Monday, November 08, 2010

HOME WORK - Leading NZ Architects' Own Houses

A house says a lot about the people who live in it. If one of that house’s inhabitants is also its architect, it says a whole lot more.

That’s the premise behind ‘Home Work: Leading New Zealand Architects’ Own Houses’, (random House - $75) the gorgeous new book (being launched in Auckland this evening) from John Walsh and Patrick Reynolds, the writer-photographer team behind ‘New New Zealand Houses’, the well-received survey of contemporary resident architecture, published in 2007.

“Architects spend their working lives answering to clients. This book explores what happens when they only have to answer to themselves,” says Walsh, whose own day job is editing ‘Architecture New Zealand’. “When they design their own homes architects have the opportunity to bring their experience together with their beliefs about what is really important in what they do.”
“The result is often a highly individual journey, one that can go on for decades. In that case, a house becomes the built story of its architect.”

Walsh says the biographical aspect of ‘Home Work’, which features 20 residential projects and substantial interviews with their architects, is central to the book.
“‘Home Work’ is not only about interesting buildings,” Walsh says. “It’s also about interesting lives. Patrick and I have both been covering architecture for years, and we think that many of New Zealand’s architects are significant figures in the country’s culture, and that they deserve more recognition than they’ve traditionally received.”

The homes chosen for the book had to have been designed by an architect for him or herself and, at the time the interviews for the book were conducted out, that architect had to have been still living in the home.

“These criteria allowed us to present an accessible survey of homes, and architects, varying widely in their age, location and type,” Walsh says. “There are houses, such as Don Donnithorne’s in Christchurch and Bill Toomath’s in Wellington, pic right, that have been lived in by their architects and their families for half a century. There are others, such as the North Shore house designed by David Mitchell and Julie Stout, that have been built in the last couple of years.”
“And then there are houses that have been under construction for decades, and which may never be finished, like Ian Athfield’s great sprawling house on a Wellington Cliffside, or Tony Watkins’ house hiding in the pohutukawa beside an Auckland beach.”

The geographical range of ‘Home Work’ extends from south of Queenstown to north of Kerikeri. The human range of the book extends from Bronwen Kerr and Pete Ritchie and their young family, living on the shores of Lake Wanaka, to Peter Beaven, living in an apartment block he designed in central Christchurch, still practicing at 85, and still as feisty as ever.

“What’s fascinating is that a small profession in a small country should have such a rich array of characters,” Walsh says. “At one end, you have a very business-focused architects, and at the other, you have natural rebels like Gerald Melling, who somehow has got away with popping up a little box house on a Wellington rooftop.”

Each of the projects featured in the book receives at last a dozen pages, sufficient space to chronicle the homes and to demonstrate the mastery of Patrick Reynolds, New Zealand’s leading architectural photographer. For Reynolds the book has an additional resonance: more than 30 years ago, his mother, Marilyn, co-authored a book on the same topic.

About the authors:
John Walsh is the managing editor of AGM Publishers, directly responsible for ‘Architecture New Zealand’, ‘Houses’ and ‘Urbis’ magazines. He wrote ‘New New Zealand Houses’ with Patrick Reynolds.

Patrick Reynolds is New Zealand’s leading architectural photographer. His work is published in leading architecture magazines both here and overseas. His recent books include ‘New New Zealand Houses’ (with John Walsh), ‘Architecture Uncooked’ (with Pip Cheshire) and ‘Villa’ (with Jeremy Salmond and Jeremy Hansen).

House below, selected because I go by it most days, is Marshall Cook's home in Freemnas Bay in Auckland.







1 comment:

Philippines properties for sale said...

So great to live on the last photo.

Arrielle P