Australian and New Zealand architecture -Douglas Lloyd Jenkins' At Home

HIS SHED; THEIR HOME

Douglas Lloyd-Jenkins' At Home  A Century of New Zealand Design (Random House  New Zealand  2004) offers an examination of a theme which remains contentious in the realm of architecture and design - sexism. Despite some notable female names (you can count them on the fingers of one foot), antipodean architecture has remained a male preserve.

There are far more female names associated with design than architecture per se but according to the prevailing ethos of architecture, the work of all domestic designers is secondary, subsidiary and irrelevant to the ARCHITECTURE. As an architect told Lloyd-Jenkins, 'I'm not interested in door handles and light fittings.'

Regardless of their gender, designers of domestic fittings are seen by many architects as feminine, whereas the work of an architect is for MEN. This goes some way to accounting for the large number of Australian and New Zealand structures which, possessing neither grace nor originality, impose themselves on our scapes by force of presence.

This may be what a corporate client requires of a city sky scraper emblazoned with logo and name - building as bill board - but what about our homes? Must they too dominate their location, impose on their site, mount their plot, thrust into their environment? And aren't too many of those skyscrapers generic? One of the advantages the makers of The Matrix films saw in Sydney was its anonymity - so much of its skyline could simply have been any where.

Go to any architecture conference and observe the male participants - dark suits, dark shirts against which lie the plain dark ties. Where lurks the joie de vivre, the originality - indeed the creative spirit in this gloomy display? What is evident is fearful and pretentious conformity. And listen to the papers. What must pass as thought tortures its responders with obscurantism delivered with overweening pomposity.

Doesn't the ethos call for an explosion of colour and light, laughter and irreverence? Doesn't the expression of that ethos too often reflect the self-important ponderousness of architects, their fear of falling out with the herd?

Of course you can name individual exceptions but we're talking about an ethos here.

In short, Australian architecture is bailed up in an outdated notion of masculinity.

Let's say the feminine does not need to take itself desperately seriously, is interested in colour and detail, human needs, can listen, is not afraid to feel the lightness of being, has the self-belief to be witty.

There seems to be no Australian architect with the freedom of spirit or responsiveness of an Utzon or a Piano.

It is probably less confronting to consider what Lloyd-Jenkins has to say about twentieth century New Zealand architecture in order to reflect on Australian achievements. So let's have a look at what his book tells us about the ethos in which New Zealand architects have been working.

Twentieth century New Zealand home design was given a good start under the influence of the Governor-General's wife, Lady Ranfurly. She invited the outside in with potted plants and swept the gloom of Victoriana away with light coloured floral fabrics which were, astonishingly for the day, co-ordinated with other pieces of furniture. After her tour of duty in the Empire, Lady Renfurly established a New Zealand room in her home in Ireland featuring Goldie portraits of Maori as well as Maori and other Pacific artefacts. This in itself suggests she had not been afraid to consider where she was whilst resident in that furthest flung outpost of Empire. The history of twentieth century New Zealand architecture could be characterised as a struggle to do the same.

Apart from a panic stricken and desperate regard at anything but local possibilities, twentieth century New Zealand architecture was beset by masculinism. Lloyd-Jenkins' epitomises this as 'the shed'. 'The shed' was a structure for 'man alone', in which HE could prove himself autonomous, dependent on nothing and no-one as he wrestled nature into submission with an axe, a hired bulldozer and a couple of experienced tradesmen. But HE needed no-one, the Man in his Shed. It was as if New Zealand architects were designing for the Phantom. The famous 'First House' designed and built in the late '40's by some Auckland Architecture students who called themselves 'The Architectural Group' had no laundry. Oh well, we never see the Phantom washing the purple underwear he flaunts in public either. The dining room chair designed by Group member Allan Wild, while an elegant use of plywood, looks better suited for a Baptist chapel than a domestic interior.

Soon after the First House was completed, Group member Bruce Rotherham designed and built a house for himself. It is much admired by Lloyd-Jenkins. I have my reservations. Note the cooking area (p 120) - would you want to prepare Christmas dinner for relatives and friends there? Note also the bearded man peering down from above. Is it just the knowledge that Mrs Rotherham's life ended tragically that makes this a disturbing image?

Up until post modernism, twentieth century New Zealand architecture was notably masculinist - serious, defensive, derivative, increasingly out of touch with the demands and requirements of domestic life and wantonly severe in its decorative effects (creosoted timber, varnished timber, more creosoted timber, in straight lines thank you). The exception to this essentially inept and gloomy rule were the two Art Deco moments, with their curvy lines, shiny or coloured surfaces, their embrace of the new technologies. It is worth noting that these exceptions were more a matter of design than architecture. Lloyd-Jenkins offers an account of the early 70's revival of Art Deco in New Zealand as having 'its roots in international decadence ... flamboyant and attention getting ... chic, urban and cosmopolitan ... somewhat camp and a little effeminate'. He contrasts this with the New Colonial style of the same period with 'its roots in the worthiness of the pioneer and the dullness of an omnipresent nationalism ... rustic ... emphasising the vernacular ... low key and comfortable'. Perhaps he felt it was so implicit in his characterisation of the New Colonial that it he did not need to state that it was also 'overwhelmingly masculinist' (though you’d have to delete that ‘comfortable’ – masculinist architecture is neither comfortable nor really utilitarian though it affects to be so).

New Zealand's Art Deco revival saw a synthesis of design and architecture which led to the triumph of the New Zealand pavilion at Expo '70 in Osaka. The architect Michael Payne not only designed the chair which was to become a classic in New Zealand but co-operated with other designers on the project. Lloyd-Jenkins claims that the table settings for the pavilion's Geyser Room Restaurant 'represent a high point in New Zealand design'.

Lloyd-Jenkins' book is the first history of New Zealand architecture to relate architectural developments with the accompanying ones in domestic design. This in itself says much.

Lloyd-Jenkins' message in At Home ought to be heeded by all architects if they are to be taken, as they  so desperately want to be taken - seriously. 'Sheds', no matter how elegant, must contain objects, decorative and functional, if they are to be homes. This challenge will require architects to stop acting as if their balls had just been grabbed when they're asked to give an opinion of an upholstery fabric or what kind of vase might go well on the sideboard.

Ian MacNeill