Council facade sympathetic

Many readers will have heard an interview with Alan Matson on National Radio recently regarding architectural heritage.

He was quizzed about his deep aversion to ‘‘facadism’’ – the notion of retaining the heritage facade of a building but creating an inner core.

Matson has been a dedicated crusader for the retention of heritage fabric and one would not question his commitment to that cause.

However, with facadism there is an alternative view, and that is to accept modifications to the interior of a commercial building to make it more workable provided the public face is left incongruous.

Examples of facadism such as the former Clarendon Hotel in Christchurch, which some years ago suffered a new tower block emerging from its thorax, are not well received, but it is hard to be upset by more sympathetic treatments such as the Timaru District Council building. It had a full commercial refit behind its traditional stone fac¸ ade, with the exterior decoration all hailing from European pattern books.

The work on the Victoria Black building in Christchurch’s High St shows an enormous commitment to retain an element of heritage streetscape in a zone cruelly dismantled after the earthquakes.

– David McBride

Petrus van der Velden, Dutch Figure, date unknown, Watercolour on Paper.

Gifted to the Aigantighe Art Gallery Collection by Mildred Joy Simmons in 1990.

Dutch Figure is one of four works in the Aigantighe Art Gallery’s permanent collection by artist Petrus van der Velden.

Born in Rotterdam in 1837, his Dutch origins and training are immediately apparent in this portrait of a young peasant girl, not only in respect to the traditional clothing that she wears, but also in the artist’s use of genre painting.

Van der Velden retained an appreciation for accurate representation of his subject, and upon immigrating to Christchurch in 1890, his imagination was also captured by the wild natural environments of Aotearoa.

He taught many young local artists, nurturing their talent and creativity as well as their professionalism.