From Heritage New Zealand, Autumn 2008

by Michael Findlay

A provincial modernist landmark may not be an ideal candidate for adaptive reuse

From time to time, I get reminded that I should not be wasting valuable space in this magazine by writing a general history of New Zealand Modernism but should be looking at specific modern buildings in peril.

An opportunity to do a bit of both arises with the Wanganui War Memorial Hall, an iconic modernist design that is part of a major reappraisal of Wanganui’s cultural facilities. The city is graced with a remarkable collection of cultural buildings in Queens Park, a collection that also includes the Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui Regional Museum and the city’s library.

There is little doubt use of the hall for its intended purpose has declined. The occasional emptiness of the building troubles the Wanganui District Council, and alternative uses have been suggested, including rehousing the city’s library. One option in the Heart of Wanganui project proposes relocating the library to the main hall but retaining the Concert Chamber and Pioneer Room as public venues. The council’s website says: “As well as using the main hall space, a mezzanine floor would be constructed. The wall facing Queens Park could be pushed out and large windows installed to let more light into the hall. A possibility is to incorporate Wanganui Inc and i-SITE Wanganui Visitor Information Centre within the breezeway area.”

While the Wanganui War Memorial Hall is in no immediate danger and protected by its Category I status, it is important that it does not become caught up in the sort of planning that sees adaptive re-use as a panacea for “difficult” modern buildings.

Is iconic too much of a stretch? As a home-grown example of International Modernism, the Wanganui War Memorial Hall points to something greater than itself, which is what an icon does.

A national architectural competition for a war memorial in the form of a public hall was announced in 1955, and responded to by three young New Zealand architects on their OE in Britain. Anthony Greenhough, Geoff Newman and Gordon Smith were recent graduates of the Auckland School of Architecture, and the drawings for the competition were worked on after hours in their Putney, London, flat. The conditions of the competition suited their simple facilities. A complex perspective rendering was not called for, and Newman’s sketchy and expressive line drawings included a bird’s eye view showing how the hall would relate to Queen’s Park and the existing complex of gardens and buildings. Their bold scheme won the assessor’s approval. Greenhough, Smith and Newman returned to work on the project in 1956, and construction began in 1958.

What was opened to the public in April 1960 was an architectural sensation for most New Zealanders. Like a piece of contemporary art, the hall was more abstract than representational, but the design also conveyed traditional meanings to which the public could respond. Its pure whiteness and geometric outline alluded to the cenotaph form of earlier war memorials.

It did not resemble any kind of public building, and this difference came from more than grafting a few modernist details onto a traditional form. The whole experience of the building was different. Visitors entered a glazed foyer at ground level, set beneath the deep shade of a waffleshaped concrete floor slab, supported on cylindrical concrete columns. At night, light washed out from this space across the grid of concrete paving. There was no awkward ceremonial flight of stairs rising to solid timber doors in a stone wall. You simply crossed a single surface and passed through glass doors into the cool space beyond. Overhead were a concert chamber, main hall and the Pioneer Hall, set behind its brise soleil wall of hollow concrete blocks.

The functions of these internal spaces can be read from subtle changes in the exterior. A copper dome was set over the concert chamber, and the main hall was walled with concrete block and had a projecting clerestory overhead, supported on welded steel trusses. The caretaker’s flat was plugged into the side of the building like a component in like a diagram.

The building appeared to hover weightlessly as a series of thin slabs. This impression was enhanced by the use of glass, both as full height partitions and at the top of what appeared to be structural walls but which were simply space dividers. The extensive use of cast concrete allowed load-bearing structures to be both hidden and revealed. In many ways, the building functioned as a sequence of “negatives”, where the traditional elements of a public building were conspicuously absent. Placed unobtrusively at the base of the hill rather than dominating the crown, turning 90 degrees on its site towards the other buildings rather than facing the street, and offering welcoming glimpses of its interior rather than a fortress wall, the hall reversed almost all of the earlier conventions of civic space. In modernist fashion, inside and outside became blurred, particularly in the Pioneer Hall, where a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass created an invisible boundary behind the hollow blocks of the brise soleil.

As much as its daring exterior continues to impress, the Wanganui War Memorial Hall is also about the emotional qualities of its internal space. Architecture is defined at its most fundamental level by the way in which it encloses volume.

To the viewer unaccustomed to high Modernism, the shock of the outside was balanced somewhat by the beauty and repose of the interior, where Greenhough, Smith and Newman showed that contemporary architecture was not faddish or unable to convey deep meaning.

The central feature of the building, and continuing focus for Wanganui’s Anzac Day commemorations, is the vestibule containing the Book of Remembrance, constantly lit and backed by the main stair to the halls above. Here, space and circulation, combined with the simple gesture of a row of flags behind a central stone plinth, contribute to a moving architectural experience. The space induced respect and contemplation through modernist language, at a time when a suitable reminder of wartime sacrifice was still a representational monument of some sort.

Adaptive re-use of heritage buildings has been one of the most positive trends in urban design in recent years, and few would suggest that the conversion of neglected buildings into busy and active residential, cultural and commercial spaces is a bad thing. Wanganui’s heritage facilities are certainly long overdue for redevelopment, and the example of New Plymouth’s Puke Ariki, where the city’s library and museum have been successfully brought together, is a tempting model for other local authorities to follow.

Major difficulties arise when the value of a building is contained in the quality of its internal space as well as its outside envelope. Once filled with steel shelving, mezzanine floors and books, this quality would be lost and the building greatly diminished in the process.

No doubt the council wants to see the hall better used by the community, but simply installing another public facility with an existing demand within its walls is a short-sighted solution at best. Comfortingly, this is only one option among many that explore the redevelopment of the park and its remarkable array of buildings. We should remember that the Wanganui War Memorial Hall is a monument, not a shopping mall, and it does not matter in the long term whether it is constantly thronged with people.

Indeed, its current lack of use arises from the city’s recently restored Opera House having reduced the demand for its auditorium and performance spaces. Temporary events that complemented the hall’s spectacular modernist setting would give it back the public role that has fallen away in recent years.

The people of Wanganui will be presented with a variety of choices in a referendum in November 2008. The future of one of New Zealand’s finest buildings of any era or style is part of this complex design problem, and it has to be asked if the cure is worse than the disease, if it means the essential loss of the Wanganui War Memorial Hall’s integrity.