The University of Canterbury's New School of Music

Designed by the beknighted Miles Warren, in what might appear to be a ponderous derivative of 1970s architectural style, is the proposed University of Canterbury's National Conservatorium of Music building.

The intended site is part of the renaissance medieval Gothic Arts Centre complex bounded by Worcester, Hereford, Montreal Streets and Rolleston Avenue.

Not previously built upon, it was originally the recreational ground of the 1881 Christchurch Boys' High School and a part of the rear garden of the 1883 Llanmaes House (much enlarged, the house became the University's Student Union building in 1929 and is now the Dux de Lux Restaurant & Bar).

The proposed site is to be seen below near the centre of this 1940 aerial photograph.


Below: in 1941 the Army erected a large radio aerial on the site, but other than that it's always been a recreational reserve, that is until the good burghers of Christchurch managed to turn it into yet another car park.


The predictable pre-construction media release advises us that the new building will be "in a style that complements existing buildings, none of which would be impacted by the new structure."

We beg to disagree; it could seem that the 80 year-old architect may be a little out of touch with more recent advances in architectural engineering. If the site must be built upon, and that's debatable, then perhaps something along the lines of this new building for the medieval centre of the Estonian city of Tallinn, might be more cost effective and inspiring.


In what might seem to be a conflict of interest, the venerable architect had more than a finger in the pie of his bronze likeness being erected in the grounds of the Arts Centre complex. Might we respectfully suggest that it could be time for him to consider bowing out gracefully in favour of a more imaginative architect among whose principal qualifications is not membership of our old-boy network.

Further reading:

Richard Sinke's extensively illustrated Save Our Arts Centre web site.

Arts Centre site 'only city option' The Press newspaper, 10 July, 2009.

The University of Canterbury's self-congratulatory new School of Music web site.

Photo credit: top image; detail from Wellington artist Ian Stantiall's perspective of the new School of Music building.

Maurice Conly, Artist

LARGE IMAGE OPENS IN A NEW TAB OR WINDOW

At the end of a 3,488 kilometre flight from Christchurch, NZ7005, a 1969 Lockheed C-130H Hercules aircraft of the Royal New Zealand Air Force's No.40 Squadron unloads passengers and supplies at the Williams Field on the Ross Ice Shelf in McMurdo Sound in early 1974.

Seen above in original livery, but subsequently painted out in shades of camouflauge green and now in a monochrome gun-metal grey, the 40 year old aircraft is still in service with the RNZAF.


No work of a local artist would be more familiar to New Zealanders than that of the relatively unknown Maurice Conly.

For 54 years Wing Commander Robert Maurice Conly (1920-1995) was the last Royal New Zealand Air Force Official Artist. But beyond his stamp designs for New Zealand, Tokelau, the Ross Dependency, Niue and the Cook Islands, Conly's New Zealand twenty cent and one dollar coin designs are familiar to all Kiwis.

Dunedin born and trained, Conly was based at Christchurch when he returned to Antarctica in 1974 as an Antarctic Arts Fellow under the Artists to Antarctica Programme.


Commissioned to paint three large dioramas of wildlife studies for the Antarctic wing of the Canterbury Museum in 1977, he published Ice on my Palette in the same year. The coffee table sized book includes 27 sketches and 26 colour plates, with text by the Dunedin author Neville Peat, then an information officer with the Antarctic Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

One of the joys of the last town before Antarctica is the weekend Flea markets, not the trendy version on the city's outskirt at Riccarton, but the smaller, lesser known markets dotted around the inner suburbs. Signed by the authors, a copy of Ice on my Palette (from which the top illustration comes) was recently found in the Linwood Market at approximately a fifty-sixth of its international market value.

Thinking of Building on Mount Pleasant?

This is what London architects Mackay+ Partners have designed as a residence overlooking the sea at Byron Bay, Australia.(more…)

Christchurch Modernist Architecture

Matt Arnold's Website development team at Sons & Co. are the latest occupants of Diederik van Heyningen's 1965 Photographic Studio at 207 Cambridge Terrace (between Colombo and Manchester Streets). Their commercial premises are a classic example of post-war modernist architecture and it therefore comes as no particular surprise to learn that they've published an interesting web site devoted to our domestic architecture of the Modernist period.

The site covers architectural design from the 1940s to the 1980s and includes biographical articles of such renowned local Architects as Paul Pascoe, Peter Beaven, Miles Warren and Maurice Mahoney.

Above is a photograph of the 1961 home of the renowned Christchurch artist W. A. (Bill) Sutton (1917-2000). Yet to be included in the web site's comprehensive listing of outstanding examples of the period, the Sutton house at 20 Templar Street, Richmond could be a worthy addition.

The Christchurch Modern web site opens in a new window

An RSS feed is also available for site updates.

Comment by Matt.  January 9, 2009.

The building was originally designed for Mannering & Associates by Warren and Mahoney as a purpose-built photographic studio in 1965. Warren and Mahoney celebrated the opening of the Town Hall there in 1972 as the studio looks right across Colombo St. It's not in great condition and the original white has been painted over, but a great building nonetheless and under the threat of development.

Comment by Canterbury Heritage.  January 10, 2009.

By 1951 the 29 year-old photographer Guy Miles Mannering and his partner Keith Donaldson had purchased the Clifford Studios at 115 Cashel Street. Henry Herbert Clifford (1872-1949) had first opened his studio in 1903, but is probably more remembered as being the husband of the notorious "Ma" Clifford, an immensley wealthy racketeer Landlord.

Renamed as the Mannering & Donaldson Studios they specialised in Studio, Commercial, Industrial & Candid photography at the Cashel Street premises, which was situated above the bookshop of Whitcombe and Tombs (now the Whitcoulls Building) until 1965.

Mannering and Associates Ltd had moved from 207 Cambridge Terrace to 14 Stanley Street, Sydenham by 2001. The renowned Guy  Mannering died in 2003 at the age of eighty.

The original Cashel Street premises had also been occupied by the Photographic Engravers T. E. Warren and Company. Accordingly, there may have been a degree of kinship between Guy Miles Mannering and Sir (Frederick) Miles Warren, architect of the Cambridge Terrace Studio.

Bicycle Parking Rack Design

Finalists in New York's City Racks Design Competition.

The goal of the New York Department of Transportation competition is to create new, better-looking bicycle parking racks, and to encourage bicycle commuting in the city. Prototypes of the designs have been installed on the streets of the city.

Further reading: Cityracks Finalists Announced