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"Revaluing Modern Architecture: Changing Conservation Culture" by John Allan is a book that explores modern heritage conservation in the UK, particularly England. The book discusses the institutional framework for modern heritage conservation, the listing systems in place, and the work undertaken on modern buildings after their listing. It also emphasizes the need to convince building owners, politicians, and local authority decision-makers of the value of conservation for modern heritage buildings. The book uses case studies to illustrate these themes and concludes that arguments for the retention of modern heritage buildings should be strengthened by aligning conservation outcomes with increased sustainability. Overall, the book provides valuable insights and lessons for modern heritage conservation beyond the UK. [Extracted from the article]

By the late 1960s, the recognition of community and heritage values increasingly led to the reconsideration of plans for comprehensive urban renewal projects that would have required the clearance of myriad old buildings. On the other hand, Auckland's Downtown Redevelopment Scheme – New Zealand's largest post-war urban renewal project of a commercial nature – was approved in 1968 and constructed in three stages until 1980. It was a subversion of the country's first Professor of Town Planning, Robert Kennedy's concept, and not resisted on heritage or community grounds. Objections focussed on the Stage 1 office building and the impairment of public amenity through increasing wind speeds at its base and shading the area earmarked for the Stage 2 public square. In two hearings, the Auckland City Council and the Town and Country Planning Appeal Board approved the planning application regardless, but the abiding outcomes confirmed the objections raised. The article seeks to understand the decisions made in a city still fashioning its planning processes and the accommodations made by all levels of government to facilitate the project before the hearings even took place – these effectively a foregone conclusion. Auckland has long been a commercial city, a developer's city, despite extant planning processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The house that Peter Middleton designed for himself and his family in the Auckland suburb of Grafton (1960–61) has an established place in the published record for its reintroduction of traditionalist and populist references, most famously, a finial above one gable end. In 1968, the Grafton Road site was cleared for an extension of the city's motorway. A period publication records that the Middleton House was cut into pieces and relocated. It gives no details about its new site. Historians of New Zealand architecture believed the house to have been lost. Recently, however, it was found in Waiatarua, on the western outskirts of Greater Auckland. This article explores the history and significance of the house, and the impact of relocation on it, both physically and culturally. It shows that it was the outcome of a carefully considered design practice. With relocation, the context changed from urban to semi-rural, but in both locations the house has been enjoyed as a family home and as a haunt for members of Auckland's architecture and design communities. The article concludes that the relocation of the Middleton House was the best outcome for it, introducing a new layer of life, significance and value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Group Architects are New Zealand's best-known practitioners of regional modernism. They are associated with the search for New Zealandness in architecture, even as international interests are acknowledged. In 2003, Group member Bruce Rotherham (1926–2004) distanced himself from much of this commentary, emphasising his own early focus on "space formed by building", not New Zealandness. Of interest here is his privileging of building, that is, the assemblage and attributes of building materials. The article explores the materiality of Rotherham's best-known New Zealand building, the Rotherham House in Stanley Bay, Auckland (1951). It interrogates each of the four main materials used in the house: wood, stone, brick and glass. It asks, what is the history of each material, and what does the way it was used reveal about Rotherham's interests and influences? The article suggests that for Rotherham, Auckland's nineteenth-century Gothic Revival timber churches were a likely New Zealand source of influence. It then goes further than previous scholarship on the Group by suggesting specific overseas buildings that Rotherham is likely to have known and that anticipate the material palette of the Rotherham House. Reference to the 1930s and 40s work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto is recurrent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highgate Spinney (1964–66), designed by Howard & Rotherham, is a five-storey block of thirty flats in the north London suburb of Crouch End. It is one of many buildings published inZodiac18 (1968) – a substantial issue of the Italian magazine, dedicated to recent and contemporary British architecture in general and to New Brutalism in particular. Though published alongside canonical buildings of British New Brutalism, Highgate Spinney has largely been erased from the historical record. To revisit and expand upon the inclusion of Highgate Spinney inZodiac18, this article explores the partnership of Howard & Rotherham and the design of their building. Both architects brought a range of experiences to bear on the design. The article focuses on those of Bruce Rotherham, because he has an established reputation in New Zealand, and because comparatively little is known of the life and other architectural work of John Howard, who died at a young age, shortly after the completion of Highgate Spinney. The article considers Rotherham's formative years with the Group Construction Company and Group Architects in Auckland, his early work experiences in London and the impact of his two years of study at the Architectural Association School of Architecture. It also reveals interactions between Rotherham and James Gowan. These provide grounds for considering buildings by Stirling & Gowan, particularly the Flats at Ham Common and Preston Housing, as points of reference and comparison for the design of Highgate Spinney. The article shows that Highgate Spinney demonstrates synchronicities with the Stirling & Gowan precedents, while also being an independent and considered design in its own right. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Guides to oral history acknowledge the value of this research methodology in enriching published records with memory and personal perceptions, thoughts, feelings and insights. This paper uses oral history to enrich the published record of one of New Zealand's best modern houses – the Rotherham House in the Auckland suburb of Stanley Bay. Bruce Rotherham designed and, with others from the Group Construction Company/Group Architects, built it in 1950–51. He then left the Group in 1952 and left New Zealand in 1955, never to live there again. The house comprises a double-height volume with a brick stair column leading to a mezzanine bedroom without balustrades or handrails, just a floor upturned at the sides. Published records focus on the radical (“experimental”) nature of the design. Scholarly attention has also been given to the death of a man there in 1962: Leon Lesnie fell from the mezzanine, having been caught in bed with his lover, by her husband. This paper uses oral history to enhance the knowledge and understanding of the house, particularly its ownership, occupancy and use during the 1950s and 1960s. It presents the recollections of Jeremy Rotherham – son of Bruce – who lived in the house with his mother, Elizabeth, and sister, Ann, on and off until he was fourteen, when his mother sold it. In relating Jeremy's recollections of his childhood home, the paper activates and animates the building and shifts its reputation and associations from death to life. It also reflects on methodology and the specifics of the interviewer-interviewee relationship: Jeremy is my partner; I am entangled in the Rotherham House story. My telling of it does not follow the recommended oral history approach of ethics approval, formal interviews and transcription. Rather, it draws from multiple unplanned conversations and the spontaneous sharing of memory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To commence the thirtieth annual conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ), held on Australia's Gold Coast in July 2013, ten delegates were invited, with very little warning, to take five minutes and one image and offer a provocation on the open matters of architectural history in the present moment. The term 'open' was taken as the conference theme--a device used by SAHANZ meetings not so much to define the scope of papers presented as to declare the conference flavour year by year. It was not, therefore, an open conference (anything goes) so much as a conference on open issues (where, indeed, to go). The ten interlocutors were invited after the conference to document their interventions. They are presented here as a record of the preoccupations of a specific moment and a specific institutional geography, with all the idiosyncrasies and commonalities it might reveal to a broader audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the national inventory and thematic survey of Housing New Zealand Corp. on the heritage identification of public and state housing in New Zealand. It points out the heritage identification systems such as the national register of New Zealand Historic Places Trust and the heritage lists of 73 cities and district council as part of the district plans. It adds that the state housing were registered one by one even without the systematic analysis of national building stock.

An introduction for the periodical "Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand" is presented which includes book reviews, architectural designs, and historical architectures.

Two national town planning conferences held in 1917 and 1918 were milestone events in the early development of Australian town planning. Their significance was recognized at the time by planning protagonists and has been elaborated upon in subsequent years by planning historians. Women had a visible presence at both conferences. This paper examines the town planning interests and motivations of the women delegates. It reveals the extent to which many of the women were imperialist and win-the-war loyalist. Little scholarly attention has been given to the relationship between gender issues and imperialist sentiment within early twentieth century town planning discourse, yet it is significant in understanding the Australian women’s planning aspirations. The paper shows that the women’s advocacy of better housing and more extensive facilities for children was linked closely to a commitment to ‘improving the race’. It suggests that the objectives were imperialist rather than nationalist: it was the future of the ‘imperial race’ that was deemed to be at stake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various articles within the issue on Brutality in terms of architecture, and refers to architects including Philip Goad, and Antony Moulis.

This article examines recent and current controversy over the Civic Administration Building (1954- 1966) in Auckland, New Zealand. Unoccupied since the end of 2014, the building's future is uncertain. Its heritage value is widely recognized by heritage professionals and commentators. Yet Auckland Council, the building's owner and former occupier, does not recognize its significance and has not scheduled it as a heritage building on its district plan. To the contrary, it has floated the possibility of demolishing it. This article considers the building's history, significance and possible futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the condition of the modern movement in New Zealand and its significance in applying its design in building several dwellings. It mentions the effort of the country's Labour Government in establishing the modern movement for the construction of dwellings, particularly the blocks of state rental flats in March 31, 1943 and cites that the said effort is part of the government sector's housing programme. In addition, most of these flats were built in a detached and semi-detached design. Moreover, it highlights the houses that have been applied with modern movement in the country including Avenue Flats, Symonds Street Flats, McLean Flats, and Berhampore Flats.

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss the issue's focus on Eastern and Western topics in architecture, including perceptions of architectural "otherness" in the Dutch East Indies, multi-unit housing in Japan, and Finnish industrialisation.

In this article, the editor introduces a special issue of the journal devoted to the urban planning history of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses topics addressed in the issue, including American influences on post-World War II architecture in Australia, the Australian periodical "Arts and Architecture," and architectural links between Australia and Hawaii.