From Heritage New Zealand, Spring 2010

by Jamie Douglas

As the architecture of the 1960s reaches its half century, it’s time to take another look at those buildings that were considered so unattractive at the time. In the context of today’s design aesthetic, can they be regarded as having heritage value?

Every year an international tourism website compiles a list of the 10 ugliest buildings in the world. In its latest list the Beehive in Wellington,  designed in 1964, secured third place, with one description of it being “a slide projector that fell on a wedding cake that fell on a waterwheel”. Architect Sir Basil Spence would not have been impressed.

Christchurch architect Peter Beaven quips: “I actually like the Beehive. It is the obvious symbol for the buzz of bureaucrats. Spence was clever but, more importantly, showed our inability to be mature enough to complete the classical symmetry.” In terms of ugliness, the Beehive was beaten into the first and second positions by the Morris A. Mechanic Theatre in Baltimore, built in 1967, and the Zizkov TV Tower (1985-1992) in Prague.

While the average person might point to the Beehive as an example of 1960s’ architecture, more likely the response is to the high-rise apartment blocks, symmetrical forms and concrete – lots of concrete – which seemed almost brutish in their obtrusion into the quaint and ornate world of bungalows and villas.

The buildings are too ugly then, surely, to be regarded as having heritage value?

Not so, says Victoria University School of Architecture lecturer Michael Dudding, who believes the heritage importance of 1960s’ buildings in New Zealand has yet to be fully realised. The reason, in part, is the very nature of the buildings which typically followed a formula based on brutalism and modernism – in most basic terms the significant use of concrete to achieve a rough, blocky appearance.

Michael agrees that just the sound of the genre – brutalism – does not immediately exude a natural sense of warmth. And explaining the attributes and style of these buildings may not be enough to overcome the initial visual impression. “Having a very clear expression of structure, buildings of this period are seen as brutal or ugly for those reasons,” he says. “And it prevents people from appreciating the style unless, I guess, you’re an architectural expert.”

So what buildings are we talking about? Large-scale works included Peter Beaven’s Lyttelton Road Tunnel Authority Building (1964) and government projects such as universities at Ilam, Waikato and Massey in Palmerston North, Paremoremo Prison, Auckland Airport and the Wellington Postal Centre. Concrete was big. Concrete was built to last. The 1960s were also associated with the rise of housing firms such as Lockwood. Architecturally designed houses were on the increase along with high-rise apartment buildings, particularly in Auckland and Wellington.

Michael is emphatic in his answer as to whether the heritage importance of 1960s’ residential housing is being realised. “No, it’s not. I’m currently looking at research into the reasons people are changing them and these include size and layout. The rationalised modesty of the 1960s’ house is undervalued. I don’t know if 1960s’ architecture is yet cool enough in a retro sort of way except, perhaps, in simplistic, aesthetic terms, especially the furniture, for example. With modernist buildings it’s hard for many people to realise they have historical merit; they’re not ostentatious or of a popularly recognised style such as the villa or bungalow.”

The 1960s were dominated by the influence of the Christchurch school of architecture. Sir Miles Warren is regarded as New Zealand’s foremost modern architect, having worked in England when the brutalist style was evolving in the 1950s. He combined the structures and materials of brutalism with Scandinavian and Japanese elements of straightforward design. One of his earliest projects, the recently NZHPT Category I-registered Dorset Street flats in central Christchurch designed in 1956, provided a blueprint for modernist thinking.

When built they were dubbed ”Fort Dorset” for their substantial concrete-block appearance. Tour buses would visit to view what was reputed to be the ugliest building in the city. However, the flats were greatly admired in architectural circles.

The Christchurch Modern website sums up the sense of pride and place associated with the Christchurch school and its ideas were picked up nationwide. “No longer did Christchurch look north  to Auckland and Wellington or west to Sydney and Melbourne for inspiration; they had their own style.   With modernist buildings it’s hard for many people to realise they have historical merit; they’re not ostentatious or of a popularly recognised style such as the villa or bungalow.”

“In construction, concrete blocks replaced timber cladding. Placement on the site was emphatic. Chimneys were tall and assertive. Windows and doors seemed to have been punched through solid masses. The result looked sculptural, abstract and emphatically anchored in the landscape.”

For Peter Beaven there were regional differences in the materials used to express modernism. “The shape and form of houses up to the 1970s were dictated by what we had. It was posts-and-beams and pitched roofs in Christchurch. In Wellington it was flat-roofed and modernist, but in Christchurch it was more traditional. Until the late 1970s Christchurch architecture was dominated by its English history.”

That English influence was reflected in a comment by the secretary of the Royal Institute of British Architects who told Peter on a visit to New Zealand in the late 1960s that in all his travels around the Commonwealth he “hadn’t seen the English style of architecture so well represented as in Christchurch”.

With much of his research focused on Wellington, Michael Dudding says the influence of architects such as Bill Alington and Bill Toomath in the 1960s is as valuable as that of the Christchurch school. Bill Alington worked as an architect with the Ministry of Works (MOW) during this decade, his major works including the Gisborne Courthouse (1962), the Meteorological Office in Wellington (1965), Wellington High School and the Upper Hutt Civic Centre. His buildings are on Michael’s list of favourites. “Teachers’ College (architect Bill Toomath), the Upper Hutt Civic Centre, Downstage Theatre (architect James Beard)... all these are 1970s’ buildings but they were designed in the 1960s. There’s a precision and thoughtfulness of detail that today we often lose behind shiny surfaces.”

Bill Alington says that while New Zealand architects took stock of what was happening in Europe and America, it was a case of applying a unique detail to broader international themes. New Zealand was “light years behind” the European modern movement while America was “more or less transformed into a fashion”, whereas in New Zealand “it was really a passion”. The key strength to 1960s’ architecture here lay in the limited material available.

“We had such a limited palette and I think that was a good thing. Today there is a plethora of materials, so many alternatives. There was a straightforwardness to work in the 1960s and we knew the materials. The other advantage we had was a very strong earthquake resistant strategy. The MOW was at the forefront of all that. Buildings of this period had a structure that was always recognised and not suppressed. And while colour was much more controlled than it is today, we tended to express our buildings by shadow and light. We used structure in that way to articulate them.”

The house Bill designed in 1962 for his family in Karori, Wellington is regarded as a fine example of the New Zealand modern movement  architecture that characterised the decade. He drew on influences from the Architectural Group of the 1940s – students from Auckland University – who had produced a manifesto relating modern movement architecture to a New Zealand context – climate, resources, lifestyle and relationship to the land. When Bill shows the plans for Alington House, its simplicity is immediately apparent to even the untrained eye. Fold the plan in half and its symmetry would be on show. That, in essence, is what it was all about, says Bill. “I’d always felt that the house had to have a certain balance to it; I didn’t see it as anything startling at the time, really. It was a post-and-beam house, very simple.”

Like many architects nationwide, Peter Beaven also built his own family home. However, it has recently been purchased and demolished. It adds currency to his view that 1960s’ architecture, built to be sympathetic to and a valued part of the streetscape, is being undermined. His former house – “a dear little building” – is no more. “It’s absolutely disgraceful  what’s happening here. A lot of those buildings had respect for the Christchurch tradition and were built by the owners with pride. Only the function of making money seems to create building style now.”

Wellington’s Futuna Chapel, Hall & Mackenzie’s University of Canterbury Registry Building, Warren & Mahoney’s Christchurch Town Hall, the Richardson Building (formerly Hocken Building) in Dunedin and his own Manchester Unity Building and Road Authority Building in Lyttelton are among those admired by Peter. The Road Authority Building is regarded as a classic piece of modernism and when Peter describes his reasoning behind the design it’s easy to understand why the connection still resonates.

“The Tunnel Building was an important gateway into Christchurch so it had to have some monumental character. The four ships of the pioneers here have a fifth ship, moored to the roadway with the over-dramatic stairway stating the building’s importance. The interior decoration was all panelled so you felt as if you were in a Thames barge. On the roof the shapes correspond to the big volcanic upthrusts along the peninsula.”

Michael Dudding says there is now an academic and architectural push to promote modern heritage but “whether that will translate to a more popular concern for the heritage of the 1960s is anyone’s guess”. Arguably the real battle for the buildings’ survival lies in the court of public opinion. Judging by readers’ comments to The Press newspaper after the recent NZHPT registration of the Dorset Street flats (“It is still an ugly block of concrete flats over 50 years on” and “Give the land to a property developer so they can be demolished”) it could be quite a battle.

But, as history shows when it comes to identifying and protecting our heritage, it’s a battle worth fighting.