Futuna Chapel at centre of academic’s love of architecture
Russell Walden: b Timaru, November 28, 1934; m Helen Green, 2s 1d; d Wellington, July 26, 2013, aged 78.
RUSSELL WALDEN, a longserving associate professor at Victoria University’s school of architecture, had a particular passion for Futuna Chapel in Wellington’s Karori. In his book about it, Voices of Silence – New Zealand’s Chapel of Futuna, he described the famous chapel as ‘‘an authentic example of indigenous New Zealand architecture – a deep expression of peace, silence and inner joy’’.
From 1978 to 2010, Dr Walden worked at Victoria University, first as a reader and then as associate professor at the School of Architecture & Design. There, he taught generations of aspiring architects about the symbolic coming together of Maori and Pakeha by returning time and again to examine John Scott’s design work at the Futuna Chapel.
He also regularly took them to houses designed by James Chapman-Taylor, who died in 1958, and supported the work of Ian Athfield and Roger Walker in his lectures.
But always he returned with his students to Futuna, encouraging them to look at it, draw it and to write about it.
Theology and its architectural expression were life-long interests of his. Against this background Dr Walden set out to not just teach his students. Rather, he wanted to inspire them by revealing the meaning of architecture.
He studied architecture at Auckland University and was awarded the first Master of Architecture in New Zealand in 1964 with a thesis on New Zealand Anglican church architecture from 1814 to 1963.
From Auckland he moved to the University of Birmingham, England, where he was a senior lecturer while gaining his doctorate. His PhD included theology and included research work at the Paris-based Foundation Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier, a noted French architect who lived from 1887-1965, was a difficult personality, an artist with an ability to think at many levels.
Dr Walden’s academic background in theology and church architecture perhaps goes some way to explaining why he was such an early and consistent champion of Scott’s Futuna Chapel and an outspoken advocate for its preservation. He died of motor neuron disease five days after the July 21 earthquake and would have been delighted to learn the chapel stood up well to the latest Wellington shake-up.
He was a man who did not mince his words, which some of his former colleagues say probably explains why he was a perennial associate professor at Victoria. It irked him that he was never accorded full professorship status. His students viewed him as a man of courage with an indomitable wit.
His passion for Futuna was matched by his absolute disdain for Te Papa, which he once described as a camel. To Dr Walden’s way of thinking, the Te Papa building was a horse designed by a committee and he had the courage to say so publicly.
Similarly when the Society of Mary sold the land surrounding Futuna Chapel for a housing development, once again Dr Walden did not hold back on what he thought of Karori people.
‘‘Middle-class conformist rednecks live there, all worried about parking and with their middle-class values,’’ he said.
He opposed the proposed Hilton Hotel development on the Wellington waterfront and described Shigeru Ban’s cardboard cathedral, which was officially opened in Christchurch this week, as ‘‘sterile, spatially dead and over-furnished’’.
His comments reflected the passion he brought to architecture.
While reflecting on the differences he saw between Te Papa and Futuna he wrote, ‘‘Futuna is a landmark building, the first to tell the story of New Zealand and who New Zealanders are. It is a truly bicultural construction – a total synthesis of two cultures (Pakeha and Maori), producing a new identity and thereby achieving what many buildings since, including Te Papa, have failed to achieve.’’
In his private life Dr Walden was a keen shooter, fisherman and golfer who liked cars, photography, and travelling with his wife, Helen.
He retired from Victoria University in early 2010.
His books included The Open Hand, Essays on Le Corbusier (1977 and 1982), Finnish Harvest (1998), and Triumphs of Change (2011).
It is no coincidence that his funeral took place at Old St Paul’s in Wellington, a place where he also regularly took his students.
But for Dr Walden the Futuna Chapel was the spiritual expression of New Zealand architecture and biculturalism.
As his illness gradually overtook him, he wrote on April 29, 2012: ‘‘I spent so much of my life wanting to lecture with direction, passion and joy. I hope New Zealanders will begin to understand why my public commentary . . . was so critical. I can’t stand ugliness in architecture . . . inmy opinion all great architecture must carry sense, sagacity and the sublime.’’
The man who inspired others to listen to the ‘voices of silence’, in his final words for public consumption, simply signed off with: ‘‘That will have to do now.’’