Down town

Heritage restored in an Auckland city apartment

Entering Kristina Pickford and Michael Wolfe’s apartment in central Auckland’s historic Dilworth building, your eye is immediately drawn to an exquisite stool placed in the corner of the living room. It’s a stool made familiar by Ikea’s appropriation, but was originally designed by the Finnish architect, Alvar Aalto. However, this is no ordinary Aalto piece. It’s an original bought while Pickford was in Helsinki in 2011, attending an international symposium on the conservation of modern buildings in Finland, hosted by the Alvar Aalto Institute. The chair is from the ‘Fan Leg’ series for Artek (the three-leg version is a rare find) and dates from 1954. It’s quite beautiful and still has its original leather upholstery. “The course provided a unique opportunity to be completely immersed in the architecture of Alvar Aalto,” says Pickford. “We also looked closely at a couple of Aalto’s buildings as case studies for how to protect them so that future generations can appreciate and enjoy them.” Heritage is a passion for Pickford and central to her design approach. After running an interior design business in Christchurch, she returned to university to study art and architectural history. This led to a stint working as an advisor for Heritage New Zealand, where she was actively involved in preserving heritage buildings after the Christchurch earthquakes. She was

Left Kristina Pickford sits on the ‘Soft Dream’ sofa by Antonio Citterio for Flexiform. On the wall next to her is a painting by Heather Straka. The ‘Cigg’ side tables are by Jader Almeida for Sollos. The bookshelf is by USM Haller.

Below A light by Isamu Noguchi hangs above the coffee table by Carlo Scarpa.