers was in a full-growth stage. The corporate was consolidating the provision and manufacture of supplies to assist its building aspect by constructing factories and warehouses all through the nation. Kulka grew to become head architect at Fletchers and was answerable for the design of many outstanding industrial buildings for the corporate, together with its Penrose Head Workplace (1941–1943), and the challenge that’s given a monograph on this guide, ‘Penrose Home’ (1943). This challenge surprises — a delicate and really refined alteration to a Nineteenth-century, two-storeyed timber villa. This sudden territory, the meshing of the present with the brand new, is at play in lots of the works featured within the guide, and it’s refreshing to see respectful interventions in addition to ‘from the bottom up’ works.

The guide focuses on chosen works: initiatives which have survived largely intact or that also, even in decay, present Kulka’s expertise and the method to design that he discovered and developed along with his nice mentor Adolf Loos. The primary 5 exemplars are in Austria and the Czech Republic. These are adopted by three New Zealand initiatives.

The outline of every place begins with a photographic essay by Gaudin. For a lot of the initiatives, very stunning key plans have been created and these are interleaved with the images. The pictures are a mixture of large pictures along with quirky particulars that present every place as a complete whereas celebrating the supplies, textures and particulars of every constructing. Just a few historic pictures (black and white) are additionally fastidiously interspersed and, as Reid states within the introduction, the historic images don’t categorical “the extraordinary materials and chromatic qualities” of those locations. That is an understatement; the primary instance, Landhaus Khuner (Kreuzberg, Austria 1929–1930), meets all the factors to be ‘By chance Wes Anderson’. It’s a whacky constructing, each inside and outside, and vibrates with color. Who knew that Adolf Loos (Kulka labored with Loos on this challenge) might be this a lot enjoyable? These qualities are celebrated in Gaudin’s pictures. 

Kulka was a delicate architect with a really refined pedigree. His work performs with area and kind, and the concepts that knowledgeable his earliest works underpinned his method to structure all through his profession. The thought of shifting volumes inside an area, creating totally different areas that interrelate may be seen in all these works. Reid’s textual content celebrates Kulka’s designs by a mix of thorough analysis and empathetic evaluation. He supplies a background that positions Kulka as an architect of worldwide standing and this guide honours his contribution to the world of structure and to structure in Aotearoa New Zealand.