No better building than the LLC
New Zealand has a long history of taking more pride in our natural environment than the one we build ourselves.
That’s to be expected. Very few buildings in New Zealand are anything more than temporary.
Residential housing is generally built to last 50 years. It often starts looking dated after just 10.
Our office and retail blocks used to be built to last longer than half a century, but modern versions are anything but durable.
Our built environment is in a constant state of flux. It’s not around long enough to fall in love with. There are exceptions to this constant march.
New Plymouth’s newish Len Lye Centre is one of those and we should be grateful for it.
The instantly recognisable stainless steel clad museum is a polarising development now – people love it or hate it – but as more time passes it will be recognised as a treasure.
The unique facade is mesmerising and bold. It draws people in, it makes them laugh, makes them stare in wonder.
We should be grateful to those decision makers who spent more than 10 years making the controversial building a reality.
Because, at the end of that process this province got a building to last the test of time. It will still be here in 100 years when all of us are gone. It will inspire and awe generations to come.
The same cannot be said for many other projects built in the last century. The Valley Shopping centre, for example, was never built to impress. It was built to provide cheap retail space so we could buy ever cheaper retail goods.
No fast food restaurant is ever built for the community to treasure as a structure in itself. Modern homes are so architecturally dull they cannot be told apart.
Designing something to last a century is not an easy thing to do. Now more than ever it takes foresight and a bit of luck. Throughout history buildings of great beauty and utility to their designers have fallen foul of future tastes and technology.
Banks were long concerned with projecting an aura of stability and power and so invested heavily in imposing stone facades and daunting interiors. Such architectural qualities no longer fit with the needs of a modern financial business now more concerned with embracing their customers with care and openness.
When this happens it takes someone with vision to find a new use for that building. One of New Plymouth’s most loved buildings is an example of new life breathed into old.
Like the Len Lye Centre, The White Hart is a building to be proud of.
Not just that the latest renovation has helped us reconnect with its classic visual appeal, but that it is being used a way that integrates the new with the old so seamlessly.
It is impossible not to notice the heritage you are participating in when entering that building and yet easy to forget you are in a building more than a century old.
In coming up with a list of buildings we love and those we don’t love, we were asking what are you proud of. All to often in New Zealand we don’t consider our built environment as one which deserves our pride. But we should be proud and we should take great care and effort to make sure we have the buildings that will benefit our community now and in the future.
There’s a price to doing that and yet another, greater price to us all, to not doing it.
It draws people in, it makes them laugh, makes them stare in wonder.