Treasure out of ruins
The Art Deco 1910-1939 exhibition at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts describes Napier as “one of the purest Art Deco cities in the world.” An IHT article gives a detailed tour of Napier’s architectural treasures, with special mention of their historical origin in the earthquake of 1931: “When the people of Napier rebuilt their broken city, they simply needed a new home. But what they created has instead become a monument to their experience, a moment of tragedy and renewal frozen in time.”
(3 December 2004)

Beyond the humble bach
The Guardian explores NZ’s high-end bach culture, with profiles of such luxurious rentals as the Glasshouse on Waiheke Island, Oceania II and Villa Toscana Lodge on the Coromandel Peninsula, and the Hawke’s Bay’s Tom’s Cottage and Cellar Master’s Cottage. "Crowded beaches are unheard of, and the lush landscape is perfect for unwinding. Even close to the tourist centres, you feel very much off the beaten track. Added to which, the country has all the fine wines, adventurous food and dazzling landscapes of neighbouring Australia, but on a more manageable, European scale.”
(17 January 2004)

Finding beauty in quotodian Wellington architecture 
Ex-pat Peter Campbell, LRB art critic, returns home to report on all things architectural: "Painters have not made much of Wellington houses, but in Rita Angus's picture of Thorndon, the part of the city she lived in, the verandah-fringed houses and cottages, clustering under the pine-covered cliff of the fault scarp, give some idea of the logic behind the random scramble of building - a geometry in which buildings look for light and a view of the hills or the sea in much the same way that a field of sunflowers turns to the sun."
(4 November 2002)

Trans-urbanism: getting Wigley with it
Colombia University Professor of Architecture, NZer Mark Wigley bemoans the divide between theory and practice at a Rotterdam symposium to debate the future of the city. Sharing the hustings with Rem Koolhaas, Edward Soja and Scott Lash, Wigley opines that architects see themselves as "friendly aliens ... giving plans which will solve everything ... and zoom they're gone". Wigley is one of the foremost architectural theorists and critics of his generation, credited with deconstructing the discipline: getting the builders thinking about the map view and as much as the built object.
(12 December 2001) 

Stadium award
"The trend has finally swung away from the exaggeration of post-modernism...Buildings are now plain, restrained and professional." Capturing the mood, Wellington's WestpacTrust Stadium picked up the international section at the Australian National Architecture Awards.
(18 November 2000)

Arrondissement-on-the-Edge
NZ-born architect Brendan MacFarlane is playing a major role in the redevelopment of Paris's 13th arrondissement. The planning project for the French capital's "nouveau quartier" is known as Paris Rive Gauche, and has been in progress since 1996. MacFarlane, who is one half of Paris-based architecture firm Jakob + MacFarlane, won the development rights to a turn-of-the-century dockside depot on the banks of the Seine. The Docks de Paris building will house cafés, shops, a landscaped roof terrace, exhibition space for contemporary design, and the French Fashion Institute. "When it works, that collective nature can be really wonderful," he says of the group spirit driving the area's redevelopment. "Sometimes having to have so many opinions and agreement can be a nightmare but, when everyone comes together around a table and it works, it can be amazing. I don't think this is an experience that will be repeatable." 
(5 January 2008)

Titirangi Tate 
Architect Chris Tate's Titirangi dream house featured in the Telegraph's property pages this month. Tate's home sits 13 feet above a gully at its highest point, anchored by 16 poles in the earth. The effect is like a glass box floating in the treetops; its clean lines a stark contrast to the wilds outside. "I wanted it to be modernist, simple, to make the environment paramount and the building secondary," said Tate, who has been a practising architect for only a year. "Working with such a beautiful landscape, you really don't want to stuff it up."
(2 September 2007)

Herne Bay haven 
Wallpaper's April issue includes a Pacific-inspired Herne Bay home designed Auckland's Stevens Lawson Architects. "For us, it's the ultimate modernist abstraction," says architect Nicholas Stevens of the impressive structure, which features a glass-reinforced concrete facade, carvings inspired by tapa cloth and fluid living spaces with optional timber partitions. The two-storey house, owned by skin specialist Dr Mark Gray and partner Suzanah Kearns, won the 2005 NZ Institute of Architects' Supreme Award for Architecture. "Our previous house was designed by Nick and Gary [Lawson]," says Gray. "We had confidence in what they had achieved and gave them a relatively open brief."
(April 2007)

Heir to a legend 
Antoni Gaudi's great unfinished masterpiece - the Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona - is finally nearing completion, under the steady hand of NZ architect Mark Burry. Work on the epic scale building effectively ended with Gaudi's death in 1926. In 1979, while still an architecture student, Burry visited the cathedral and met its aging project directors. One interview later, Burry was heading the restoration project. "When you look at [the Sagrada Familia] as a whole," says Burry, "you realise that [Gaudi is] probably an exceptional architect, one of a handful of brilliant architects whose work is future-proof." The cathedral's interior is expected to be open to the public by 2008, but the exterior will not be completed until the centenary of Gaudi's death in 20 years time. 
(13 October 2005)

From shack to chic: The not-so-humble bach
Wallpaper* pays homage to the Kiwi bach, in its most highly evolved form. "Baches built today reflect the increased value of the land - they're less rustic and more expensive to build - but the best examples still reference the simplicity of the past." The article looks at waterfront property and neighbouring attractions in Piha, the Bay of Islands, Waiheke Island, Lake Taupo, and Queenstown.
(June 2004)

Holiday high
New Zealander Russell Brice plans to build the world's highest hotel - at base camp on Everest's Tibetan flank. The hotel aims to be "a flagship of green construction techniques," using solar power and recycling waste.
(7 January 2001)

Domestic round
Kiwi ingenuity presents the solution to your sunlight problems: turn the house around! Don Dunick spent fifteen years designing and building the world's first fully revolving house.
(23 August 2000)

Elemental design lets house take care of itself
Professor Brenda Vale and Dr Robert Vale of the Sustainable Design Centre Research Centre at the University of Auckland, use The Times to forward their manifesto for environmentally friendly housing design. Their 'Autonomous House' boasts an odourless toilet and there are no bills: heating, electricity, water and sewerage treatment are all free.
(17 June 2000) 

Artist and Architect with a Childlike Love of Embellishment
The straight lines of modern architecture particularly incensed him.
(22 February 2000)

Doyen of deconstructivism 
NZ architect Mark Wigley is name-checked in Dwell magazine's monthly Architectural Movements 101 section. Wigley's famous Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition, with Philip Johnson, forms the basis of Dwell's May article devoted to the deconstructivism and digital design movements. Dwell: "If there is one thing about which all deconstructivists agree, it is that there is no one thing about which all deconstructivists agree ... It must have been with a certain sense of irony, then, that Mark Wigley and the venerable Philip Johnson put together their landmark exhibition, "Deconstructivist Architecture", back in 1988." 
(May 2007)

New Zealander of the Year 
Wellington architect Jonathan Rennie was named New Zealander of the Year at the annual NZ Society Waitangi Day dinner in London. The award recognises an outstanding contribution by a NZ or British national towards presenting a positive image of NZ in Britain. Rennie was honoured for his work as Athfield Architects' London representative on the NZ memorial in Hyde Park, which was officially dedicated by the Queen on 11 November 2006. "Jonathan's input into the project was invaluable in creating such a lasting tribute at Hyde Park Corner, which all New Zealanders can identify with and feel proud to be a kiwi," said judge Scott Carr of Air NZ Europe. Time magazine Power 100 businessman John Buchanan and scientist Tim Drysdale, whose work is set to revolutionise airport security, both made the award's shortlist. 
(3 February 2007)

Aspirational Apprehension
Aucklander Andrew Patterson features in the new Phaidon showcase of the world's 100 most exceptional emerging architects selected by 10 leading figures in architecture. “We’re a beautiful natural part of the planet and our buildings should reflect that. We belong here and our buildings should look as if they naturally belong and we contribute to the planet rather than feel guilty about wrecking the place.” New Zealander Davina Jackson, now of Sydney, was one of the selectors. New Zealand, she writes, “is a magnet for wealthy, but apprehensive, American businessmen who escape – at least part-time – their homeland by building ideal residences on the remote and achingly beautiful coastlines of these narrow, sub-Antarctic islands.” 
(2005)

Beach houses
"Self-catering in NZ has never been sexier." The Observer rates four of the North Island's most luxurious retreats; the Glass House on Waiheke Island ("this is a beach house in the same way that Concorde was a passenger jet"), the Top House at Lake Taupo ("surely a contender for Architectural Digest"), Big Tom's Cottage at Tuki Tuki Valley, Hawkes Bay ("the quaint rustic property has been given a contemporary twist with funky local artwork, including a giant fly and weeping rugby ball - a reference to a notorious All Blacks' defeat in 1937"), and One Orange at Wainui Beach, Gisborne ("another cool contemporary fusion of wood and glass, it has been cleverly constructed to offer generous outside space with maximum protection from the changeable coastal winds").
(6 June 2004)

Deco-nstruction
Architectural historian Peter Shaw visits Napier in The Guardian. The feature paints a visual map of the tourist-worthy deco styles of the city rebuilt with unique fidelity to deco principles following the 1931 Napier earthquake. Shaw tours the candy-coloured deco zig zags and sunbursts of the buildings, as well as detailing the fables of their contrusction. The author's personal favourite? The ASB Bank (below), whose incised Maori panels "exploit the similarity between the art deco zig-zag and traditional kowhaiwhai."
(22 March 2003)
 

Deconstructing faculty
Respected Dean of Columbia School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Bernard Tschumi's tenure reviewed on notice of his retirement. His transformative guidance made the faculty a model of architectural education and he will leave as his legacy a hand-picked international staff of the “architectural avant-garde” including Gehry, Holl, Hadid and NZ theorist Mark Wigley.
(2002)

A decade in design 
NZ architect Chris Moller is holding his first major solo exhibition in London, showcasing ten years of innovative practice by his company S333 Architecture + Urbanism. Titled On the Urban Designing of Architecture, the exhibition will be on display at the New London Architecture (NLA) gallery from 3-27 October. It has previously shown at La Galerie in Paris and Deutsches Architektur Zentrum in Berlin. "In 2007, for the first time, 50% of the world's population are city dwellers," reads the NLA promotional blurb for the exhibition. "How do architects respond to this dramatic change, which is delivering increasingly more challenging and constrained development opportunities?" S333 Architecture + Urbanism is based in Amsterdam and London. 
(1 October 2007)

Not your average winery 
Americans can finally appreciate the work of artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser on home soil, with the opening of the Quixote Winery in California's Napa Valley. Owner Carl Doumani commissioned the eccentric Viennese-born artist to design the building after spotting his distinctive prints in a calendar. Work on the winery began in 1988 and took almost a decade. "People either love it or they think it's the nuttiest thing they've ever seen," says Doumani of Hundertwasser's design, which features a gold onion dome, trees growing out of the roof and no two windows alike. Born Friedrich Stowasser in 1928, Hundertwasser began exploring themes of ecology and personal freedom as a painter in the late 1940s. By the 1980s he was regarded as an influential artist and thinker, and began applying his revolutionary notions to the architectural form. He lived out his years in his adopted home of NZ, where he died in 2000 aged 71. The public toilets he designed in Kawakawa remain one of the country's leading tourist attractions for design enthusiasts. 
(11 February 2007)

A floating world 
Titirangi's Brake House features in architecture magazine Monument's inaugural guide to Australasia's seminal residential projects. Designed by Auckland architect Ron Sang, the Japanese-inspired house was built for world-famous NZ photojournalist Brian Brake in 1976. Monument: "Despite being raised in the air, the house seems to find a new ground; it nestles not into the hillside but into the dense foliage that fills the site. This quality of being at home in the air suggests the house's genesis - it was designed by correspondence, drawings travelling back and forth between Sang in Auckland and Brake in Hong Kong by airmail." 
(June 2006)

Man-made marvel
Peregrine Winery in Gibbston Valley, Central Otago, was one of five winners of the world’s biggest and best architectural award – the Architectural Review's ar+d Emerging Architecture prize - for 2004. The London-based award was inaugurated in 1999 and offers ₤10,000 in prize-money. The stunning winery was designed by Wellington firm Architecture Workshop. Architectural Review: The huge, calm gently curving silvery canopy floating over the massive base, all set among the orderly vineyards, makes an irresistible and poetic vision of civilization amid wild nature, and the jury was unanimously convinced by it.
(December 2004)

Form vs. function
The possible closure of the famed Freidensreich Hundertwasser-designed public toilets at Kawakawa earned a detailed write-up in the Independent. Officially opened in 1999, the stunning facilities were the final project by the acclaimed Austrian post-modernist architect, who was a NZ resident from the early 1970s to his death in 2000. Due to the stench caused by large numbers of visitors to the toilets, the Kawakawa community board has proposed turning them into a non-functioning art work. The international Hundertwasser Foundation calls the idea “a betrayal to Hundertwasser and his legacy to Kawakawa.” Hundertwasser’s former assistant, Richard Smart, agrees: “He was saying you can take the simplest, most boring, most ugly building and make it into something beautiful.”
(28 March 2004)

Deco-dence in Napier
"I feel as though I've popped a 78 on the phonograph and stepped into my grandmother's photo album. This is the bee's knees." Boston Herald comes to Napier for the annual Art Deco Weekend. Activities include the Cocktail Cascade, Gatsby Picnic, and an old-fashioned soapbox derby: "a not-too-serious celebration of architecture in NZ."
(5 January 2003)

Thinking inside the box
NZer Chris Moller is one wall of expat architecture firm, Amsterdam's S333 Studio for Architecture and Urbanism. The firm has won several international competitions. A winning entry currently being completed is a housing project in Vijfhuisen, Holland, which takes a diagonal view on Dutch density and the parodoxical relationship between customization and uniformity, privacy and openess, the urban and suburban.
(30 March 2002)

Bach symphony
Design/style bible Wallpaper scours the globe to compile a directory of the best architects to pick if you're thinking of home improvements and includes the "sparklingly clear vision" of edge architects Fearon Hay. Inspired by the New Zealand landscape, "the style is minimal, light, modern and complete" and just might redefine the way we think about the good old kiwi holiday home.
Pdf Copy
(July 2001)

Eiffel? non. Blobby? oui!
Brendan MacFarlane, Kiwi half of design duo Jakob and MacFarlane continues to dazzle the Parisian architecture scene: "The only work of architecture raising Parisians' eyebrows was Jakob and MacFarlane's "blobby" rooftop restaurant, crowning the Pompidou Centre renovation."
(April 2001) 
Brendan MacFarlane, Kiwi half of design duo Jakob and MacFarlane continues to dazzle the Parisian architecture scene: "The only work of architecture raising Parisians' eyebrows was Jakob and MacFarlane's "blobby" rooftop restaurant, crowning the Pompidou Centre renovation."
(April 2001)