No Style of Our Own

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 62, 30 August 1940, Page 6

No Style of Our Own

Jee: Do you think New Zealand, with a ‘ short architectural past-and much of that in @ period when architecture in many parts of the

world was stationary and far from inspiring-will develop an architectural style entirely peculiar to this country? ANSWER: Frankly, I don’t. The best architects of to-day in all lands, are fully alive first to the mecessity for making our buildings thoroughly suitable fér the purposes for which they are built-regard-less of what former custom has been, and secondly to the utter futility of trying to impose a preconceived exterior that doesn’t suit, and to the worse fault of trying to embellish with bits of decoration, cribbed from somewhere else, something that is fundamentally wrong in its general lines and layout. This is realised in New Zealand and then there is this other important factor, materials. It is recognised, here as well as elsewhere, that concrete and steel, separately and in combination, have come to stay and that architectural developments must be sympathetic to the possibilities these materials offer, just as mud and cob were successfully handled in their day. Another factor which suggests that an individual style will not develop in New Zealand is the contraction of the world in the past halfcentury. Distances which used to take a quarter of the year to cover can now be travelled in a week, shipping, railways, and motor services can transport important building materials almost anywhere, so there is no necessity to do.,without an important building commodity just because it is not a local product. For example-where would we be in New Zealand if we had not imported steel girders which are the bones of half our largest buildings?-(R.S.D. Harman and F. A. Shurrock, "Things as Seen by An Architect," 3YA August 14).