Architecture needs artistic inspiration
What happened to the idea of Christchurch as a new and inspirational place to live and work, asks Warren Feeney.
Why is visiting the central city and seeing its newly built and refurbished offices, hotels and shopping complexes such a dreary experience?
I am thinking of all those glass windows, the white walls and welcome desks in the foyers and the predominance of grey floors and grey furnishings. What is happening to the vision of a new and inspirational city to live in and who or what is to blame?
Hugh Bannerman, the founder of the contemporary carpet design workshop, Dilana, has been a design consultant for architects in New Zealand and Australia for more than 34 years and he is blaming the passing of a professional and mutual relationship between artists and architects for the scarcity of inspired designs evident in Christchurch’s emerging architecture.
The significance of the demise of ongoing professional conversations between artists and architects should not be underestimated. It is difficult to imagine the Christchurch Town Hall (1972), as a community space designed by Sir Miles Warren without the colour and life of Patrick Hanly’s mural, Rainbow Pieces, which he commissioned for its foyer.
How did Warren know that Hanly was the right artist for the job? He was conversant with, and well-informed about contemporary New Zealand art. He not only coestablished the architectural partnership of Warren and Mahoney, but was also a board member of the Canterbury Society of Art (now CoCA) from 1956 to 1971 and its president from 1972 to 1977.
Bannerman emphasises the importance of input from the country’s artists as a necessity to the completion of any building’s design. ’’The overall look to any building’s interior is created by the detail. Everything is connected to an idea about quality. Going to the artist with the basics means that any alternations that need to be made can be done because you already have an expert. The artist’s solution doesn’t look like something off an online photograph.’’
Dilana’s head designer Sudi Dargipour adds that it is becoming more unusual for architects to write a comprehensive design brief for a building’s interior.
‘‘Now they engage with Google, whereas previously with an artist they had a third party that brought an informed end result.’’
Dilana opened in the Christchurch Art Centre in 1980, with Bannerman bringing his knowledge and expertise in wool and textile design and technology to collaborate with artists such as Gretchen Albrecht, Ralph Hotere, Richard Killeen and Don Peebles, transferring their designs into contemporary woollen rugs. In 1999, his workshop extended its agenda into manufacturing carpet designs, using a digital tufting machine that led to the production of carpets, made to order, by many of New Zealand’s best-known artists.
Dilana’s relationship with artists, designers and architects has received its share of accolades, awards and prestigious commissions. It was the recipient of a Wool Interior Design Award in 1992 for ‘‘outstanding wool rugs’’ designed by painter John Bevan Ford and printmaker Michael Reed for the Ministry of Cultural Affairs building in Wellington; Noel Lane Architects won the 2001 ‘‘best commercial interior award’’ for artist Gavin Chilcott’s design for the Sydney Airport Lounge; and in 2011, Dilana commissioned a series of designs for New Zealand artists that included Andrew McLeod and Tim Main for carpets and rugs in Government House.
This year, Dilana commissioned Chilcott to design the carpet for three adjacent rooms at the Wellington Museum on Queens Wharf. The museum’s project manager Tamsin Falconer says that this included the former boardroom for the Wellington Harbour Board, ‘‘a grand doubleheight space including built-in furniture that speaks to the status of the Harbour Board. The decision was made to have new carpet that would be good quality and appropriate for the status and appearance of the rooms’’.
‘‘The museum was also keen to have a design that reflected the history of the rooms and would add to them without being a prominent feature. We were open to the idea of using the Harbour Board crest, although not everyone on staff thinks that Chilcott’s fish is very attractive! Visitors regularly comment that the carpet is elegant and beautiful and it has given the spaces a lift.’’
The Wellington Museum commission came from Athfield Architects and Bannerman says that its success resided in the detail of the brief that they provided. ’’Which colour was to be used and why use it? Gavin came back with exactly what they wanted. It was about considering the building’s spaces, their foyers, side-rooms and boardrooms. All were part of the experience of going in there.’’
Dargipour notes how that differs from the kind of briefs that she is given by many Christchurch architects. ’’I recently received a photograph of an interior from an architectural firm taken from Pinterest. That is just something that they wanted to copy.’’
Bannerman says that, in the Wellington Museum case, Chilcott understood and appreciated the volume of spaces in the building and what goes on with the floor. ‘‘Then he introduced historical elements like the naval braids and the details that made up the overall pattern of the carpet. Even the historical method of manufacturing such a carpet was considered. It belonged to the era of the museum’s building’s Axminster carpet. The success for this space came from the artist and architects understanding the aesthetics – right from the beginning.
‘‘Architects and designers now look at a building and they want to talk about its relationship to site and environment and where it is, but when it comes to the interior, they are not thinking about it holistically. As a way of designing a building, importance of the whole and interdependence of its part is generally not an idea embraced in Christchurch.
‘‘At the moment, with the rebuild of the inner city, I am surprised at the lack of localised content in their design. There is a lack of understanding in the process. Everything has got to be simple, fast and easy, all with a general lack of expectation. There are no interior designers here, just architects trying to be interior designers and they give the work to the juniors and they are stuck in front of a computer.’’
In Christchurch, Dilana has been involved in the interior spaces of The George Hotel, with a floor rug by Michael Reed, and St George Hospital and its Radiology Department, with carpet designs by Dargipour.
‘‘The work with St George’s came from the architect looking for a floor covering and we were given a good and comprehensive brief to fit out a hospital interior,’’ she says. ’’It is the sort of public space in which a grey carpet just doesn’t cut it.’’
Dargipour says that two days after it was installed, the approval for the new carpet at St George Hospital was immediately evident, being photographed by the hospital’s patients.
‘‘I put it on a hashtag. There were patients just taking photographs of the carpet. When it comes to interiors and design in Christchurch, there is a lack of character and a lack of confidence. Architects just follow other architectural firms and don’t have the braveness to make independent decisions about design, and that trend is due to Google. It is too readily available.’’