Speaker by Various Artists

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Speaker: The Architecture of Elsewhere

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  • Paul Litterick,

    I just want to know how much of the space will be actually dedicated to showing art...

    Much of it is additional atrium capacity, for corporate events.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1000 posts Report Reply

  • Tom Semmens,

    Actually having had breakfast there the other day i will admit that this does detract from the overall look.

    I sat down opposite it for a while and tried to think of ways to make that place look a bit less hideous. The trouble is, the name Timothy McVeigh kept popping into my head.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report Reply

  • recordari,

    Much of it is additional atrium capacity, for corporate events.

    Yes, that's what it looked like. In my experience hanging artworks on glass walls is a little tricky, and too much sunlight is not a good thing.

    They would have been better opening the tunnels under Albert Park, white washing the walls and hanging some lights. I should reserve my judgement until it opens I suppose. But so much of our national collection is in crates on Tinakori Rd (or is it Taranaki Street?) and if that is anything to go by, I don't have high hopes.

    AUCKLAND • Since Dec 2009 • 2607 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Wilson,

    Anyone wondering why architects in this country so often seem a little timid will be well instructed by the "debate" over the new Supreme Court. It looks unusual, so journalists go fossicking for people wanting to condemn it. Why, for heaven's sake, isn't that done with all the public buildings that do their best to be innocuous?

    To his credit, John Key has done his best to stay out of the debate. It's not his place to judge architectural merit, he says. Indeed. Contrast that with the approach of John Banks, Mike Lee and sundry other Auckland politicians who, despite their appalling track record in these matters, are only too willing to set themselves up as arbiters of good urban design.

    And going all the way back to Ana Smikiss and her first response to Patrick's post, what were the conclusions I drew in Metro that you couldn't agree with? I suggested we get on and build a cruise ship terminal and allow for Rugby World Cup party activity on or around Queens Wharf, and that this process shouldn't be sabotaged by all that "iconic building" talk. I agreed with several commentators that Bledisloe Wharf is the wrong place for a major public building. Most importantly, I suggested it is now time for public debate over what goes on the Tank Farm site. My suggestion: a museum of the future.

    See my article in the current Metro. I am pleased to say that Patrick is not alone with his thoughts.

    Since Mar 2007 • 9 posts Report Reply

  • philipmatthews,

    Warren hasn't done any good work since the Christchurch Town Hall in the 1970s, but he is 80.

    The times they were a-changing: the Christchurch Town Hall pretty much marked the end of that great period of Christchurch modernism. Some really awful post-modernism followed, of which Warren and Mahoney did more than its fair share, although as architectural historian Paul Walker has said, at least Warren owns up to a post-modern period. Walker, wryly: "You wonder how post-modernism ever happened because it seems that no- one was ever a practitioner of it."

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2007 • 656 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Litterick,

    .... a museum of the future.

    Shh, you will get the Sci-Fi fanboys excited.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1000 posts Report Reply

  • Ana Simkiss,

    Hi Simon Wilson,

    Thanks for the good work you are doing in Metro re the super city and other issues that we should all care about a little more. I do wonder sometimes whether the reason why Wellington has a wonderful and mostly public waterfront has something to do with the high level of citizen engagement. I've yet to see much of the same here in Auckland but we live in hope.

    Simon, I'm largely with you on the Queens Wharf - no need to rush into anything when we can deal with World Cup needs quickly and take a bit of time to consider more permanent structures. The other matters I'm not yet persuaded either way (in particular - why must there be a cruise ship terminal on Queens Wharf? what is Banks' obsession with a convention centre and where does that belong?). I will continue to inform myself and I am glad publications like yours are doing somethig to air the issues.

    What I'd really like to see is a coherent long term plan for the waterfront from Tank Farm to the Port. We need more public space in the city, and piecemeal private development has not done us many favours in Auckland. We can wait a few years to get it right.

    Freemans Bay • Since Nov 2006 • 141 posts Report Reply

  • recordari,

    Shh, you will get the Sci-Fi fanboys excited.

    Reaches for his sack of flame retardant in readiness...

    AUCKLAND • Since Dec 2009 • 2607 posts Report Reply

  • Tom Semmens,

    My suggestion: a museum of the future.

    Here is an idea: How about no buildings at all at the Tank Farm site (beyond a DOC sanctioned icecream stand)?

    Why not build a lovely golden sand artifical beach backed by landscaped gardens, a bandstand for the Sallies to regale the weekend crowds with brass band goodness, perhaps a duck pond for kiddies to feed the ducks and with a dinky quay for old men to show their grandchildren how to sail a model yacht, a little artifical amphitheatre for free small scale theatre (you know, summer Shakespeare and the like) and music and maybe even a free tram line to link it all to the Fanshawe/Lower Queen street?

    A helluva of a lot more people would sit on a sandy beach in summer and eat their lunch during their lunch hour, or have a picnic there under a (real) Nikau on the weekend, or jog around it on a bleak winters day, than visit an "iconic building."

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report Reply

  • andin,

    If it's one thing NZ is not short of it's beaches.
    And in winter they can be forlorn places for old men with model yachts.

    raglan • Since Mar 2007 • 1891 posts Report Reply

  • Geoff Lealand,

    Why not build a lovely golden sand artificial beach backed by landscaped gardens

    Just you wait--some bastard on a jet-ski* will turn up. Still, they did something like this on the south bank of the river which courses through Brisbane and it works.

    *If you hate them as much as I do, you will appreciate Grant Smithies diatribe against such tool-head machines in the most recent Sunday Star-Times.

    Screen & Media Studies, U… • Since Oct 2007 • 2562 posts Report Reply

  • andin,

    south bank of the river which courses through Brisbane and it works.

    Umm.. if I remember correctly the artificial beach is completely self contained. Cause you wouldn't want to be swimming in the Brisbane river, the colour never gets anywhere near blue or green or clear.
    A turgid brown is the best you'll get, and sharks do swim up it.

    raglan • Since Mar 2007 • 1891 posts Report Reply

  • Just thinking,

    Does anyone know the brief for the Hi Court?
    It seems to me that steel construction is a lot more than cosmetic & the design is just a box, so strong, maybe with an emergency role?
    The Christchurch Art Gallery has an emergency role & so is a just concrete box.

    Putaringamotu • Since Apr 2009 • 1158 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    It seems to me that steel construction is a lot more than cosmetic & the design is just a box, so strong, maybe with an emergency role?

    This morning on the radio they talked about actual functions beside the aesthetic (which is fine by me on its own), namely security and glare reduction.

    Why not build a lovely golden sand artificial beach backed by landscaped gardens

    I think if you're not planing to have an indoor mountain range, it means that as a nation you're not ambitious enough.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Litterick,

    Post hoc reasoning is common amongst architects: they put a decorative feature on a building and then claim it has a purpose.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1000 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    Yeah. And you wouldn't want to put decorative features on a building, because that's bad.

    I'm off to tear down Gothic cathedrals. Will send "before" and "after" postcards to you all.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Robyn Gallagher,

    The Christchurch Art Gallery has an emergency role & so is a just concrete box.

    Can you elaborate on this? It reminds me of the urban myth that TVNZ's HQ in Auckland was designed to be converted into a shopping mall if the whole television thing didn't work out.

    Since Nov 2006 • 1946 posts Report Reply

  • recordari,

    TVNZ's HQ in Auckland was designed to be converted into a shopping mall if the whole television thing didn't work out.

    So it didn't work out then?

    AUCKLAND • Since Dec 2009 • 2607 posts Report Reply

  • Just thinking,

    Christchurch Art Gallery is the alternate site for the CCC call centre in case of disaster, so I've been told by employees after there induction.

    Putaringamotu • Since Apr 2009 • 1158 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    So it didn't work out then?

    Zing!

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Just thinking,

    I've been told & there is surely a book in it somewhere, that changes in the people in Warren & Mahoney after the Town Hall had a rather large influence on things. That is to say the Architectual Team their were very good, balanced each other and raised the bar in NZ up to that point.
    Warren can draw but his vision fell off somewhat, I suspect the loss of key people is the reason.

    Putaringamotu • Since Apr 2009 • 1158 posts Report Reply

  • Andrew C,

    @Robyn

    It seems like Banks and co are looking at things backwards.

    I had never thought of it like that, but you are so on the mark.

    Auckland • Since May 2008 • 169 posts Report Reply

  • Tom Semmens,

    If it's one thing NZ is not short of it's beaches.

    Tried getting to one in your lunch hour from your CBD job in the 09?

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report Reply

  • andin,

    Tried getting to one in your lunch hour from your CBD job in the 09?

    You must be talking about yourself, I don't work in the CBD.
    And lunch at a beach? You mean on a grassed area near the sea don't you? Which is easy to do.
    Eating on a sandy beach is no fun.

    raglan • Since Mar 2007 • 1891 posts Report Reply

  • Gabor Toth,

    Christchurch benefits from an architectural tradition; its buildings are of high quality and it is not afraid of the Modern. Its architects were taught by their elders. It has a community which is concerned with the city centre.

    Well - concerned about the centre as broadly defined by the track loop that the touristy tram runs around. Their concern doesn't seem to extend much beyond that – either for the preservation of old buildings or the architecture of what replaces them. Over the past 12 years or so that I have been regularly visiting Christchurch (my in-laws live there) I've been shocked at the number of early 20th century commercial buildings south-east of the Square and in Sydenham that have been demolished at a time when most cities are trying to save and reuse them. In the late 1990's I was amazed to see so many of these buildings still standing. Since then wrecking balls have been hard at work. The historic Sydenham Town Hall (dating back to when the suburb was a separate local authority) also bit the dust in 2000 without too much fuss from the broader community. It’s now the site of Hell’s Pizza and the Mad Butcher. Much of the charming Edwardian architecture along the southern length of Manchester Street was similarly wiped out over this period to be replaced by car yards and dull retail cubes. One time I went to re-visit the Ambassador's Hotel on Manchester Street to photograph all their exquisite lead-light windows from the inside - only to find it a pile of rubble.

    There seems to be some very fixed ideas about what constitutes a heritage building in Christchurch, e.g...
    - Victorian stone buildings with pointy bits = good.
    - Edwardian commercial buildings (particularly those in old working-class areas) need not apply.

    Wellington • Since Dec 2006 • 137 posts Report Reply

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