The unstoppable architect
A man who helped shape the face of Taranaki, has turned 80. Virginia Winder finds out about the life and times of an architect, art collector and family man.
Terry Boon is unstoppable.
He still goes to Boon Goldsmith Bhaskar Brebner Team Architects every day, he’s determined to learn yoga this year, and will soon head off on a skiing trip to Japan.
And he’s just turned 80.
‘‘I am phasing out of the office now, but I would love to do another really good project…’’
Sitting in his home office looking out at a troop of soldier meerkats and a Michael Smither sculpture of four koru poles, the father of Caroline, Cameron and Brendan is mostly content.
The lounge is filled with family, there for his significant birthday and some of his seven grandkids buzz in and out.
But his ‘‘superwoman’’ wife, Angela sits quietly in the throng. She isn’t well after major spinal surgery left her with complications.
The Boons have had an ‘‘incredibly happy’’ marriage for 56 years, after falling in love at Auckland University. Angela has been his rock, enabling the driven architect and community man to help change the face of Taranaki and beyond.
‘‘She’s been unbelievable and an incredibly hard worker and supportive,’’ he says. ‘‘She’s been completely devoted to the kids and selfless to a degree that’s ridiculous.’’
The garden surrounding the award-winning Boon-designed house has been her passion, and it’s full of art and flowers.
‘‘It’s pretty difficult to see her now, not so mobile. And now I’m doing all the cooking and shopping and driving. It’s karma. Fortunately, I enjoy cooking.’’
Even though it’s difficult to define a man, Boon, outspoken and passionate, is best-known as the architect of many Taranaki buildings and as a patron of the arts. There’s also a strong sporting side too. In his younger days he was club captain of New Plymouth Old Boys’ Surf Life Saving, won the Flannagan Cup and was a rugby player in the 1st XV at Boys’ High. He still skis, although he has slowed down after a nasty fall knocked him out. These days he practices Qi Gong every morning and starts his day with an hour-and-a-quarter walk through Pukekura Park.
On that walk, he passes one of his projects – the TSB Bowl of Brooklands. He was a member of the Bowl committee for 10 years and through his design talents helped extend the stage, reshape the bowl to improve sightlines for all and reduce the lake, for which he faced a battle. He also helped get the service access around the back of the stage.
‘‘The Mayor, Claire Stewart, got phone calls saying ‘Boon’s gone mad, he’s going to destroy the whole effect of the bowl’,’’ he laughs.
‘‘I walk through their every morning and I feel a huge satisfaction – shit I had something to do with this.’’
Other highly visible projects include the New Plymouth clocktower, two upgrades of the TSB Showplace, including adding the Theatre Royal. ‘‘It was fabulous to be part of that.’’
But perhaps the project dearest to his heart was the GovettBrewster Art Gallery, which was originally the ‘‘old Regent bughouse’’.
‘‘It was a classic case of recycling. We not only recycled the building, but the timber and the steel beams to create the mezzanine floors.’’
The gallery, with John Maynard as the first director, opened in 1970. The men have remained close friends.
Boon was also behind the 1997 Len Lye extension, which included a curved glass wall that reflected the White Hart Hotel.
‘‘It’s my greatest disappointment now – they destroyed the 1997 extension. I called it cultural vandalism.’’
While he has strong views about the new Len Lye Centre, that’s all he will say, on the record, about the rebuild of the gallery, one of the projects he was most proud of.
But he does warn about the proposed airport building, which he thinks is ‘‘too big and overpriced’’.
‘‘There’s so much more they could do with that money. It’s another Len Lye as far as I’m concerned.’’
Another building he’s pleased with is the telephone exchange on Liardet St. During the design stages, he got a call to hold fire for a month. ‘‘Suddenly the whole technology changed.’’
The equipment, previously huge, got a whole lot smaller, which meant a much-reduced building size on the same budget. ‘‘It’s rather elegant in my view.’’
He worked with the TSB for more than 30 years, mostly on retrofitting projects and he also designed the water treatment station building, ‘‘another cool building’’.
Boon talks about these projects with great affection, as he does of Team Architects and colleagues Paul Goldsmith, Murali Bhaskar and Glen Brebner.
‘‘It’s not just me; I couldn’t do it without all the support.’’
Goldsmith was 24 when Boon tracked him down at Auckland University. ‘‘He (Boon) put an advert on the noticeboard in the School of Architecture and I answered, and he never left me alone from there on.’’
The men have worked together now for 45 years.
‘‘Terry and Angela took us into the family. It was a good intro into the district,’’ Goldsmith says.
‘‘What was appealing to me was he was a man of style and exceptionally well connected.’’
Boon is renowned throughout the architecture fraternity. ‘‘I can go anywhere in New Zealand and within moments, ‘how’s Boonie or how’s Terry?’ It’s from one end of the country to the other.
‘‘If you want anybody to network, leave it to Terry.’’
Goldsmith, who is ‘‘architect at large’’ at New Plymouth company, says Boon has been a visionary, especially regarding urban aspects, has great commercial sense and good instincts.
‘‘We were very harmonious together; it was a lot to do with our sporting interests,’’ he says referring to surf lifesaving and the sea. ‘‘We didn’t necessarily agree on everything.’’
He says Boon wasn’t great at attending in-house meetings; he’d rather be out in the community. ‘‘I would make it work and he would be wearing out a pair of shoes. That was the way we operated, and we were perfectly compatible.’’
He says Boon was the national president of the New Zealand Institute of Architects ‘‘because he was a go getter’’.
His peers also recognised Boon with the highest accolade by giving his Rogan St home a national architecture award. ‘‘That’s his fraternity patting him on the back. No other residence in this district has achieved that level of recognition.’’
Boon himself still loves living in the house. ‘‘I’m pretty chuffed about this place.’’
It has views of the sea, glimpses of buildings he’s designed and large walls for hanging art.
‘‘I didn’t know I would end up with a massive art collection.’’
He could be called the Patron Saint of Art, especially for Michael Smither and Filipe Tohi.
The driveway is painted with sweeping Smither designs that represent music, but could be the soaring movements of hanggliders. By the house is a colourful Smither Brancusi Pole and the front doors are formed by the artist’s pared-back landscapes.
In the garden, there’s Tohi’s rotating sculpture Vai Fa and an anchor stone sitting on a bronze arc. Boon also owns Halamoana, the tall work that slow-twirls opposite the TAFT office on Brougham St.
In the lounge, the walls are a patchwork of New Zealand works.
His love of art was triggered when he, Angela and baby daughter Caroline, lived in England and travelled through Europe in a Bedford Dormobile for six months in the 1960s. ‘‘We were real freedom campers, but there were not thousands of us.’’
In Paris, they even parked up by the River Seine and wherever they went, used railway station toilets and bathrooms.
He dragged his family around little towns in Spain to see the buildings, and of course to art museums and galleries.
‘‘I became more and more fascinated by buildings and art. It was a whole revelation.’’
In London, he worked for Norman and Dawbarn, amazing his colleagues when the young Kiwi and his pregnant wife got tickets, through NZ House, to attend a royal garden party at Buckingham Palace.
Then he got a letter asking him to come home for a job with Bowering and Thomson architects in New Plymouth.
He cringes a little when he remembers putting Angela on an Italian ship with Caroline and baby Cameron, born in a London flat with the help of a midwife and Boon. While they were sailing he went on an architectural odyssey, visiting Germany to see Alvar Aalto’s work, and on to visit architects in Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki. Then he flew home, arriving in the middle of 1965, two days before the ship.
‘‘I used to do these architectural odysseys every two to three years,’’ he says.
Workwise, he became a partner in the company, but in about 1974 decided to go it alone, with Goldsmith alongside.
Jobs gained over the ensuing years include the Shell BP Todd offices (as they were called back then), a lot of private houses for Shell bosses, Woolworths (now Countdown) supermarkets and McDonalds all over the country. ‘‘It was a very busy time.’’ Along with a workload, which consumed him, he was still an active member of the community. He was on a long list of committees and organisations, including school boards. He was the national president of Toastmasters International, on the Egmont National Park Board and a member of Rotary.
For nine years he was on the National Housing Commission, was involved in the National Party and even stood for Parliament in
1972. One of his biggest and bravest achievements was designing and overseeing the New Zealand Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He did a lot of research into building styles in the area, meditated before the interview and nailed it.
He had just turned 50 when he and Angela headed to Saudi Arabia, where he managed the construction. It was a simple design, with high walls and textured plaster the exact colour of the desert sand. It took 15 months and was finished on time and on budget. ‘‘Twenty years later I got a note from one of the ambassadors, saying, ‘I just want you to know how brilliant it is to live in this building.’’
But he’s not a man to stay still, despite having a heart bypass in
2003, a hip replacement in 2002 and a hernia operation in 2001.
He learnt transcendental meditation after a plane was cancelled and he shared a car with a man who taught the technique. That was years ago and he’s practiced it ever since. He’s also a seeker of inner peace, and refers to Eckhart Tolle’s book The Power of Now as his bible.
And he is deeply thankful for his life, especially the place he calls home. ‘‘I think I’m bloody privileged to live in New Plymouth. You cannot match what we’ve got here.’’
I can go anywhere in New Zealand and within moments, ‘how’s Boonie or how’s Terry?’ It’s from one end of the country to the other.
Paul Goldsmith