An old love reawakens

With little to do during lockdown, celebrated architect Roger Walker ‘‘attacked’’ some acrylic paints. The results could herald a whole new career, writes

Best known for his controversial 1973 Park Mews complex in Wellington, Roger Walker returned to painting to get his architecture fix during lockdown. With a hint of the playful, whimsical art of Disney’s Mary Blair, Walker’s paintings hark back to his award-winning building-block design style.

When we were arranging the interview, Walker said he was ‘‘glad Jacinda was opening the shops again, because I’ve just run out of canvasses’’.

So how have you been during lockdown?

Oh, it’s really weird, isn’t it? It’s been a weird time.

Yes, it’s gone real quick. That’s why I pulled out the old paintbrushes to just try to do something rather than sitting watching endless TV, although I did watch a lot of TV.

[My partner] Moerangi had some acrylic paint, because she used to paint some years ago, and I’d never used acrylics before. So I attacked them and had a good response, which is amazing.

They really remind me of your architecture and there’s something a little 70s about them.

That probably figures! I’ve always done painting, even as a kid, but I always used watercolours. I don’t know why, I’m a bit of a creature of habit, you know? You get something right and you stick with it. It has been a useful experience trying out the acrylics.

And of course with Facebook and with the ability to put things up, you get feedback, and the feedback’s been amazing.

The first person that rang me was my son [Jake Walker], who’s a professional artist in Tasmania. He seized on a particular painting that he liked, and he’s offered to do a swap with one of his paintings.

I think his work is in the $4000 or $5000 apiece bracket, so I thought that was a good deal.

Then some friends of ours who live in Sydney emailed and said they’d like to commission a work. So I’ve got a $500 sale for a painting I haven’t done yet because I haven’t got the canvas to do it.

Tell me a bit about the style.

I’ve always been interested in the art side of architecture, the design side of it, so it’s not surprising that they’ve got those sorts of reverberations.

It’s becoming more and more difficult to do that type of architecture now with the regulations to do with consents and the resource management process. I’ve been losing a bit of job satisfaction as a result of those frustrations and delays.

It’s really quite clean air if you do paintings. You don’t need anyone’s consent, you don’t need anyone’s permission, you can pretty much paint what you like.

It’s been a learning curve for me. I managed to do 13 paintings during the lockdown period.

Have you got plans to do some kind of exhibition?

These paintings have been experimental to a degree. In addition to my son, I’ve been talking to other artists that I know, trying to perfect the technique.

The pictures are essentially a patchwork of different colours, and I’ve been getting the edges harder and crisper. Some people say you can use masking tape, but I think that’s too perfect. My son says that even with the famous painters like Mondrian, you can always see the brushstrokes.

So, I think my paintings are beginning to get technically better.

At this stage, I’ve just been playing around with different textures and different themes, but I will carry on.

You mentioned the building blocks of the universe?

I started off just painting combinations of circles inside triangles and triangles inside squares. There are nine different combinations with those three shapes.

Then I thought: ‘‘Well, I’ll have a go at themes I’ve liked in the past.’’ Like, you draw a structure, which could be a tree trunk, or it could be a roadway, and then you add little, stylised buildings on either side of it.

I like picturesque paintings. What I do next will probably be a bit more free flowing and less geometric.

But I’ll just carry on, because it’s the feedback that’s keeping me going.

You said you’d been losing a bit of job satisfaction?

I still like being an architect. But... you mentioned the 70s. We did the Park Mews building, 29 or 30 apartments in Haitaitai in 73. Now, that’s the sort of thing you could do in the 70s.

The town planners and the council officials just didn’t worry as long as the height limits were observed and the distances from boundaries were observed.

Now, there are these people called urban designers and some of the more doctrinaire ones say: ‘‘Look, you architects design individual buildings, but we design them to fit into a city. So you can’t have a building like that. It would be an unacceptable intrusion into the city texture.’’

I’ve argued with them. Good cities to me are a library of books. There’s nothing wrong with having an Art Deco building next to a high-tech building. But there is this feeling of homogeneity now, which I find quite negative and a little dispiriting.

The juxtaposition of old and new is quite invigorating sometimes.

Yes, I agree. I still love architecture, there’s no substitute for going into something you’ve designed and having happy clients in something that you’ve actually built.

But it’s like the old saying: success is 10 per cent inspiration and 90 per cent perspiration, in this case, just to get plans through.

Above: Park Mews, an experimental apartment complex by Roger Walker, as it was in 1973. Top: Park Mews today.