Itinerary: PoMo in New Zealand

Postmodern structure stretched, questioned and challenged the aspirations of modernism, from ethics and rationality to transparency and abstraction. For a lot of, Robert Venturi’s “light manifesto”, Complexity and Contradiction in Structure (1966), offered the mental arguments. The ruptures that had characterised modernism — that’s, the rejection of historical past, ornament, symbolism, narrative and metaphor — have been to be restitched, leading to Venturi’s “tough unity of inclusion somewhat than the simple unity of exclusion”. Put extra merely, he advocated for “each/and” somewhat than “both/or”. References to historic kinds (particularly classical kinds) have been readmitted to architectural vocabularies, joined by sunny colors, glamorous neon and glossy issues like chrome. Structure turned extraverted, witty and playful; it turned populist somewhat than elitist.

Regardless of the variations between modernism and postmodernism, the road between them is typically blurry. On the ranges of development and construction, for instance, the 2 are sometimes no completely different. And within the late Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies, Ian Athfield and Roger Walker questioned and challenged virtually the whole lot, however, in a wonderful survey of New Zealand modernism (docomomo Journal, September 2003), Paul Walker makes the vital level that they “retained the assumption that structure might be the car of a common amelioration of the social realm” — one of many key attributes of modernism.

Actually, one in all PoMo’s uncommon traits was that so a lot of its key figures have been celebrated modernists at earlier levels of their careers. Whereas new concepts are sometimes championed by children seeking to distinguish themselves from the earlier era, world wide, PoMo was led by established figures jettisoning their former modernist selves — Philip Johnson within the US, James Stirling within the UK and Arata Isozaki in Japan. In New Zealand, the identical might be stated of heavyweights like Warren and Mahoney, McCoy and Wixon, and Structon Group, amongst others.

Kids contributed by way of homes, with members of the Ponsonby collective Artifice reaching prominence by marrying excessive concepts and low means: Mal Bartleet’s Murphy Home (1983; pediments and wood trellis), Pete Bossley’s Glock Home (1984; pastels and polycarbonate) and Pip Cheshire’s Vernon Townhouse (1985; cubism and colored tiles). Essentially the most important home of all was the Gibbs Home in Parnell (1984) by Manning Mitchell, the home capturing, based on Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, the “[g]lamour, pleasure and a way of connection to the broader world [that] New Zealanders have been looking for after the isolation of the Muldoon years.”

PoMo is related to the financial increase and speedy globalisation ensuing from the neoliberal reforms of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and, right here in Aotearoa, David Lange’s Labour authorities and Rogernomics. It was a interval of speedy inflation — 15.7 per cent in 1987. Runaway prices meant builders pushed architects to work with unseemly velocity, typically on the expense of design high quality. The bubble was burst by the stockmarket crash of October 1987. Many tasks stopped useless, leaving our central cities plagued by automotive parks the place previous buildings had been unexpectedly bulldozed. Some tasks limped on, accomplished within the early Nineteen Nineties, by which era a extra sober method had taken maintain. Oddly, it was nonetheless a historicism however one which seemed to modernism, somewhat than again over it to its predecessors.

Our PoMo structure was given its fullest expression throughout an period of demolition; sarcastically, it’s now being topic to the identical forces. The quakes worn out Warren and Mahoney’s Christchurch PoMo tasks, and Athfield Architects’ work in Wellington has taken a selected hit, with Arlington Housing (1970–1978; with King & Dawson, together with George Porter Towers) and the First Church of Christ Scientist (1980–1983) demolished in recent times. However Athfields’ Wellington Central Library (1988–1991) was saved. PoMo has been by way of a interval of unpopularity. An appreciation of historical past, which drove many of those tasks, is required if extra of one of the best are to outlive lengthy time period.

THE ITINERARY

1. 1974 — Park Mews

62 Moxham Avenue, Wellington
Roger Walker

Park Mews is maybe the fullest expression of the unlikely layering of references to colonial cottages and Japanese metabolism for which Roger Walker’s early work is well-known, mixed with an general complexity and liveliness. Whereas such work is sort of completely different from the PoMo structure of the Eighties, these attributes nonetheless sign the transition away from the clear traces of modernism and, definitely, the sense of enjoyable is to the fore. Color was vital to the unique design, with crimson for lots of the steep roofs and yellow for the round home windows and diagonal bracing.

2. 1980 — Pearce Flats

100 Marjoribanks Avenue, Wellington
Athfield Architects

Ath had long-standing pursuits in housing, as distinct from homes. He discovered a like-minded shopper in engineer Invoice Pearce, who admired Moshe Safdie’s work, together with Habitat 67 in Montreal. The Pearce Flats took 12 years from design to completion. The Wellington Metropolis Council declined an early scheme for a tower, agreeing to eight models, which morphed into six after development had began. The advanced demonstrates Ath’s questioning of the open areas of modernism and his dedication to giving architectural expression to a spread of smaller areas below a fancy array of roofs and balconies.

3. 1981 — Wairakei Resort Taupō

640 Wairakei Drive, Taupō
Roger Walker

The tourism business was a key supply of tasks for Walker and he designed a quantity for the Vacationer Resort Company: employees housing (1982) tucked behind The Chateau on Mount Ruapehu, a now much-altered resort in Queenstown (1989) and varied services (a laundry, spa, bogs and villas) at this resort outdoors Taupō. Only some shifts from Walker’s earlier method – the addition of trellis and polycarbonate to the fabric palette, a reorientation from colonial in the direction of classical references, barely flatter and extra graphic manipulation of façades – would convey his work into alignment with the daring postmodernism then rising from Europe and the US.

4. 1984 — Clock Tower Constructing

42 Camp Avenue, Queenstown
John Blair, Architect

Blair was one of many nation’s most fun architects of the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties, although his work has considerably pale from our collective historic consciousness following his retirement, maybe as a result of he operated largely outdoors the primary centres. His early work was extremely geometric and sculptural, and, within the Eighties, his work shifted barely, absorbing a brand new set of influences. Blair’s Clock Tower Constructing adopts the references popularised by American historian Vincent Scully’s 1974 guide The Shingle Type As we speak, a part of a wider Victorian revival. As within the US, the woody shingle model appeared to have particular attraction for postmodernists working in dramatic landscapes.

5. 1984  — St Patrick’s Church

4 Munroe Avenue, Napier
Warren and Mahoney

Approached throughout an ātea-like forecourt, this calm composition is all arches, barrel vaults and classical proportions. Inside, a disciplined association of concrete columns, timber trusses and clerestory gentle calls again to Warren and Mahoney’s finest excessive fashionable work. See Structure NZ July/August 1984. St Patrick’s is a excessive level of native postmodern classicism, a broad strand in Warren and Mahoney’s oeuvre that features the Rotorua Civic Centre (1985) and the Royal Oak Procuring Mall in Auckland (1988). Warren and Mahoney’s Salvation Military Citadel at 92 Vivian Avenue, Wellington, (1991) is wilder: a late flurry earlier than the observe started to set classicism apart.

6. 1985 — Clock Tower

2 Gown Avenue, New Plymouth
Boon, Goldsmith & Firm

Terry Boon, born in 1938, is from the identical era as Ian Athfield (b. 1940), David Mitchell (b. 1941), John Blair (b. 1942) and Roger Walker (b. 1942). Just like the others, his earlier work was expressive modernism — the New Plymouth Phone Trade (1982; 92 Liardet Avenue) is a gem. The tower rehoused a clock from the town’s 1907 Submit Workplace, marrying the stripy classicism of the now-demolished Submit Workplace with glassy bits described on the time as ‘excessive tech’. One in all our most eye-popping PoMo tasks, it now appears calm in opposition to the visible ‘zizz’ of Patterson Associates’ Len Lye Centre (2015) throughout the highway. Refer Structure NZ Might/June 1986.

7. 1986 — College of Auckland College of Music

6 Symonds Avenue, Auckland
Hill Manning Mitchell

This constructing is a group of references, allusions and quotations. The sources span the vary from the world of music to worldwide structure to native buildings: sine curves and piano-lid shapes; entrance porticoes retained from earlier buildings on the location; vernacular shed kinds. Underlying the postmodern collaging is a priority for local weather and utilization. The constructing’s extra public areas — library, reception, music theatre — are organized round an intimately scaled cloister and courtyard neglected by balconies and seating areas. The intense, open lobby is among the metropolis’s most dynamic public areas. The constructing acquired an NZIA Nationwide Award in 1987. See NZ Architect Nov/Dec 1986.

8. 1986 — UFS Dispensary

265 Emerson Avenue, Napier
Hoogerbrug Magdalinos Williams

Unsurprisingly, the references on this Napier dispensary’s façade are to not classical structure however to artwork deco. Contentious in its time, this venture required the demolition of a Spanish Mission-style constructing that was the topic of a preservation marketing campaign by native art-deco fans, however the dispensary has since grow to be a landmark in Napier’s retail centre. Douglas Lloyd Jenkins described it as a “beautifully refined instance of a small-scale, postmodern constructing” and it was recognised with an NZIA Nationwide Award in 1987 — PoMo maestro Paris Magdalinos’ first Nationwide award. See House & Constructing Dec 1987/Jan 1988.

9. 1987 — BNZ Tower

125 Queen Avenue, Auckland
Walker Co-Partnership

The unique Financial institution of New Zealand constructing was designed by Melbourne architect Leonard Terry in 1865, simply 4 years after the financial institution was based. Terry’s Renaissance Revival façade stood out as one of many first stone buildings in a largely wood city. The constructing was subjected to one of the crucial controversial Eighties’ practices — façadism. These in favour argued that this was the one economically possible method during which heritage might be retained, whereas critics of the BNZ venture described the retained financial institution façade as an “unburied corpse”. See Historic Locations in New Zealand June 1987 and House & Constructing Feb/Mar 1987.

10. 1989 — Citibank Centre

23 Customs Avenue, Auckland
Warren and Mahoney

Workplace towers shaped an enormous portion of Warren and Mahoney’s output from the early Nineteen Seventies, with the agency’s designers embracing a postmodern classicist language for a lot of (although not all) of its industrial buildings from the mid-Eighties. The Citibank Centre, with its uncovered mixture panels and colonnaded sky terrace, was on the severe finish of Warren and Mahoney’s classical spectrum: a lacking hyperlink to elegant concrete-clad brutalist towers of the Nineteen Seventies. Different towers, many now demolished, had pastels and pediments aplenty — one of the best survivors embody 80 The Terrace (1989), 49 Boulcott Avenue (1989) and the Mercer Tower on Mercer Avenue (1989), all in Wellington.

11. 1989 — Oriental Bay Flats

226 Oriental Parade, Wellington
Athfield Architects

Developed by Cromwell Company Ltd, this luxurious condo constructing is one in all New Zealand’s most overt expressions of PoMo historic referencing and manipulation. It has the symmetry and axiality of classicism, with outsized columns that help brass planter containers somewhat than concentrating on a column’s conventional job of load-bearing. A daring color scheme of apricot and inexperienced heightens the impact. The sharemarket crash impacted sale costs and developer earnings. Athfields’ PoMo repertoire in Wellington additionally included the owl-like Skyline Restaurant (now Cable High), 1 Upland Street (1982–1984), and Telecom Home, 13–27 Manners Avenue (1986–1988).

12. 1991 — Wellington Central Library

Cnr Victoria and Harris Streets, Wellington
Athfield Architects

Well-known for its nikau palm columns, the Central Library additionally contributes to the enclosure of Wellington’s Civic Sq.. It combines solidity and mass on the Victoria Avenue aspect with transparency and curves on the Civic Sq. aspect. Permeability was central to its success. Seismic issues and the specter of demolition in 2019 triggered a marketing campaign to put it aside. The Metropolis Council took heed, commissioning Athfield Architects to guide its revitalisation. It’s now PoMo heritage, having been listed as a Class 1 historic place in 2021. It’s anticipated to reopen in 2026.

13. 1991 — Starship Hospital

Park Street, Auckland
Stephenson & Turner

The temporary for this constructing required that it have “character and character” and “must be clearly for youngsters”. Designed to solid off institutional scale and attraction to sick children, the venture exaggerated among the extra cartoonish facets of PoMo formmaking to create a playful and vibrant atmosphere. To humanise the constructing additional, it was deliberate round a hanging 33m-high atrium, configured to maximise pure lighting and air flow. The colors on the outside have been altered however the atrium remains to be largely authentic — a pastel Piranesi. See Structure NZ Sept/Oct 1988 and Jan/Feb 1992, and House & Constructing Feb/Mar 1992.

14. 1991 — The Majestic

88 Willis Avenue, Wellington
Manning & Associates and Jasmax

The Majestic changed Wellington’s previous Majestic Theatre, demolished in 1987. The constructing was briefly the nation’s tallest, the pathos of a file solely momentarily held seeming apt for a venture that represents the final glints of Kiwi PoMo — the tower was one of many massive industrial tasks not curtailed by the 1987 stockmarket crash. It’s an train in postmodern pluralism, knitting collectively a high-tech glazed entry, classical motifs, modernist bits and two historic buildings on the road frontage. It earned an NZIA Nationwide Award in 1992. See Structure NZ Jul/Aug 1991 and Might/June 1992.

OTHER ADDRESSES

Napier Avenue Townhouses (1982)
Napier Avenue, Freemans Bay, Auckland
Prepare dinner Hitchcock Sargisson

99 Boulcott Avenue (1983)
99 Boulcott Avenue, Wellington
Craig Craig Moller

68 Dixon Avenue (1984)
68 Dixon Avenue, Wellington
Craig Craig Moller

St Mary’s School (1986)
15 Guildford Terrace, Wellington
Structon Group
Varied campus tasks have been accomplished by way of the Eighties.

Hewlett Packard Constructing (1987)
186–190 Willis Avenue, Wellington
Athfield Architects

Symonds Centre and O’Rorke Corridor (1989)
47–51 Symonds Avenue, Auckland
Stephenson & Turner

British Excessive Fee (1990)
44 Hill Avenue, Wellington
Structon Group

HQ for Southland Constructing and Funding Society (1993)
51 Don Avenue, Invercargill
Barclay Architects and Baxter Hesselin McDowell Architects
Maybe the world’s southern-most instance of postmodern classicism.

SOURCES

The worldwide books talked about are Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Structure (New York: MoMA, 1966), Vincent Scully’s The Shingle Type As we speak (New York: George Braziller, 1974) and Charles Jencks’ The Language of Submit-Fashionable Structure (New York: Rizzoli, 1977), up to date and reissued numerous instances up till 1991. Nearer to residence, David Mitchell and Gillian Chaplin’s The Elegant Shed: New Zealand Structure since 1945 (Auckland: Oxford College Press, 1984) devotes an extended, final chapter to an insightful evaluation of the brand new concepts then being absorbed. Dismay at among the merchandise of the increase is clear in Gerald Melling’s The Mid-Metropolis Disaster and Different Tales (Wellington: Thumbprint, 1989). Peter Shaw’s A Historical past of New Zealand Structure (Auckland: Hodder Moa Beckett, 1991) locations PoMo in its historic context and Douglas Lloyd Jenkins’ At House: A Century of New Zealand Design (Auckland: Godwit, 2004) is nice on the homes. See additionally Giles Reid’s insightful article on some lesserknown Kiwi PoMo practitioners: ‘As soon as extra, with feeling’, Structure NZ Sept/Oct 2019.