New Architectural Make-up

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31079, 7 June 1966, Page 16

New Architectural Make-up

From 1950 onward the architectural face of Christchurch has been set to experience substantial change. The neo-classical make-up and pseudoGothic lace behind which lurks red, rusty iron, is being removed. The archi-tect-beauticians have prescribed a new brand of cosmetic, new coiffures such as ‘Tenthouse Playful,” and all will look clean behind the ears. Most people remembering the years before 1950 will recall no similar great burst of building. In the dundreary thirties Christchurch, fortunately, escaped the worst excesses of the “modeme” cosmeticians. So little was built and of that only a few buildings may still exhibit a state of architectural grace— Hart's Mendelssohnian Miller’s Emporium and the chalky finger of Woods’s State Fire Insurance building approach beautification. ■ The Second World War and the rigorous economic controls that accompanied it and which were continued long after, prevented anything but the most utilitarian and inhumanly austere of structures. Christchurch approached its

centenary a raddled drab with a few gems pinned to its checkerboard coat NEW GENERATION It was then, in a less restrictive economic climate providentially coincident with the appearance of a new generation of architects, that the change began. Graduates of the School of Architecture, professional office trainees and immigrant professionals brought with them the hope that what was fundamental to an architecture of the twentieth century had been understood and would be applied felicitously within the local context In their company were structural engineers, few but enterprising, who were to be almost equal partners in the concept and execution of each new building. More senior architects were stimulated by the new men, absorbed some of them, and responded variously to their challenge. What was not charged with a similar energy and imagination was a building industry grown fat on emergency works-and crash accommodation programmes, enduring little competition, and conceiving of no need to develop efficiently, up-grade its

or encourage skills and new techniques. Possession of a hammer made many into carpenters; little more equipment or training encouraged some to become contractors. This condition of the building industry might have dulled the sharp idealism of the designers and it is possible that in designing within the limits of existing skills , and organisation of the trade—"we can’t get it” and “It can't de done”—much of what was fresh and original was denied. Certainly, there was a tentativeness and conservatism among these architects which suited the big representation of “Nervous Nellies’’ among their clients.

In addition regulating authorities were tardy in altering building laws and provided frequent and needless frustration of quite enlightened ideas.

Nonetheless, much of great value has been achieved in recent years. New techniques have been advanced by the designers and new industrial methods developed to keep pace. Efficient organisation is evident in many contracting firms. And the new idioms In building design are all about

us in familiar and unfamiliar proportions—in some instances with an enduring traditional flavour, in others possessing a glazed Impersonality. We may observe curious reversals of condition where a new warehouse such as that of Pyne, Gould, Guinness Ltd., is of a more stimulating design than the pretentious office boxes erected under the watchful eye of the cost-per-square-foot beagles, where new churches huddle in suburban scrums wearing the local colours, and new theatres provide the colour and sculptural play of form. Those who are daily subjected to the environmental influences that architecture exerts must often bear with the new and unfamiliar without understanding unsure of the validity of their personal reactions and reluctant to praise or blame.

To help widen public interest in the architecture of Christchurch and to help develop a more Informed critical climate into which new buildings may be received, this column shall, from time to time, take notice of new structures in what is the most public of all the arts.

—FLAGPOLE.